Dreamy lapping of the pool water with the lights out and the wavy reflections of ripples dazzled me. My eyes closed and I fell asleep beside the pool. It was a moment in my life when everything was changing, I felt alone and uncertain of my future.

I was so exhausted that day, that I just laid there with a towel wrapped around my bikini. I'd wanted to go for a swim, but I was suddenly too tired. I hadn't looked into the dark waters to make sure nothing was lurking in the shadow of the deep end. I didn't know there was any reason to.

I'm pretty sure the scariest thing I'd ever seen in a pool was a picture of a four-foot-long alligator. As far as I knew there weren't any alligators in the Tri States. I'd just wanted to go for a swim, got myself into my favorite swimsuit, and then passed out in the comfortable deck lounger.

"You alright Cass?" My mousy uncle asked me in the early morning, when the sun was coming up. It was cold and I was glad I had the towel covering me, keeping me warm.

"I must have dozed off. I was gonna swim before bed, you know, to take my mind off things." I said.

"That's fine Cass. You take anything you want, it's all yours." He gestured at the house but didn't say why. We both knew, and I nodded, trying not to start crying again.

"I hate this." I told him.

Uncle Jerry offered me one of his flamboyant hugs and I got up for it. "I'm here for you, Sparkler."

"Thanks." I told him. I went back inside, shivering in the morning.

Before I closed the door I saw it there, reflected off the glass, sitting like a dark thing in the pool. I looked back and squinted, staring into the water. I felt a shudder, not just from the cold, but from a feeling that something was there looking back at me. I couldn't make out what it was, but I was suddenly afraid of whatever was in the pool. I couldn't quite see it, but I knew it was there.

I watched Uncle Jerry cleaning the pool, seemingly oblivious to whatever lurked under the water. I wasn't sure I wasn't just imagining it. I thought maybe I wasn't awake all the way.

Then, in the shower later on, I saw something dark brown and transparent bubbling up from the drain. I shrieked, I hate slime - slime terrifies me. Uncle Jerry and his spouse Tom were at the bathroom door in a flash, asking me through the closed door if I was okay.

"Sorry." I told them. I knew they were just starting to relax in the living room when I'd decided to get ready for bed, starting with a shower.

That first day warned me, and I should have kept my guard up. I felt safe and at home with Uncle Jerry, that is why I had asked him if I could come live with him. He had done all the paperwork to adopt me overnight and within a few days I had moved in with him.

The funeral for Mom and Dad and David was on Saturday. It was raining, and my heart broke at the sight of their caskets lying together. If I had gone with them, maybe they would have driven through that intersection a minute earlier or later. Things would not have happened so that they were there at the exact instant the truck's driver nodded off and missed the red light.

I cried and I felt physical pain inside my body, letting go of them. They lowered Dad first and then Mom and finally the tiny casket for my baby brother. I had stayed home just so I could have facetime with my friends. I already didn't care about talking to my friends anymore.

Alone, I sat in my new room at Uncle Jerry's. He and Tom have the figurines from their wedding cake, which are actually the cat and mouse cartoon. It symbolizes how connected and playful and loyal they are to each other. I needed that stability, and I had nowhere else to go. I was so grateful to them for taking me in that I didn't complain about the strange things I was seeing.

The slime running down the side of my window was starting to congeal. I was trembling and shaking with revulsion and horror. Slime makes me feel disgusted and afraid, it is my deepest fear, to encounter slime. How it kept appearing I did not yet know.

I saw it again when I was in the kitchen, washing dishes in the sink. I took my hands out of the water and my fingers were stuck together by slime, it dripped, and it was festooned between them as I spread them. With a low wail my scream began, completely involuntary. Then I was shrieking hysterically, holding my hands straight out.

Tom came running and used a towel to gently and efficiently remove the slime. "I'm sorry." He said, unsure what to do to calm me. I was shaking and looking at the sink, wondering what could have made the slime.

That night I sat between my uncles on the couch in the dark of the living room. They let me choose what to watch, everything they did was always for me. They never stopped giving things up for me, nothing was too expensive, there was no limit to how much attention I could have.

But my life was becoming a living hell.

Somehow the two men had both fallen asleep, exhausted from their work and their efforts. I was somehow alone between them, absorbing what I watched, unable to change the channel. The show was about an underwater reef, and at first, it was just David Attenborough talking about the reef like it was the most profound thing on the planet. Lots of colorful fish with exotic names kept my uncles amused. Each of them kept playfully criticizing the colors and stripes on the fish, saying they wouldn't wear that. I laughed; I hadn't laughed in a long time.

All too soon the way of the slime returned. It found its way into the show, and I was petrified, unable to look away or turn it off. My uncles snored softly on either side of me, oblivious to my plight.

I watched in horror as the show went into detail about a horrible mollusk called the Cone Snail. It would fire a stinger out of its mouth like a harpoon and stun its prey. Then it would unravel its massive mouth, like a huge net, and envelop the helpless victim. Still alive, the caught prey would be dissolved in its acidic mucus, basically melted alive. I gasped in horror, my eyes widening. I stared at the conical shell and listened to the orchestra play a creepy track while the show continued to show the nightmare slime creature.

"I apologize for what you are about to see." David Attenborough was saying.

The Cone Snail found me at my family's funeral. I was all alone, watching it crawl up to their caskets. The horrible creature was so huge that when it unfurled its slimy mouth it could cover all three caskets. I cried and wailed in terror and anguish, but there was nothing I could do to stop it from devouring them.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I woke up on the couch, sweating under a blanket. The TV was off, and my uncles had gone to bed. I wanted to give them a break from all my freak-outs, but I needed to be comforted. I thought about turning on the back lights and going for a nice cold swim, but the thought of whatever was there in the water frightened me.

I love swimming, but it seemed like the pool belonged to it. I somehow knew it was the Cone Snail. I worried that it might have caused the accident, using its slime to make the road slippery. I hated it, and I knew it had followed me here to finish killing off my entire family, finishing with me.

My fears made me go and hide in my bedroom. I slowly peeked out the window to the pool below, and there I saw it under the ripples in the dark waters. Its conical shell was there, perfectly still.

I ran and got into my bed and hid under the covers but felt something cool and sticky there. I raised the blankets off of me and found my entire bed covered in translucent brown slime. My eyes widened in disbelieving horror.

I started sobbing helplessly and crawled out of my bed, the slime was all over my pajamas. I stripped them off, shaking and crying, and it was all over my body. I streaked to the bathroom and got into the shower. With soap and hot water, I was able to clean the slime from my skin.

I got out of the shower, dripping tears and frowning miserably. I wanted to wake up my uncles and tell them about the Cone Snail and the slime it had left in my bed, but I worried I would only disturb them and that there was nothing they could do.

With a towel on I went back into my bedroom and turned on the lights. I confirmed that my bed was indeed soaked in slime. I couldn't go near it, so I moved around the edge of my room staying as far from it as I could. When I reached the dresser, I got out fresh pajamas and started getting dressed.

With warm clean clothes on I started feeling watched and I looked up at the window. I saw there, a nasty slug's eye on a stalk, staring at me. I couldn't breathe, I gasped for air, and I was shocked and terrified. The eye slopped against the window and left a trail of slime across it before it retreated.

I wanted to scream, but I was backed into a corner, almost unable to take a breath. When it was over, I felt sick and fled to the toilet and threw up. The taste of bile made me gag, and the contents of my stomach reminded me of the slime. It seemed like it was everywhere.

There was no way I was going back into my bedroom with that thing watching me sleep. I went back to the living room and wrapped myself in the warm blanket, shivering in horror. I could not sleep; my nerves were frayed, and I kept thinking about how it might silently appear over me as I slept and billow out is mouth to engulf me.

When they found me in the morning, I was sleepless and rocking myself.

"What's the matter?" Uncle Jerry asked me with sympathy.

"There was slime in my bed, on my body, in the shower, on my hands." I said. "The thing in the deep end of the pool, it's a Cone Snail."

"You had a bad dream, Sparkler. It's okay, you know you are under a lot of stress. I'm here for you. Both me and Tom are here for you. Anything you need." Uncle Jerry reassured me.

I shook my head, "It's not a dream. I know I haven't slept much. I sometimes fall asleep or lie awake, I've got no control over my body. You have to believe me; it slimed my bed. Go look."

"I don't have to look. I believe you." Uncle Jerry told me. He gave me a gentle hug. "We'll get the sheets cleaned and your bed made. You just need a good night's sleep."

"There's something happening here." I said morbidly.

"You alright, Sparkles?" Uncle Jerry looked concerned.

"Check in the pool. It is hiding in the deep end." I told him. He nodded, humoring me. He got up and went out back and peered into the pool. For a moment I thought he could see it, but then he shrugged.

"It must have left. You're safe now."

"If it's a Cone Snail, we can pour salt over the doorways, and it can't cross." Tom said, almost joking.

"That's for like voodoo witches. You're thinking of demons and stuff like that." Uncle Jerry said, almost laughing at the almost joke.

"Well, what if that's what it is? Some kind of heebie-jeebie voodoo demon? Salt." Tom held up a canister of sea salt and gestured to it with a flair in his wrist movement.

"Do you want us to 'fix' the doors with salt tonight?" Uncle Jerry asked me. He was ready to really do it or start laughing, depending on my answer. I love my uncle very much; the whole moment made me smile.

"Pour the salt." I said, feeling better.

That night I got tucked into clean sheets and they poured salt across my door. "Get the window too." I yawned. They poured a line of salt on the windowsill and then left me with the rest of the container.

"She's so adorable." Tom was saying quietly as they went into their bedroom.

I was sound asleep when I heard something out in the living room. I got up to look, taking the salt in my hands. There I saw Tom standing there in his boxers and t-shirt. He was facing a looming shadow, seemingly unaware of what he was doing.

"Tom." I called to him, without raising my voice. It was like a projected whisper. I tried again and he didn't respond. I stepped over the salt barrier to my room and noticed the back door was open.

There was a thick and disgusting looking trail of slime leading into the darkness in the living room. I felt dread at the sight of it, for not only was it slime, but something had come in from outside and left that trail.

Then I saw what loomed there in the darkness. Tom stood like he was in some kind of trance beneath it, and it towered over him. Its conical shell glistened in the dim light, and I saw its pale slimy skin and its eyestalks moving around, looking at Tom and looking at me.

It fired one of its darts at me from within its mouth and the dart struck the wall behind me, just barely missing hitting me in the cheek. I let out a piercing scream, to which Tom did not react.

"What is it? Who's there? I have a gun!" I heard Uncle Jerry come out of his room. He didn't really have a gun, he hates guns. I pointed, stammering in terror.

"Dear sweet baby-Jesus!" Uncle Jerry saw Tom there and ran to save him. The Cone Snail fired another dart which caught him in the leg. He fell beneath it, stunned as its prey.

Then the Cone Snail began to widen out its mouth, spreading it like a parachute over them. I was frozen in fear until I realized it was going to take them from me, just like it took my family. All the pain and anger at losing them welled up inside me and I forgot how terrified I was.

I rushed at it and started pouring the canister of salt I was clutching. At first the Cone Snail ignored me and continued to envelop my uncles. Then its flesh began to bubble, and its eye stalks looked at me and the small wound.

I had angered it. The creature retracted its unfolded mouth and readied another dart for me. I bravely shook the rest of the salt into its open mouth hole, seeing the boney dart getting loaded for it to spit at me with force. The creature didn't like getting salted in its mouth very much, but I wasn't hurting it. I realized Cone Snails live in salt water and I was only annoying it.

Helpless and in danger, I fled from it. I could hear the squishing noise it was making as it pursued me. I looked around for anything I could use and all I saw was the fire extinguisher. I took it up, unsure how it worked. I looked at the card on its handle and read the instructions.

1. Remove pin

2. Squeeze handle

3. Aim nozzle at base of fire.

I started spraying fire retardant into the Cone Snail's eyes and mouth until it retreated. I looked around the corner, but it had gone back outside, presumably to hide in the deep end of the pool.

I went over to my uncles and found that Tom's mesmerized state was gone, and he was holding Uncle Jerry, cradling him. "He's not waking up."

"We have to get him to a hospital." I decided. We loaded him up into the car and took him to the emergency room. On the way there he regained consciousness.

"What happened? I dreamed about a giant snail in our living room. It was an intruder, someone shot me." He said.

They removed the boney dart of the Cone Snail from his leg. The police showed up and asked us about the intrusion in our home. Both of my uncles claimed they hadn't seen who attacked us.

The police visited our house and dusted for fingerprints, but ignored the slime, although as I watched them, I could tell they thought it was weird.

I had said over and over what really happened, but nobody believed me. The police took the harpoon out of the wall as evidence.

"You don't believe me?" I asked Uncle Jerry the next day. I looked out back at the work being done. I didn't believe that he didn't believe me.

"It was just a bad dream. A burglary gone wrong."

"Then why are you draining the pool and having it filled in?"

"I never said I didn't believe." Uncle Jerry said in a way that sounded scared.

I felt bad for interrogating him. He sat with the bandages on his leg with his back to the work in the backyard. I gave him a hug and told him I loved him.

"I love you too, Sparkler."