//------------------------------// // The Voice in the Shower // Story: Behind the Shower Curtain // by 6-D Pegasus //------------------------------// Click-clack, click-click-click clack The sound of typing filled the spacious room, echoing ever so softly against the near-barren walls. Ryan's hands rapidly danced across the keyboard of his work laptop, systematically pressing the right combination of letters and spaces needed to properly wrap up the summary of the work report for the week. The twenty-three year old web developer had just recently moved into his own place at last. It wasn't much; there was the main room that had his bed propped up against the wall on the far side, a desk in the middle propped up opposite of his bed at which he currently sat doing work, and a small, modest kitchen area that still lacked a proper refrigerator. Beside the kitchen stood the one and only front door. Last but not least, there was a single bathroom whose door sat in front of and obnoxiously close to his bed, immediately opposite of his desk. Ryan let out a groan of exasperation. Today was supposed to be a good day. A wonderful day. One of celebration and relaxation. A few days ago, he had finally saved up enough money to move into a new, decent sized apartment. No more cheap motel room with its cramped space that did not even fit a bed, or its suspicious smelling heater, or most importantly, lack of a personal bathroom. He could finally lean back in his bed, stare up at a ceiling not covered in a crude paint job splattered with mysterious stains, inhale a breath of fresh, clean air, and bask in the warm presence of what he was finally proud to call his new home. Or at least, he would have done all that, if it weren't for the fact that his boss had decided to pile a ton of new work items last minute that needed to be done by the end of the week. You know, the week in which he was moving in. Oh, what's that? Why don't you just reserve some time off? Let them know your attention is needed elsewhere? As much as he would have loved to do so, said aforementioned work items just so happened to be absolutely crucial for a client demo presentation at the start of the next week. Sure, he could take the time off, but there were no other developers on his team that were familiar enough with the part of the site those work items were on to be able to complete it in time. Or at least, Ryan thought. It's not like I don't trust any of them to work on this area. I have complete faith in their skills. Ryan paused his typing to glance at the ceiling in thought. It's just that I... that I... well... ... Oh who am I kidding Ryan sighed shamefully to himself before resuming his work. Last time he needed to take some time for himself, several members of their developer team were assigned to continue his work items while he was gone. When he returned, he would find the pages he worked on in the condition of the website equivalent of nuclear fallout. He didn't really blame them for it though; he doubted he could keep up either if he was thrust into someone else's work environment with a completely foreign method of organizing and implementing items. If anyone was going to finish this part of the site, it would have to be him. Almost... there... His fingers furiously raced across his keyboard as he put the finishing word on his work report. Annnnd done! He smashed the enter key with more force than intended and watched as his code for the last work item of the week was sent up to the cloud. After a few seconds of silence, a soft ping told him the operation was successful: no merge conflicts. "Wooo!" Ryan cried out in glee and shot his hands into the air in tired, yet satisfied finality. He glanced around his apartment with a going before remembering he was alone. Awkwardly putting his hands down, he scanned his room again and realized to his dismay that, due to the urgency of previously pressing matters, he never had the chance to properly set up his new residence. Several boxes filled with essential equipment and his old belongings laid stacked and scattered on the floor of the main entrance. Ryan exhaled through his nose in tired annoyance before getting up to give his moving boxes a once over. One box contained many decorative items, including some posters, a small desktop lamp. Low priority, Ryan thought to himself as he moved to the next box. This one contained much of his clothes. Also Low prio-, he started, then paused upon becoming acutely aware of how long he had been donning his current attire, possibly accumulating plenty of sweat throughout his work day, just the thought of which made him cringe immensely. Alright, alright, might as well "wake myself up" before dealing with this. He briefly shuffled through his packed clothes before selecting and extracting a comfy pair of night clothes. He walked over to the bathroom, opened the door, lazily plopped his clothes on the floor, then cringed when he spotted the shower. Specifically its lack of a shower curtain. Sighing, he turned around, fished his shower curtain out of its respective box, and gave it a quick glance. It wasn't fancy by any means. It draped long and wide enough to fully the shower area from wall to wall and from floor to the metal bar above the shower ledge, with six metal rings attached to the top. The curtain itself was a foggy white; if someone were to press something right up against its surface, you might be able to make it out from the other side. Once there were more than a few inches of space between the object and the curtain, its appearance from the other side would dissolve into a blurry fuzz of color. Perfect for privacy purposes. More than ready to wind down for the evening, Ryan carried the shower curtain to his bathroom and reached up to attach the metal rings to the overhanging bar. One... Two... Three... Four... Five... annnd six! A sudden chill rushed through Ryan's body, sending shivers down his body. "What the-?" He quickly glanced back out of the bathroom to verify his windows and door were closed. He turned back to his now curtain-covered shower in confusion, still shuddering a little. He let out a gentle whistle. Yeaaaahhhhh. It's official, I'm totally losing it. Ugh just let me lay down already. With that last thought, Ryan reached down to turn on the faucet and unleash a hopefully warm rain of stress-relieving droplets. Somewhere else... "Oh, Spike you're back already? I thought you'd be out for another couple of hours!" "..." "Spike?" "..." "Spike, you know that's our one and only shower, you can't just waltz in there and start another one of your hour long showers without at least telling me beforehand! What if I was going to use it?" "..." "Uh... Spike?" "..." "Helllloooooooo- you know what, I'll chew him out when he's done." Ohhh wow, I needed that so badly. Ahhhhhhh Ryan emerged from the shower, snugly wrapped in a soft, white towel, before pulling the curtain back close behind him. He sighed blissfully as he stood there for a moment, his eyes closed. Yes, the day had indeed been stressful, but that shower had practically melted away his worries. Oh sure, they'd be waiting for him again when work resumed at the start of next week, but for now none of it mattered. Ryan pursed his lips together. He could have sworn he heard someone distantly shouting during his shower. He brushed it off as maybe some auditory illusion caused by the sound of falling water, but just in case, he made a mental note to check with his neighbors about it. After all, the apartment, specifically the bathroom, had some considerably thick walls to keep external sound out. It had to have been some damn loud shouting for him to even hear it over the shower. After carefully hanging the towel on a little bar in the wall, Ryan quickly changed into his night clothes and moved in front of the sink. Despite the warm shower, Ryan could tell from his own facial expression that he was just about ready to keel over from exhaustion. His short, black hair shot out in all directions, and his eyes could barely remain half open. Chuckling to himself, he reached for his cup containing his toothbrush and toothpaste... only to accidentally knock the entire thing off the sink ledge. He winced at the sound of his precious toothbrush clattering against the tile floor. Bruh, come on I can't be THIS tired, right? With a defeated sigh, he reached down to pick it up and- "Spike?" Ryan jumped and cried out in alarm, dropping the toothbrush once more as he nearly slipped on the still wet tiling. "What the, who's there?!" His eyes darted around the bathroom, searching for any sign of movement, but everything was still. The voice had clearly came from within the bathroom, but he couldn't pinpoint any possible sources. For what seemed like several minutes, he stood completely still, eyes wide in shock. While the shower utterly failed in waking him up, this scare had certainly succeeded. For a while, he didn't dare to move, but after several more moments of nothing happening, he knew he had to do at least something. Reaching down again, he picked his toothbrush off the ground and held it in a defensive position like some pathetic, makeshift knife. He slowly inched closer to the center of the bathroom, tracking his eyes across anything he could see. "H-hello? Who's there?" The voice called out again, slightly closer now but not enough for Ryan to determine a source. It was definitely female, and whoever it belonged to sounded young, probably mid-twenties. There was a hint of fear in the tone as well. Ryan relaxed slightly, his own fear and panic subsiding, making way for curiosity. The voice sounded like it was coming from where his shower was, but that made no sense; he was literally in there not even a couple of minutes ago and hadn't once left the bathroom. It also sounded a bit more distant that it should've, as if whoever was speaking was an entire additional room length away, but his bathroom wasn't nearly that long. Not to mention there was solid tiled wall not even a couple feet behind the curtain. He began slowly creeping towards it. "A-and why are you in my shower?" Wait, what? Ryan stopped dead in his tracks, his train of thought carrying all his questions and concerns utterly derailed. He glanced down at his feet to confirm that he was, indeed, standing on the brown tiling of his bathroom floor and not on the white porcelain that ordained the bottom of his shower. "Uh, no I'm not, I'm standing right in front of my shower and, um... YOU'RE the one in MY shower!" There was a brief moment of silence. "What? You're being ridiculous, I'm staring right at my shower curtain and your voice is clearly coming from behind it, from inside my shower, so where else can you be?" The voice lost all traces of fear and had taken on an annoyed tone. Ryan then heard what he could only describe as the sound of hooves clopping on wood getting closer and closer before it seemingly stopped right behind his shower curtain. "And the library isn't open to visitors this late in the evening so, whoever you are sir, I'm going to have to ask you to lea-" The voice cut off. Ryan blinked. "Wh- wh- I- wha- this isn't possible, where are you??" The voice had taken to a frantic panic, and Ryan began slowly backing away from his shower. It sounded like some deranged mental institute patient was now residing in his shower, somehow completely out of sight. He surmised they must be curled up on the shower floor or something, just out of view from behind the curtain. "I'm, erm, in my bathroom?" Could he run out, grab his phone, and dial the police before whatever maniac that was in his shower managed to catch him? The bathroom door lock was only on the inside, maybe he could barricade the door? He cursed the thought away upon remembering the door opened into the bathroom. "No, this is MY bathroom! How are you doing this? Why can't I see you? Wait a minute." Ryan heard what sounded like a whooosh accompanied by some sort of "twinkling" from behind the curtain. He was now starting to doubt his previous mental patient theory. "What?! No no no that's impossible, there's no one here but me! What are you?!" With most his brain occupied with formulating a plan of escape, the question caught him completely off guard and he blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "I'm, um... Asian?" Again there was silence, and Ryan mentally smacked himself in the head. Really? Asian? Yeah because that's obviously the right response to calm someone down. He opened his mouth to offer a better crafted response, but to his surprise his awkward answer would indeed succeed at calming his target down as when the voice would cut him off again, it carried a tone not of panic or worry, but pure confusion. "An asian? I don't recall reading or hearing about any sort of creature under that name. Or, wait, is that your name?" Ryan felt his eye twitch. Is that my-, excuse me?? In his mind, no longer was this some potentially dangerous figure lurking in his bathroom, for it was now just someone who happened to really tick him off. "What, are you actually for real?? Oh ha ha ha, so funny I forgot to laugh. How about you then, what's your race?!" "Well, I'm a unicorn." "..." Silence. Ryan stood frozen in silence for a half a minute as the response slowly sank into his mind, his jaw hanging open. A... unicorn? What the... what? This woman is absolutely out of it. It wasn't just the words that stunned him, it was the tone. It sounded as if they had been asked what their name was while they were wearing a bright neon name tag with their name in bold, with their name also etched across their shirt and tattooed on their forehead. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and cautiously began to approach the shower once more. "No you aren't, those aren't even real." He heard what sounded like an angry stomp. "Not real?! I think I'd know if I wasn't real!" Reaching out, he carefully grasped the shower curtain in his hand. "Oh really?!" With one swift motion, he threw the curtain to the side to reveal... ... nothing? Ryan practically leaped into his shower as his eyes darted all over, scanning every nook and cranny, every possible hiding spot no matter how small. Eying his shampoo bottle, he quickly knocked it to the floor half expecting to see some tiny woman hiding behind it. Nothing. Nothing at all. "Oh really what? Wait, are you some sort of enchanted shower curtain?" Ryan turned around in confusion. Now the voice seemed to be coming from outside the shower, directly behind the shower curtain once again. "No? Why and how could I even be a shower curtain?" He slowly peeked out from behind his curtain, looking around the room for the speaker. Despite seeing absolutely no one, the voice was now so close he could swear they were right beside him. "Well, your voice is clearly coming from my shower curtain, so I don't know. Are you using some sort of spell to talk to me through it? And, uh... why?" From the... shower... curtain... Ryan slowly turned to stare at his completely uninteresting, bare white shower curtain. Wait a minute. "Could you... repeat what you just said?" There was a pause. "You're using some sort of spell to-" "No no no, right before that!" He put his ear right up against the shower curtain. "Your voice is coming from my shower curtain." Ryan stepped back, his heart racing. The voice wasn't coming from his shower. It was coming from his shower curtain. With his back pressed tight against the nearest wall, he cautiously stepped out of the shower and pulled the shower curtain close. Once he back on his bathroom tile, he slowly slid down to the floor, his head starting to hurt. "Um, ma'am could you repeat that oneeee more time, please?" The voice complied with evident confusion. "Your voice is coming from my shower curtain?" Ryan smiled, the world going for a magnificent spin around him. "Thank you." Then he blacked out.