The Stare
Originally published on Substack October 18, 2025 as Saturday Shorts 04.
My eyelids feel like they're made of concrete. I try to lift my head but it lolls back against cold porcelain, too heavy for my neck to support. The fluorescent light above stabs at my vision, making everything blur and swim. My tongue tastes like I've been sucking on pennies, metallic and wrong. I attempt to sit up. The effort sends the room tilting sideways, nausea rolling through me in waves. I manage to pull myself upright, gripping the tub's edges, but my vision swims dangerously. When it finally steadies, the reality hits: I'm naked in a bathtub with no memory of how I got here. The air is thick with the sour stench of vomit, and I realize with growing horror that some of it might be mine.
But that's not what makes my heart hammer against my ribs.
It's the mouse.
It sits on the bathroom counter, perfectly still, watching me with dark bead eyes. I want to jolt upright, to yell, to do something, but my body betrays me. My arms shake as I try to push myself up, managing only to lift my shoulders before they give out. Not the darting, nervous glances of a cornered rodent but this thing is deliberate. Patient. Like it's been waiting, and it knows I can't do anything about it.
I blink hard, willing it to disappear, expecting it to scurry away. My vision doubles, clears, and it's still there. The mouse moves then, not scurrying, but walking purposefully along the counter's edge toward the sink. It stops, looks back at me, then continues to the base of the faucet.
"What the fuck?" The words come out as a croak, barely audible.
The mouse doesn't flinch at my voice. Instead, it rises on its hind legs, tiny paws pressed against the faucet base, and looks directly at me. Then it drops down and moves to the next spot, the soap dispenser, and repeats the gesture. It's showing me something, pointing out specific locations with deliberate intent.
But I'm too drugged or drunk or whatever this is to make sense of anything.
My head throbs as I try to remember, each pulse making my vision swim. Last night? Yesterday? The timeline dissolves into static. I was... somewhere. With someone? The harder I reach for the memory, the more it slips away, leaving only the metallic taste and this growing certainty that something important happened. Something I promised.
I need to get out of here. I force myself to stand, muscles screaming in protest. My legs feel unsteady but hold my weight as I step out of the tub, water dripping onto the cold tiles. Each step toward the bathroom door takes enormous effort, and by the time I reach it, I'm weaving like a drunk.
I reach for the handle, but my coordination is getting worse. My hands tremble as I try to turn it, fingers slipping on the metal. The door won't budge. I try again, but I'm weaker now, whatever's in my system dragging me down further. I can barely grip the handle as I rattle it uselessly.
Behind me, I hear a sharp scratching sound. I turn, still gripping the door handle for support, and see the mouse has moved to the mirror above the sink. It's standing on the sink's edge, one tiny paw pressed against the glass surface. Scratch, scratch, scratch. Deliberate marks in the condensation that fog the mirror.
The mouse stops, looks at me, then scratches again. It's drawing something, or trying to. When I don't move toward it, the mouse makes a sound. Not a squeak, but something almost like a sigh of frustration. It returns to its scratching, more insistently now, the sound echoing off the bathroom tiles.
I'm supposed to be looking at this. I'm supposed to understand. But my head is spinning too much to focus on whatever it's trying to show me.
When I turn back to the door, defeated, the mouse is still at the mirror, paw pressed against the glass. Its head tilts as it watches me slide down the door to sit on the cold tiles. My legs have given out completely now, naked and shaking, too weak to stand.
"What do you want?" I ask, my voice slurring worse now. Even talking feels like lifting weights.
The mouse responds immediately. It taps the glass three times with its paw. Tap, tap, tap. Then looks at me expectantly. The sound is crisp and deliberate in the enclosed space. When I don't react, it returns to scratching, its movements becoming more urgent. The tiny claws work frantically against the condensation, like it's running out of time.
My vision starts to blur again. The fluorescent light overhead flickers once, casting strange shadows across the white tiles. The mouse's scratching becomes more desperate, faster, the sound growing louder in my ears until it feels like it's coming from inside my skull.
Black spots dance at the edges of my vision, that familiar dizzy pull dragging me back toward unconsciousness. I try to fight it, clawing at the door frame for support, but my fingers are already going numb. My grip loosens despite every effort to hold on.
"Wait," I mumble, the words thick and useless. My head lolls forward. "Don't... don't fucking go..."
The last thing I see is the mouse, sitting perfectly still at the mirror, watching me with those dark eyes as darkness swallows me whole.
END.