Harold didn’t sleep.

  Not even a little.

  He lay on the stiff hotel mattress—back aching, eyes burning, mind refusing to quiet—while the radiator hissed like it was breathing beside him. The room had a stillness that didn’t feel natural. Not peaceful, not quiet… just waiting.

  He checked the clock again.

  3:33 a.m.

  And then the dripping began.

  A single drop.

  Another.

  Then a slow, steady rhythm.

  Drip.

  Drip.

  Drip.

  He sat up, pulse thrumming with the kind of dread he’d never admit out loud. The bathroom door was cracked open, a thin slice of darkness cutting into the pale glow of the bedside lamp. Nothing should be dripping. He’d checked everything earlier.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Still… he got up.

  His footsteps felt too loud as he approached the bathroom. He flicked the light on.

  The sink was dry.

  The tub was dry.

  The air was cold enough to bite.

  But the drain in the sink…

  It was gurgling.

  Not like pipes.

  Not like water.

  Like something moving below it.

  Harold crouched, already telling himself it was just plumbing—rust, pressure, old metal, this whole building was a dying machine groaning through the night—

  Then a voice rose up through the pipes.

  “Harry…?”

  He froze.

  The voice was faint, wet, almost… drowned.

  But familiar.

  Too familiar.

  He swallowed hard. “Lena?”

  A soft inhale—not human, not possible—echoed from the drain.

  “You came,” she whispered.

  Harold’s spine went rigid. His fingers dug into the porcelain edge until they numbed. “This isn’t real,” he whispered.

  A gentle hum floated upward, as if she were smiling through the darkness.

  “I missed you,” she breathed. “I’ve been waiting.”

  He leaned closer before he could stop himself. The drain was nothing but a rust-ringed hole—the same as any other. Yet the voice felt like it came from somewhere far deeper than the plumbing could ever reach.

  “How are you… How is this happening?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “But you’re here. That’s what matters.”

  The bathroom light flickered.

  The radiator stopped.

  The whole room fell silent in a single breath.

  “I’m so tired, Harry,” her voice cracked softly. “It’s dark down here. So cold. But I can come back. I just need—”

  Her voice dissolved.

  Static hissed through the drain—sharp, wrong, like a broken radio signal.

  Harold stumbled back. “Lena?” he whispered, voice trembling.

  No answer.

  Just dripping.

  The static faded.

  The silence returned.

  Harold turned off the light and closed the bathroom door, but he didn’t return to sleep. He lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, heart hammering in his chest.

  Minutes passed.

  Maybe hours.

  He almost convinced himself it was a dream.

  Until the whisper came again—soft, muffled through the pipes, like words rising through water:

  “I’m still here.”

  And the dripping never stopped