I checked the corners first, wondering if something might have fallen from behind the toilet. Then I looked beneath the sink, around the pipes, near the shower, and along the edges of the walls.
I even looked up at the ceiling.
Nothing.
Everything appeared normal.
And somehow, that made the strange object on the floor even more unsettling.
I kept staring at it, trying to figure out what I was looking at.
It was dark.
It was thick.
And it had a shape that seemed almost too natural to be a piece of household debris.
Then another thought crossed my mind:
Did it move?
I immediately dismissed the idea.
Of course it hadn’t moved.
It was probably just my imagination.
Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling.
I watched it for several seconds, waiting for something—anything—to happen.
Nothing did.
Or at least, nothing that I could see.
My thoughts became increasingly irrational. I started wondering where it had come from. Could it have slipped through a drain? Could something have crawled into the bathroom while I wasn’t looking?
The bathroom suddenly felt different.
A moment earlier, it had been an ordinary room. A place I entered without thinking.
Now every dark corner seemed suspicious.
