They called her "Static Girl."
Her real name was Eloise Ng, but most students at St. Cecilia's Academy only remembered her for the way she always recorded herself on that battered old camcorder from the '90s. Wore it strapped to her chest like armor. Always muttering things under her breath. Always filming.
She didn't have friends. Ate alone. Talked to herself. Wrote strange symbols on the corners of her notebooks. And she never—not once—used any bathroom on campus except the one on the third floor, east wing, in the farthest stall. The thirteenth stall.
Then, one Monday morning in October, Eloise didn't come to school.
No one really cared. But by Wednesday, rumors were flying. Her parents hadn't seen her. Her room had been locked from the inside. Her camcorder? Missing.
Until someone found it.
It was wedged between the toilet and the wall of the thirteenth stall. The janitor turned it in to the office, but by the time it got there, the tape was already gone. Vanished.
The footage resurfaced two weeks later, burned to a CD and slipped into my locker.
My name is Avery Cruz. I was a quiet sophomore. I didn't talk much, kept to myself. Eloise and I had shared a few classes. We weren't friends. I never even spoke to her. Not really. Just nods in passing.
But I was the one who got the footage. Why me? I still don't know. Maybe she chose me. Maybe something else did.
I watched it the same day I found it. Alone, in the school library after hours, where no one would interrupt.
The video was grainy. Black and white. No sound.
Eloise stood in the third-floor girls' bathroom, camcorder strapped to her chest. She looked directly into the mirror, eyes wide, whispering words I couldn't hear but somehow felt. Like they burrowed into my ears anyway.
Then she stepped into the thirteenth stall.
The footage jumped. Glitched. Flashed frames of dead moths, teeth, and an open door with no room beyond it.
Then, she knelt. Reached under the toilet. Drew something in salt.
A circle. Then a triangle. Then a set of three interlocking spirals.
She turned to the wall and scratched something into the tile with a small knife. A word.
MARROW.
The lights flickered. Static blurred the screen.
In the final seconds of the footage, Eloise sat down on the toilet and looked directly into the lens. Her face twisted into something almost alien—still her, but too still. Unblinking. Lips parting slowly as though to speak.
Then the screen cut to black.
It should've ended there. I should've turned it in, or deleted it. But I didn't.
I couldn't.
It got under my skin. Into me.
I watched the video every day. Sometimes twice. Memorized it. Wrote down every symbol. Every detail. Every movement. I began to feel like I wasn't just watching her—I was becoming her.
By Thursday, I was dreaming of mirrors that didn't reflect me. Of stalls that whispered when I walked past. My hands trembled in class. I flinched when the bathroom lights flickered.
And on Friday, I broke.
After last period, I waited. I lied to my friends. Said I had a group project to finish. Then I snuck up to the third floor.
The hallway was silent. Too silent. Like the building itself was holding its breath.
I pushed open the bathroom door.
The smell hit me first. Damp. Moldy. Coppery. The lights buzzed overhead. The thirteenth stall stood slightly ajar.
Exactly like the video.
My heart pounded. I locked the main door behind me and stepped forward.
The stall creaked as I opened it. Inside, a dark smear trailed the tile wall. Dried. Brown-black. Like something had been dragged, just like in the footage.
I reached into my backpack and took out the salt I'd stolen from the cafeteria. Shaky hands scattered it on the floor.
Circle. Triangle. Spirals.
Just like Eloise.
Then came the knife. I'd stolen one from my dad's tool chest. Dull and rusted. I scratched the word into the tile.
MARROW.
Each letter took effort. The blade snagged on the grout. My fingers cramped. But I finished.
And then… I waited.
Nothing happened.
I sat. The toilet was cold beneath me. I stared at the tile, at the reflection of myself in the metal lock.
Then, the lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then black.
I reached for my phone.
Dead. Battery full earlier. Now nothing.
The air shifted. Heavier. Thicker. It felt like it pressed against my chest. My skin tingled.
And then—I heard it.
A breath. From beneath me. Wet. Gurgling.
I leaned forward. My fingers touched something slick and warm. I yanked my hand back, heart hammering.
The stall door creaked open. I had locked it. I knew I had.
I looked up.
Eloise stood there.
But it wasn't her.
Her eyes were wrong. Pupil-less. Pale like milk. Her mouth was stitched shut with black wire, skin gray like damp paper. Her limbs bent just slightly off, like she had too many joints.
She raised a finger to her lips.
Shhh.
I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came. Not even a gasp.
The thing stepped forward. My body wouldn't move. My legs refused to obey. I wanted to run, to fight, but I couldn't even cry.
She knelt in front of me, inches from my face.
And then, in a jerking motion, she reached for my chest.
She didn't touch me. Her fingers hovered. But I felt something leave me.
Like my name. Like my sense of I.
Darkness closed in.
I woke up in a hospital bed.
The nurses said I'd been found the next morning, locked in the stall, eyes wide, unresponsive. Not a single mark on me. But I wouldn't speak. Couldn't.
They say I kept drawing spirals on the sheets.
Over and over.
I still don't speak.
But I know the truth now.
Eloise didn't disappear.
She opened a door.
And something stepped through.
I left the CD in another locker last week.
Someone else will watch it.
They always do."