Do you also think you're clever? To run at the first sign of something wrong?
Wait until you're trapped. There is nowhere to flee.
Everyone thought I'd lost my mind when I took this job.
The public restroom at East City Bus Station is known as one of the three most haunted spots in town. Seventeen janitors have quit here in ten years.
The longest lasted three days. The shortest, merely two hours.
My sister sobbed over the phone like the world had ended—she never cried half so loud when our mother passed away.
*If you need money, I'll lend it to you. Don't go there to die.*
I told her I only wanted a quiet job.
Now I wish I could slap myself for those words.
The place was eerily silent, indeed.
From six in the morning until ten at night, I sat on a small stool outside the utility room, between the men's and women's restrooms.
The floor was old white terrazzo tiled with faded blue patterns, stained black along the edges, impossible to scrub clean.
Two fluorescent lights hung overhead; one flickered nonstop, warping every shadow in the corridor with its unstable glow.
Each stall had old foot-pedal flush valves. You pressed down, waited three slow seconds, and the water crashed out with brutal pressure, as if it would shatter the bowl.
Every local online thread about this restroom circled back to one identical detail:
the endless flushing from the **third stall**.
People offered all kinds of explanations.
Pipe resonance. Aging water valves.
Others swore a former janitor had died inside, their spirit trapped in the plumbing, forced to flush forever.
These posts spanned from 2009 to last year, all written in that same stubborn tone:
*I know you won't believe me, but this is the truth.*
I'd dismissed it all as nonsense back then.
I was ex-military. I'd worked eight assembly-line years in a factory. I'd seen everything.
What's so scary about a death in an old building? Every old complex has its ghosts.
Besides, the pay was excellent—six thousand five hundred a month, full insurance and benefits, top-tier for janitor work.
On my handover day, Old Zhang, the previous janitor, showed me around.
Skinny as dried firewood, gray-faced, with heavy bags sagging beneath his eyes.
He'd lasted three days. Today was his final shift.
He rushed through the men's stalls, the women's stalls, the utility room, the manager's office, stepping lightly as if the floor burned his feet.
He listed leaky faucets, broken stall locks, garbage collection times, disinfectant ratios—all while constantly glancing toward the last row of men's stalls.
I asked what was wrong back there.
"Nothing," he mumbled. "The third stall's flush valve is broken. It triggers on its own sometimes. Just ignore it."
"What do you mean, on its own?"
"The pedal pops up by itself, flushing randomly. No big deal."
His Adam's apple bobbed sharply, voice tight with unease.
I didn't think twice.
Worn-out hardware, unstable water pressure—common issues I'd seen countless times in factory restrooms.
Once Old Zhang left, I began my shift.
Full daily cleaning: six men's stalls, six women's stalls, sinks, mirrors, mopping, trash disposal.
I knew the routine by heart after three years on a cleaning crew.
Around two in the afternoon, a violent flush echoed from the men's restroom.
*Crash—rumble.*
That old valve roared, loud enough to sound like tons of water dumping into the bowl.
I grabbed my mop and checked.
The men's restroom was empty. The third stall door remained shut.
Peeking under the gap, I saw only clean ceramic and damp tile.
No one inside. No bags. Nothing.
Just water pressure acting up, I told myself.
At four thirty, it happened again.
*Crash—rumble.*
Still empty.
I pushed the unlocked stall door open.
The toilet was spotless, the tank normal. I stomped the pedal repeatedly; it functioned perfectly. No malfunctions.
By seven o'clock, night had fully fallen.
The station traffic thinned, only a handful of stragglers passing through.
I was organizing supplies in the utility room when the flush sounded once more.
This time, I froze.
It wasn't one single flush.
Three in a row.
*Crash—rumble.*
A four-second pause.
*Crash—rumble.*
Another pause.
*Crash—rumble.*
I stepped outside.
One fluorescent bulb burned steady. The other flickered madly, casting jagged, strobing shadows across the tiles.
The third stall stayed closed. Pale white light glinted beneath the door gap, reflecting off the porcelain toilet.
I pushed the door open.
Empty.
Water circled slowly in the bowl, fresh from a recent flush.
Yet the seat was dry. The floor held no new moisture.
I propped the stall door wide open with my mop and returned to my stool.
At eight fifteen, I heard the mop clatter to the floor.
Then another flush.
*Crash—rumble.*
My heart quickened.
Aging seals. Pipe pressure shifts. Basic middle school physics. I repeated the logic to calm myself.
At nine forty, ready to clock out, I rinsed my mop at the sinks.
The flush returned—but it sounded different.
It was slow, gurgling, as if someone pressed the pedal gradually, only for the flow to clog mid-cycle.
A muffled, choking gurgle bubbled through the pipes before the water finally burst free.
I set down my bucket and walked to the men's restroom entrance.
The third stall still stood wide open, vacant.
But a strange scent hung in the air.
Not the sharp ammonia stench typical of public restrooms.
This smell was heavy, damp—the sickly rot of something submerged in water for far too long.
Not foul, yet deeply unsettling, twisting uncomfortably in your chest.
I stepped inside and shut the stall door.
The odor vanished instantly, as if it only lingered in open spaces.
On day two, I spotted a terrifying pattern.
The third stall flushed every **thirty-seven minutes**, precise to within two minutes across a dozen timed checks.
Mechanical failures never follow such rigid timing. Unstable water pressure doesn't run like a clock. Aging valves don't keep a schedule.
I also learned the flushing followed a strange daily cycle:
Rare between six and eight a.m.
Frequent after ten a.m.
Peaking sharply from two to four p.m.
Slowing between seven and nine p.m., shifting into that muffled, gurgling tone after dark.
What happened after nine forty?
I left work. I never knew.
On day three, I decided to work overtime.
I lied to my sister, telling her I'd switched to a mall janitor job. She believed me—always too trusting.
At ten p.m., the final station bus departed.
The iron lobby gates lowered halfway. The night watchman napped on a recliner outside, watching television.
The entire station went dark, save for this isolated restroom.
I sat on my stool in the cold, blue-veined corridor.
I'd replaced the flickering bulb earlier; both lights blazed harsh white, painting the halls with the sterile pallor of a hospital ward.
10:15 PM — A flush.
10:52 PM — Another.
11:30 PM — Once more.
Shortly before eleven forty, a man wandered in, middle-aged with a backpack, likely catching a late transit.
I heard him tug stall doors open and shut, over and over, growing frustrated.
He stepped out and called to me.
"Sir, the third stall won't open. It's locked."
I stood and checked.
The door was sealed, blocked by a **Cleaning in Progress** sign hanging from the outside latch.
I'd never hung that sign.
I removed the placard and pushed the door open.
Completely empty. Bone-dry. Odorless.
The man stepped inside and closed the door.
Two minutes later, he flushed, washed his hands, and left.
After he departed, I rechecked the stall.
Clear water, no spills, everything normal.
But I noticed something new:
a crumpled white plastic shopping bag, wedged between the door hook and wooden panel.
I left it untouched.
Back at my stool, I checked my phone: 11:58 PM.
Then I heard it.
Not a flush.
A soft, steady **dripping**.
*Drip. Drip. Drip.*
Slow, rhythmic, like an unclosed faucet.
But there was no faucet inside that stall.
I pushed the door open.
The plastic bag still hung on the hook.
Dry toilet. Dry floor. No visible leaks.
Yet the dripping echoed clearly, seeping from deep within the walls, through tile cracks, from somewhere unseen.
I checked pipes, valves, hoses—all dry.
I knelt to inspect the wall behind the toilet, finding zero moisture.
The sound surrounded me, yet its source remained hidden.
As I stood, my peripheral vision caught the two-centimeter gap beneath the stall doors.
Beneath the **fourth stall**, a pair of feet.
Bare, pale skin waterlogged and swollen from prolonged submersion.
Dark navy trousers clung tight to swollen ankles, soaked black from saturation.
The feet swayed slowly, heels lifting, toes tapping, shifting back and forth in perfect time.
The dripping matched every lift.
I stared, frozen, counting over a dozen slow sways.
One horrifying question consumed me:
Had the fourth stall door been open when I arrived?
I could not remember. I'd only focused on the third stall.
I stood slowly, facing the third stall—then spun sharply toward the fourth.
The fourth stall hung ajar.
Nothing inside.
Dry tiles. Closed toilet lid. Perfectly ordinary.
I fled to the fluorescent-lit corridor, heart hammering, palms soaked with cold sweat.
I'd stood night guard during military service. Stare into darkness long enough, and the mind conjures illusions.
But those feet were far too vivid.
Toe shapes. Discolored nails. Fine skin textures. Water weeping down soaked fabric.
This was no hallucination.
I left before midnight. Locked the utility room, killed the lights, and slipped out the back station exit.
One question haunted my walk home:
If those feet were real, where did the water come from?
Every surface in that stall had been bone dry. No leaks. No flooding. No dripping ceilings.
Unless that figure had never entered from outside.
Unless it had always been trapped there.
I called in sick on day four, lying in bed, trapped in restless thought.
The pay was generous, but no paycheck was worth dying for.
Yet rent loomed. My sister's unpaid debt lingered. My savings would vanish in two months.
This job paid daily—two hundred yuan per shift. I could not afford to quit.
I dialed Old Zhang.
He answered after countless rings, his voice rougher than sandpaper.
"Brother Zhang, tell me the truth. What's wrong with the third stall?"
"You used to laugh this stuff off," he rasped.
"I believe it now."
"Have you counted?"
"Counted what?"
"How many times it flushes each day."
A harsh, gurgling laugh crackled over the line.
"One hundred and forty-seven times on my final day.
One hundred and twenty-three on day two.
The number keeps rising. It's getting hungrier."
"What happens when it increases?"
"I don't know. But that last night… I heard voices in the stall.
Whispering, chanting, nonstop."
"What did it say?"
"I caught one line."
His voice dropped to a hollow murmur.
*"You take my place."*
My fingers turned icy around the phone.
I researched the restroom's history all night.
Forums, local social media, old archives.
Fragmented tragedies stacked one upon another:
- 2009: A homeless man froze to death inside.
- 2011: A middle-aged man suffered a fatal heart attack in a stall.
- 2014: A young woman died by suicide.
- 2017: A janitor hanged himself in the utility room.
And every old thread shared one cursed pattern:
Anyone who asked, *What's hidden in the third stall?* vanished entirely.
Accounts abandoned. Posts deleted. No further activity.
One 2016 post chilled me to the bone.
The author worked near the station, forced to use this restroom daily.
The third stall always stayed locked, perpetually marked **Cleaning in Progress**.
Curiosity drove them to force the door open one day. Empty. Harmless.
From that moment onward, they suffered identical nightmares:
Trapped inside the third stall, rising floodwater swallowing their body, screaming unheard.
Their final update broke my focus:
*I quit my job. But I still hear the flush everywhere.
It follows me now.*
I closed my browser, cold dread coiling in my chest.
I returned to work on day five.
Not out of bravery, but desperation.
Eviction and debt waited if I surrendered.
The third stall stood normal at six a.m.
I cleaned thoroughly, sanitizing every surface.
The thirty-seven-minute flush cycle resumed, blending into daytime crowds, muted and distant.
Until mid-afternoon.
A young mother led her young son inside.
The boy darted to the third stall, then ran back crying.
"That door locked by itself! It was open a second ago!"
The **Cleaning in Progress** sign hung once more on the latch—the sign I'd locked away in the utility room.
I removed it and opened the door for the boy.
As he left, he whispered a quiet warning.
"Mister, I hear water running in the round hole on the wall."
There were no holes—only a high ceiling vent, far out of reach.
But beneath the vent grille, I found a fresh damp water stain, cold and unexplained.
As I leaned closer, low gurgling echoed from within the wall, deep and distant, as if something sloshed through hidden pipes.
I pressed my ear to the cold tile.
The noise faded. A single drip sounded. Then silence.
When I stepped back, the stall door clicked shut behind me, locking from the inside.
The forbidden sign reappeared.
I fell violently ill on day six.
Splitting headaches, lost voice, burning fever spiking to 38.7°C.
Hallucinations haunted my ears:
endless phantom flushing, timed perfectly to that cursed thirty-seven-minute rhythm.
My sister visited, bringing medicine and porridge.
She stared at me in shock.
I'd lost nearly ten pounds in six days, gaunt and sallow, cheekbones sharp, skin gray and bloodless.
Staring in the bathroom mirror, I recognized the resemblance instantly.
I looked just like the waterlogged ghost trapped in that restroom.
I tried calling Old Zhang again that night.
No answer twice.
On the third dial, the line connected—only for a familiar, horrific flush to blast through the speaker.
I hung up in terror.
Nightmares plagued my sleep.
Trapped in the third stall, freezing floodwater climbing higher and higher, drowning me slowly.
I woke soaked through, covered in cold, unnatural moisture, not sweat.
Day seven, an invisible pull dragged me back to the restroom.
An unspoken compulsion whispered in my mind:
*Go back. Return.*
The third stall door stood fully thrown open that morning, swung wide as if deliberately left gaping.
While mopping, I discovered a thin layer of warm water coating the toilet seat, as if someone had just sat there.
Stepping toward the sink, I caught my reflection in the mirror.
Behind my shoulder, framed in the third stall doorway, stood a woman.
Drenched navy clothing clinging to her frame, water streaming endlessly from her hair and sleeves.
Her features blurred, long wet hair matted to her pale face.
Half her body lingered in the stall, half in the corridor, puddles spreading beneath her feet.
I spun around.
Nothing. Empty. Dry.
Yet in the mirror, she remained, head tilted, watching me.
Slowly, her features cleared.
Young, early twenties, eyes closed as if in endless sleep.
Water dripped steadily from her chin.
Then her eyes opened.
She mouthed four silent words.
My lips mimicked the motion against my will.
*You take my place.*
I fled immediately, abandoning my job, fleeing into the bright street.
Warm sunlight surrounded me, yet I remained ice-cold.
My clothes stayed dry—but cold condensation coated my cheeks, invisible water clinging to my skin.
I never returned.
I quit on day eight.
Station management called, demanding my return, but I ignored them.
I visited the old fortune-teller my sister recommended.
One glance, and she spoke without a single question.
"You've touched cursed water. It's attached itself to you."
"I can't see it," I said.
"It walks in your shadow. Your footprints stay soaked everywhere you step."
She sighed heavily.
"That restroom feeds on trapped spirits. Every flush is a question.
*Will you replace me? Will you take my cage?*"
"How do I break free?"
Her final question shattered my composure.
"Are you sure it's chasing you… or did you let it out?"
"The restroom is only a cage.
You lingered, listened, absorbed its darkness.
You became its exit."
She offered no cure.
Only one rule:
Abandon that district entirely. Avoid all public restrooms. Ignore every flush sound.
If the haunting persists after three months, return.
I obeyed.
I moved across the city, took a quiet supermarket job, avoided crowds and public facilities.
For two weeks, the dripping faded.
I thought I'd escaped.
Then it returned.
Not the restroom's violent flush.
A slow, endless drip.
*Drip. Drip. Drip.*
It follows me everywhere.
Last night, my shower turned freezing cold.
A long black wet hair wrapped around my finger—impossible, as I keep short hair and lived alone.
I pulled it free, tossing it in the trash.
Beneath the bin, a shallow pool of unexplained water soaked a supermarket receipt.
The date matched today.
The time read 3:47 PM.
I never arrived home until four.
Now I sit frozen in my dark bedroom, phone dying, too terrified to step into the shadowed hallway.
Wet footsteps shuffle slowly closer, squelching across damp tile.
They've stopped outside my door.
A wet, dragging scrape slides down the wooden frame.
Thin water seeps beneath the door gap, spreading across my floor.
One pale, water-swollen finger slides through the crack, retracting, reaching again.
It waits.
The fortune-teller's words echo in my mind.
I know the truth now.
It never left that restroom.
**I brought it out with me.**
My phone dies at 3%.
The hallway falls deathly silent.
Then, soft and clear, cutting through the night:
*Crash—rumble.*