The Cloudy Bathroom

A few minutes later, he stood alone in the boy's bathroom, staring at his distorted image in a mostly warped mirror. He scratched his black flat hair and examined it, which looked as ugly as ever. He felt himself sliding into the state of depression he'd visited so often before, and he'd resolved to quit letting the bullies rule his life.

By then, he thought of Silver Head and Machina, the letters and clues, and the way they all made him feel important. He snapped out of the gloom and doom, and smiled at himself in the mirror.

Forget those morons. I'm not sticking my head in the toilet, spy or no spy.

A moving smudge suddenly appeared on the reflection of his face, like greymoss growing across the mirror. Startled, Tom reached out and touched it with his finger, but only felt the cold hardness of the glass. In a matter of seconds, the entire mirror was grey, blacking out everything. Tom took a step back, a shot of panic shooting through him.

The greyness grew, enveloping the wall and sink and moving outward in all directions. It took on substance, puffing out like a grey cloud, devouring the entire bathroom wall. Tom spun to see that all the walls and the ceiling were now covered with grey clouds. The room looked like the result of a five-alarm fire, but Tom couldn't see flames and felt no urge to cough.

Then, with a great whooshing sound, every bit of the strange cloudy substance rushed to the exit of the bathroom in streaks of wispy greyness, coalescing there into a big ball of grey cloud. Tom's heart stuttered to a stop as he realized what hovered between him and the exit.

  A Death Sleep.

Tom started to run, but stopped instantly. He had nowhere to go. The Death Sleep completely blocked the one and only exit out of the bathroom. Its grey clouds were already separating, forming into the same bulky eye he'd seen in the alley a few weeks ago, the veins with sparking electricity starting to glisten.

Silver Head's words about the creature came back to him, sending a sickening lurch through his body.

"Death sleep can be more vicious when using that bulky eye ball of its, swerving round and round trying to hyptonize their prey. If you stare at it for thirty seconds, you get dizzy, my friend, and then fall into an endless sleep of enternity."

Tom turned to look for another way out. A tiny window let some daylight in, but other than that, there were only stalls and urinals. He ran to the thin slat of a window and grabbed the metal crank bar to open the window. He twisted the bar clockwise, and a horrible screech of metal on metal boomed through the room as the glass slowly tilted outward.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew the Death Sleep would start its deadly hyptonizing soon. He looked over his shoulder and saw the black pupil expanding through the white area, a black abyss.

Tom quickened his pace, cranking the window as hard as he could. It jammed when it reached the halfway point. He pushed and pulled, but the lever wouldn't budge. He beat against the glass with both fists but ended up with bruised knuckles, leaving the dirty glass unbroken. Desperate, he tried to squeeze through the window anyway, pushing one arm through. It didn't take long to see that it was hopeless. The crack was too thin. He ran to the stalls, jumping up on one of the toilets to see if he could lift a ceiling tile and climb up. But it was too far above his head.

And then he felt it, the worst feeling ever, as his eyes swept through his shoulder to look at the swerving dark circle. Something tugged at him, something pushed him. He saw the worst thing ever; the sight of dying men on the battlefield. The sight of a mother screaming for a lost child. The sight of criminals waiting for their turn to be executed. All of this is combined into one horrifying, terrifying film.

    The Death Sleep.

Only thirty seconds.

As more horrible sights increased with every passing second. Tom shook himself. Regaining his consciousness a bit, he squirmed his way onto the stall, sliding, balancing as it creaked and groaned below him. He held on with one hand and reached with the other, stretching to see if he could touch the tiles. His fingertip brushed it, but that was all.

Frantic, he jumped back down to the floor and ran out of the stall, spinning in a wide circle, looking for ideas, for a way out.

The Death Sleep strings of hyptonition rose in pitch, growing more horrible by the second. Tom kept knocking himself into consciousness as he was fighting the hyptonition. The sights were horrible; he couldn't stop himself from looking. Spookier. Creepier. He knew it was almost over, that he only had a few more seconds until he fall into an unwaking sleep from the hyptonizing, haunting sights.

He struggled and looked directly at the Death Sleep. As he stared at its wispy grey cloudy eye, glistening with sparks of electricity, its large black pupil swerving out horrible sights, Tom realized he only had one choice.

He relaxed himself, closed his eyes, and ran straight toward the bulky eye. Tom held both arms out in front of him, stiffening them like a battering ram, and charged. He crossed the floor in two seconds, his clenched fist the first thing to make contact. He did not know what to expect, and his mind was half insane from the fact that the thirty seconds were almost up, which might make him take one last look. Tom threw himself forward with every bit of strength in his legs and feet.

A cold, biting tingle enveloped his hands and arms and then his whole body as he ran straight through the grey cloud of the Death Sleep. Tom felt like he'd dived into a pool of arctic water, everything muffled and frigid and dark.

But then he was through the Death Sleep's body, slamming into the wall on the other side. His mind sliding in shock, Tom flung open the bathroom door and threw his body out into the hallway, banging the door shut behind him.

Silence filled the school, but he could still see the horrible sights in his eyes, like the tolling of death bells.