Chapter 140.

At some late hour of the night, I awoke from my embarrassing dream of the past. I was immediately greeted by the rustle of bedsheets from my side. When I opened my eyes, I discovered Val had unsteadily gotten off the bed, clearly still disoriented from all the wine we downed earlier.

“Val?”

“Did I wake you up? Sorry, my bad. I need the toilet. I drank way too much; to think I’d let myself reach that state. What a blunder. I’ll be right back.”

“I’ve got to use it too, so don’t take too long.”

“Mr. Genovese, we could go together if you have that weird sort of kink.”

“Just hurry up.”

I really had to take a leak.

In the dark, she expertly made her way to the bathroom like a veteran despite her drunken stupor. When she reached the door, she turned on the light and ventilation. The light formed a trapezoidal outline from the doorway along the ground onto the wall. Her figure also cast a distinct shadow amidst the light. The outline of her shadow moved into the bathroom then slowly disappeared when the door shut behind her. Only a small stream of light remained from beneath the gap of the closed door.

I couldn’t help but muse over how mindful women were over appearances when it came to the toilet. It was only a leak, right? What’s the need for the vent, there wasn’t a nasty spice burrito bomb smell, was there? I wasn’t the type who judged a person based upon how it sounded when they took a leak, I was a cultured man who only judged after the true raid boss, le Taco Bell. This over-sensitivity to the call of nature was something I never understood about women no matter how much I thought it over. 

Haaaaah. I certainly never imagined I’d wake up in the middle of the night and muse to myself over other people taking leaks and deuces. Where did I go wrong in life?

Five minutes passed by in silence, then ten more. It was pretty hard to hold it in, so I called out to her, “Val, could you please hurry up in there? I really need to use it now. It feels like my bladder won’t make it much longer.”

There was no response and I suddenly had a bad feeling. I knew I had three choices I could make. The first was that I could go back to sleep, forget about the washroom, and wet myself. The second was to go check on her and potentially set myself up for an awful jump scare. The third was to leave the room, run away, and never look back while wetting myself during the escape. All three situations resulted in wetting myself so I was really in quite the dilemma right now.

As a famous poet once said, to wet myself, or not to wet myself, that is the question.

Screw it, I’ll take my chances with the jump scare. If I know it’s coming and close my eyes when I open the door, I should be able to hold it in as long as I don’t see it.

I got off the bed and carefully made my way to the bathroom in the dark. When I stopped in front of the door I had an idea. It was the same trick I used previously. I pulled out my phone and slid it under the door while recording. Just when I thought to pull it back to review the recording and see if there was anything directly behind the door waiting to scare the crap out of me, something from the other side pulled the phone out of my hand.

“Val, if you’re there, would you please answer me?”

There was still no response.

“If this is your idea of a joke, it's not funny at all.”

“...”

“Val! Answer me!”

Suddenly the light from the gap beneath the door went dark.

I calmed myself down, shut my eyes, and pushed open the door; it wasn’t locked. If she thought she was going to jump out and scare me, to avoid it, I just wouldn’t look. Ah, ‘twas the naive wish of a man who simply desired to pee and emptieth one’s bloated bladder.

I walked into the bathroom without hesitation but immediately bumped into someone a few steps in.

“Val, would you say something?”

That was when I realized something, what I bumped into felt nothing like a woman. Did I make a big mistake in my assumptions? What if it wasn’t just another occurrence of freaky shit, but instead a murderer who’d snuck in and killed Val?

I broke out into an uncontrollable cold sweat when I considered the possibility that a psycho killer had hidden away in our hotel room’s bathroom while we were out cold drunk. I slowly backed away up to the entrance, turned on the light, then warily opened my eyes. When I did, what I found was... not a psycho killer? Rather, it was just a strange... black... monstrous organism... made out of a liquid-like substance. 

It approached closer to me the moment I’d turned on the light. I immediately turned the light off thinking my mind was playing tricks on me. I knew I had way too many drinks earlier, so it wasn’t unreasonable that I’d see weird shit like this. But still… this was a bit much, wasn’t it?

A few seconds passed in silence and I turned the lights back on in hopes the strange gooey black mass was gone.

I squinted my eyes to verify it once again. Yep. It’s definitely still there. As soon as the lights were on, it approached closer to me again. I did the only obvious thing I could do... I shut the light off again. A few more seconds passed and nothing happened.

Now, if I didn’t need to use the washroom so badly I’d normally just go back to bed or leave at this point, but nature really doth not wait for any man. Not even the greatest of men could defeat nature’s call. In the end… I let out a long sigh and inched my way around where I presumed that thing had stopped in the dark. As I edged around it, I stepped on my phone. Extremely grateful that I found it so easily, I immediately picked it up and put it back in my pocket. 

I used my hands to feel around in the dark to verify the toilet seat was up, undid my fly, and finally found joyous release. That weird thing beside me could wait its turn. When a man needs to answer nature’s call, not even a weird gooey black monster-like thing can stand in his way. Now if it were a psycho killer, that would be another story altogether.

When I was finished, I circled around where the alleged monster was located in the dark and I diligently washed my hands. I wasn’t in much of a rush since this monstrous apparition appeared to be mentally challenged and couldn’t move around in the dark, so I even took the time to use a good amount of soap for good measure. If only all weird monster encounters could be this casual.

Man though, getting wasted on wine makes you see some really weird shit at night. Once I was finished with my bodily needs, I knew it was time to deal with whatever this freak of nature was. Psh, as if I’d do something stupid like that. If it can’t move in the dark then just don’t turn on a light, duh.