There is a certain amount of stress the brain can take before it just gives up and accepts things, if only to stave off insanity. You are about at this limit. Right on the edge.

Now standing in some unknown bathroom having escaped an eldritch horror hunting you, the stall that is slowly flooding the room is gurgling at you. Or just gurgling in general, but you are taking it personally.

Your right eye twitches as the light above the long mirror flickers slightly. The rise and fall of the panic and adrenaline mixed with the water now soaking half of your clothes has you shivering. The only benefit is that the cold is helping you stay awake.

As you clutch the stolen book to your chest like a shield, you take two slow steps through the cold water, in the direction of the gurgling sound. If it is going to be another monster, you can’t think of what you can do about that. Running back out to the mantis-thing will be certain death. Freezing to death in the toilets isn’t a great deal better, but at least less violent.

You pause outside the fourth stall, where the sound is coming from. Your imagination paints it as a blocked toilet, expelling air through the risen water level. Overflowing. The pattering of drops and ripples through the puddle that you are standing in does point to that being possible. The question then is - what is blocking the toilet?

While your foot lifts into the air ready, you hold the book out ready to clobber whatever might be inside. Not that you have the strength to do any damage with it, but it’s better than nothing. You hold your breath and give the door a light kick.

It swings open slowly, and the sound of pattering water dies down. As the light behind you illuminates the inside of the stall, you are only partially surprised to see that there is no toilet there.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” you say, deflating. You shake your head at the red door, which is now affixed to the back wall of the stall. Water seeps from the crack at the bottom in pulses, still creating the puddle.

There is still no reason you can think of that has earned you the curse of being haunted by this doorway. All you did was walk through it, a mistake you seem to be paying for by ever-increasing degrees of insanity. Why was it even here now?

You work your jaw and watch it, expecting something to jump out, or the room to change in another way. It is mad to try to apply rationality to the red door, but it must have a purpose. Some motivation for doing all this.

“You have my attention,” you tell it. “If there’s something I need to do… just keep me safe and I’ll work it out.”

It doesn’t respond, which is fine. You need to get somewhere safe and well-lit to have a look through the book to see if it has useful information or is just a red herring. If the door can just take you back home so that you can do that, you will… be happy? At least a little less panic-ridden. Happy is a stretch. You are sure you will be having nightmares for weeks to come, if you survive this.

The water seeping in underneath the door reminds you of your leaking front door. You somehow convince yourself that pushing through might lead you back into the lobby. Or perhaps out into the storm, if this is still your broken mind imagining things while you potter about the house mentally lost.

You shake your head and take a couple of steps toward it. The cold water around your feet is unpleasant, and the bottom edge of your tracksuit soaks up as much of the moisture as it can. Hand once again on the brass handle, you twist it and open up the red door.

It groans loudly as it swings inward, the shuddering sound echoing deeply through what lays beyond.

A tiled passageway. The small squares of ceramic that match the bathroom’s flooring encompass not only the route ahead but also the walls and ceiling. A caged lightbulb clings to the wall about fifteen feet in, and at twenty-five the corridor takes a sharp left turn. The water still moving past your feet comes from a small spigot in the wall just beyond the threshold. Angled as if the only purpose it has is to spray the underside of the door.

You narrow your eyes at the dimly lit passage and sigh. The scenic route home, you hope.

What are your options, after all? Giving the cracked paintwork of the aged door a glare as you pass, your feet step onto ceramic tiles that are at least dry. Well, there is an air of something across the place. Not wet, but running your finger along the side wall gives you the impression that everything has a thin film of condensation on it.

It reminds you of a pool. One from your childhood. Your brow furrows as you continue walking, the memories long forgotten needing effort to dig back up. It was a long time ago, way before the current house or your time in the city.

The smell of chlorine hits your senses, but you aren’t sure if it's something real or imagined. Either way, it brings the pictures back into your mind with greater clarity. The splashing of water. Yells of children echoing around the large room where the light ripples, reflecting off the moving pool water.

That memory has some warmth, or at least vibrancy and light to it. Your current situation is dingy and cold. But the sounds of your feet against the tile are almost enough to have that familiar connection.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Less of the embarrassment in dressing in swimwear around your peers. The feel of water lapping at your neck as you almost get deeper into the water than you were comfortable with. The shivers before the warm towels dry you off.

Well, that last part is partially real—as you are still shivering and cold. You pass the light fitting, which hums, before fading away from your hearing as you step away. You are close to the turn now, but any hopes that you are about to emerge in any part of your house are starting to dwindle.

You look back down the passageway to see the red door gone. The entrance is now just a flat wall of tiles. No choice but to continue. You mutter a few choice curse words under your breath as you arc around the sharp edge of the wall, a longer corridor of similar tiles ahead—but there is also a turning to the right about twenty feet in, while the main route goes on for maybe fifty more. Every so often, another caged bulb barely lights the area.

The far end looks brighter, but it may be a trap.

A strange way of thinking, you consider. Part of your dissociation from this fever dream was to pin some of this reality against the backboard of your extensive fantasy knowledge. As if you were an adventurer on a quest. If it wasn’t something that is genuinely helping you stay calm, you might roll your eyes.

This was a little more contemporary and horror-adjacent than most of the heroes from your books have to endure, but you can take up pointers. Maybe if you play your cards right, you can win a sword or learn a magical spell.

Chances were slim. You weren’t that crazy yet.

At the first turning you stop and look down. Stairs descending to a darker area, where the usual bulbs are flickering, plunging the chamber that you can see in pitch black in regular pulses. A glance back to your left to the end of this passageway, and the brightly lit area is visually inviting. It looked warmer, even if there isn’t anything to signal that it really differs in temperature.

A choice to be made, where the scales are heavily tilted in one direction. It makes you want to go the darker route, although in reality things are usually as they seem. Indecision has you looking back and forth, as if a clue will present itself. It does not. You close your eyes and focus on your breathing.

Whether this was real or not, you have to take it seriously. There was danger here, and you needed to-

You jolt, your eyes opening as you stumble into the wall. Cold water. You look down to see that a widening puddle has started a dozen feet back down the corridor without you noticing. It isn’t enough to give you concern—other than the brief spike of heart rate—but it leaves you with a lingering amount of dread.

The potential things that could go wrong down here. You don’t even want to think about them, just in case it makes them come true. You glare at the stairs in front of you and take one step down.

You have convinced yourself that the lighter path is a trap, and that the appearance of the seeping water is to push you to make that decision. So you will go down the other route. You aren’t happy about that decision, especially as you continue down and the chamber ahead comes into view, but you continue.

The room you are walking toward is three times as wide as the corridor, and the bigger area is something of a silver lining. It looks like the size of it would require four lights to keep it illuminated—one near each corner, perhaps.

There is currently one humming away on the close right side, and then one on the close left side is the one flickering and struggling to stay on. The back of the room is pure darkness, aside from the slight gray rectangle on the back left—the corridor leading out of here.

You run your tongue across your dry lips. The taste of chlorine hangs on your tongue. All you have to do is step confidently across the floor—which is surely just plain tiles like the rest of this place—and head into the next corridor and find the next lit room.

Part of your mind tries to convince you that it isn’t too late to turn back and find the other path. There are still three steps before you are in this chamber, so things aren’t so set in stone.

A glance behind you at the dripping noise now hitting your ears, and you can pick up the puddle starting to run down the steps at the top. As if it was following you. While you had given the flashlight a lot of disdain before, you will do anything to have it back here with you now.

You shake your head. Stay focused, you tell yourself. You glare at the faint exit to the chamber and take a deep breath.

Then you walk.

Down three steps and into the partially lit area. Your eyes twitch as the bulb to your left flickers violently, but you keep your gaze straight ahead. Several long steps, and then you sink into the darkness. Somehow, it is remarkably cold.

Your bare feet hit the tiles as a slice of your confidence fades. But you made the decision, panicking and turning around now will not achieve anything.

The blinking of the faulty light fades from your peripheral vision, and all that you have is the sound of your feet slapping against tile, echoing slightly off the walls you can’t see. Your brain reacts to the sensory deprivation and your hearing starts to dull and feel disjointed. Like you are underwater.

Your eyes run as you stare at the approaching gray doorway. Heart beat echoes in your head now as your mind doubts not only your decision-making skills, but where you truly are. Lost, maybe. If you don’t make it to the door, then what? You will, you convince yourself. It is just the darkness putting pressing on the parts of your mind that were lagging from the madness.

Another dozen feet and you’ll be there. There is definitely light somewhere ahead, and once you have that as a focus point, then it will make the journey that much less stressful. You realize you have been holding your breath as if you were swimming, and this was an underground cave system you were trying to squeeze your way through.

You are being your own worst enemy. The gulp of air comes in as a panicked gasp as if part of you are half convinced you will get a lungful of water instead. It’s just air, albeit colder than you were expecting.

Three more steps and you arrive at the threshold. A brief amount of elation fills you, still unable to see much other than the outline of the edges of the walls. This next corridor swings to the left for a short distance and then opens up into another chamber. Also dark, aside from a light at the far end, where the next passageway held your illuminated salvation.

Not being able to see any of the next room at all was worrying, but you have made it this far. You could even take it a little slower to make sure there was nothing in your path. A sigh of relief helps comfort you.

Right before there is an audible splash from back at the stairs behind you.

You grimace and freeze in place. The puddle must be making gains, and you aren't keen on getting cold, wet feet again.

As you lift your foot up to take a step forward, there is the heavy slap of something wet from the stairs again. And then a second, slightly closer.

Something that sounds sodden, but more solid than just water sloshing around.

Footsteps.