She sat on the toilet with her legs brought up to her chest and watched with burning eyes. Tears streaked down her face as she waited to hear the wet, squelching sounds of its footsteps.
She felt her heart beating as her throat grew tighter. And she waited, her hands trembled as she tried to pull out her phone to text someone, anyone. She silenced her phone and blindly tapped on the first name in her call History.
She wondered if they’d see it, it didn’t matter now. She held her breath as she sent the message to her roommate. Then another to whatever class group chats she was in. She sent her location to all of them on WhatsApp.
She could only type “Help” and hope someone would see it. She held her breath longer and when she couldn’t she took shallow breaths.
How far away was she from the lake in the middle of the campus? She couldn’t remember. She listened and waited, only hearing the hum of air of conditioners and fluorescent lights.
She wondered if that thing could reach her or even survive this long out of water. She tried remembering what it looked like, but she couldn’t.
There had been talks. Classmates asked why there had been fewer animals on campus. The turtles that were staples of the lake were slowly disappearing and then they were gone. She simply thought the school was getting rid of them. Then the cats and squirrels disappeared, not even birds were seen flying around. She thought it was odd, but was too concerned with her first semester back on campus since the pandemic to really consider it. People questioned the school and the president insisted he had no clue what was happening.
The thing’s silhouette stayed in her mind, though. Its pointed ears jutted out the side of its head. Its lanky body was backlit by the street lights behind it. It towered over everything around it.
She was walking out of the library, headed towards her dorm. When she saw it crawl out of the water, her body froze. Her jaw dropped and she couldn’t scream, couldn’t move. She just stared until its head twitched in her direction and it began to run towards her on all four. She dropped everything, her books, her coffee, and her laptop and ran as fast as she could. She ran back to the library and hid in the first open door she found.
She ran in ignoring the urinals on the walls and shoved her body into the first open stall, quickly locking it.
She waited and counted, no one had responded to her messages and she wasn’t sure if she could call anyone.
As she stared at the stall, she heard the door creep open. The stench of rot and mildew filled the bathroom. She heard it sniffing and tried to imagine what its face would look like. She heard its footsteps getting louder. With bated breath, she watched the space beneath the stall door waiting for it to stand in front of her.
She heard it sniff louder, making a guttural sound as it did it. She heard the door click shut as it gently closed it. As it walked, she heard its feet slap against the cold linoleum floor.
It walked by her stall. Its feet were dark green with brown splotches on them. As it walked, it left behind mucky, brown imprints of its webbed feet on the floor. She watched as it turned to the stall next to her.
She heard the water splashing from the toilet and began to pray it was distracted. She waited longer, the splashes grew louder, and she slowly brought her foot down from the toilet she sat on. Then the next. She clutched her phone’s cold screen to her chest, shut her eyes, and listened to it. It sounded like it was playing with the water from the toilet, as it vigorously splashed around.
She stood with her eyes still closed. She reached for the latch on the door and carefully undid it. Before she opened the door all the way, she opened her eyes and pulled it open. She poked her head out. To her right, she saw its massive, slimy, green tail wagging. The spikey tip almost touched the ceiling.
Her eyes grew big. As gently as she could, she opened the stall and ran for the door. As she swung it open to run back into the library, the splashing stopped. A high-pitched screech erupted out of the creature. She threw her body out of the bathroom and ran towards the library’s automatic doors. She heard that thing slip and crash into something. The sound of broken glass echoed through out the building. She ran as fast as she could, passing the campus coffee shop and market till she got to her dorm building, winded and clutching her chest.