My thoughts became increasingly irrational. I started wondering where it had come from. I wondered whether it had slipped through a drain. I wondered whether something had crawled into the bathroom while I was not looking.
The bathroom suddenly felt different.
A moment earlier it had been an ordinary room. It had been a place I entered without thinking.
Now every dark corner seemed suspicious.
Every damp surface looked like a possible hiding place.
Every pipe suddenly seemed like a pathway leading somewhere I did not want to imagine.
I began thinking about the people who had used the bathroom before me.
I wondered whether anyone had noticed it.
I wondered whether someone had accidentally stepped on it.
I wondered whether it had been there for hours.
I wondered whether it had appeared only recently.
The thought of accidentally touching it made my stomach turn.
I stayed away from it while trying to understand what I was seeing.
Eventually curiosity grew stronger than fear.
I carefully moved closer and examined it again.
This time I noticed something I had not seen before.
The surface did not look like plastic.
It had a strange moist texture.
Then I saw it.
A slight movement.
It was subtle so subtle that I almost convinced myself I had imagined it.
Then it moved again.
My stomach dropped.
It was not a piece of trash.
It was not rubber.
It was not some random object that had fallen onto the floor.
It was alive.
I immediately stepped back.
For a moment I stood there trying to process what I had seen.
The realization was somehow worse than the uncertainty.
I now had a new question.
What exactly was it.
I did not want to touch it.
I did not want to get any closer.
I did what most people would probably do in that situation. I started searching for answers.
I took a closer look from a distance and compared what I was seeing with pictures online. I searched descriptions of dark soft-bodied creatures that could appear in damp environments.
The more images I looked at the more familiar the shape became.
Then I found it.
A leech.
My heart sank.
A leech.
A small blood-feeding creature that I had always associated with ponds streams muddy water and places far away from an ordinary bathroom.
