She looked down then up again, forcing her breath to slow down as she grimaced at her own distorted reflection in the foggy bathroom mirror. Hardly able to stand, she had to put her hand against the wall for support but it slipped on the condensation that was already forming. The heat was making her dizzy and the cuts would burn but she had to wash the blood off. Drooping her head and looking down again, she froze. A wiry black leg shot out of the sink drain followed by two more as they twitched and latched on to invisible hand holds in the porcelain, grotesquely pulling a sleek black body and five more legs out of the drain.

“Fuck”, she whispered to nobody. She deserved this for being so naïve as to think they wouldn’t find her.The thing in the drain scuttled around and frantically looked for its target until it tried the Y axis and settled its gaze on her. Before she could think of what to do a red beam shot out of its mechanical eye and scanned her, paralyzing her. Trying but failing to close her eyes as a last ditch effort to protect her identity, she could do nothing but feel the warm tingling on her face from the creature’s gaze. While the body was immobilized, the mind raced. All possibilities of escape ran through her head but all were futile. The thing held her there until there was a pounding at the apartment door, then released her. She looked down and it was gone as fast as it had come, squeezing itself back down the drain the same way it had entered. Taking the rest of her clothes off, she stepped into the shower to feel the hot water cleanse her body one last time. She heard the splintering of the front door send shards of wood into her living room and squeezed the shampoo onto her hand thinking that she might as well look good for the cameras.