Stream | By Olivia Salter | Horror

Stream

By Olivia Salter

Word Count: 2,397

When Jason’s stomach churned and the sharp urge to relieve himself hit, he thought it was nothing more than the burrito from last night. But what followed in the bathroom wasn’t just nausea or indigestion. Something waited in the water—small, invisible, and terrifyingly alive.

The air in Jason’s apartment clung to him, thick with the lingering stench of sweat and old food. The fluorescent bathroom light flickered overhead, casting eerie shadows across the cracked tiles. His bladder throbbed painfully as he zipped down and leaned over the toilet. He sighed, feeling the familiar relief as the steady stream of urine hit the bowl.

Then, something strange happened.

The water seemed to ripple unnaturally, not with the splash of his urine but… something else. Something beneath the surface.

Jason froze. His eyes darted to the water, squinting in the dim light, convinced that he had imagined it. It was just a regular toilet, dirty from neglect, the porcelain chipped and stained. But there, floating lazily in the bowl, were thin, worm-like shapes. They swirled in the water, as though awakened by his presence, their translucent bodies barely visible.

“What the hell?” Jason muttered, his pulse quickening. He stepped back, shaking the last few drops and quickly zipping up. The sense of relief from moments ago was replaced by a crawling sensation up his spine.

He flushed the toilet. The water swirled in violent spirals, dragging the worms down with it. They vanished as the tank refilled, and the water settled back to its usual placid state.

He stared at it for a long moment. Maybe he was still groggy from his late night at the bar. Lack of sleep could mess with anyone’s senses. A few hours and a strong coffee would set things right.

As Jason stepped out of the bathroom, the crawling sensation lingered.

***

The next morning, Jason groaned as the alarm uttered a high-pitched piercing sound from the bedside table. His body felt heavy, weighed down by a soreness he couldn’t explain. The night had been restless, filled with fragmented dreams he couldn’t recall. Only a vague memory of cold water and squirming shapes stuck with him.

Stumbling to the bathroom, he splashed his face with water, trying to shake the fog from his mind. But as he leaned over the sink, the pale reflection staring back at him startled him. His eyes, once a deep brown, were now ringed with red, dark bags hanging heavy beneath them. His skin had a pale, almost waxy sheen to it.

“Damn, I look like death,” he muttered. He splashed more water on his face, rubbing his neck where an uncomfortable tightness had set in overnight.

And then, a sharp, stabbing pain shot through his groin. Jason’s breath hitched, and he clutched his abdomen, wincing. The pain was brief but intense, a hot needle-like sensation. He bent over, gasping for air, feeling sweat break out across his forehead.

This time, he felt more than just discomfort. His mind flashed back to those worms in the toilet. He had flushed them away, hadn’t he? But the image of them squirming, tiny and writhing, resurfaced, and a nauseating dread crept into his chest.

Jason rushed back to the toilet, lifting the lid. The water was clear, as it always had been, but his skin tingled just looking at it.

“Come on, get a grip,” he muttered, willing his mind to settle. But the pain in his abdomen disagreed.

As the day wore on, the unease only worsened. The throbbing in his groin persisted, coupled with a strange, crawling itch beneath his skin. No amount of scratching relieved it, and by mid-afternoon, Jason found himself unable to sit still, fidgeting, tugging at his clothes, and rubbing his arms raw.

He couldn’t help but remember those translucent worms swirling in the toilet bowl. He had written them off as some harmless drain infestation, but now... what if they weren’t?

***

Jason’s breaking point came that night. The pain intensified into an unbearable tightness, and he felt something under his skin, moving. The sensation was unmistakable now. Whatever had crawled out of that toilet had found its way into him.

Desperate and panicked, he tore his clothes off and rushed to the bathroom mirror, inspecting every inch of his body. There, on his lower abdomen, just above his pelvic bone, something pulsed beneath the surface. It shifted slightly, moving side to side in a rhythmic motion.

“Oh god… what the hell…” Jason whispered, his voice trembling. His fingers hovered over the lump, shaking. He pressed down, hard, and screamed.

A thin, clear liquid oozed from his skin, followed by something worse—small, writhing worms emerging from the opening. They were translucent, nearly invisible, but there they were, twisting and burrowing beneath his skin, retreating just as quickly as they had surfaced.

Jason retched, stumbling backward into the tub. His heart pounded against his ribs, and he clutched the edges of the sink to steady himself.

The worms were inside him.

***

He didn’t bother with the hospital. They wouldn’t believe him, wouldn’t understand. He was sure they’d diagnose him with some kind of delusion. But he wasn’t delusional. He could feel them, gnawing at his insides, twisting beneath his skin.

Jason sat on the floor of his bathroom, shaking, clutching his head in his hands as the crawling sensation became unbearable. His eyes darted to the toilet, and the grotesque reality hit him.

The parasites weren’t just in the toilet. They were in the water, in the pipes. They had been waiting for someone to use the toilet, waiting for the warmth of a body to draw them out.

He thought of all the times he had flushed it away, thinking it was over. Each time he relieved himself, he had unknowingly exposed himself to them. They traveled through his urine, into his body, nesting, multiplying.

Jason’s stomach turned. He had to get rid of them. Somehow.

With trembling hands, he grabbed a kitchen knife from the drawer and stood in front of the bathroom mirror, eyes wide and bloodshot, staring at his reflection. The lump in his abdomen had grown larger, more defined. He could see the parasites writhing under his skin, like worms trapped in a plastic bag.

He gritted his teeth and brought the blade to his stomach. Blood welled up immediately as he sliced into his skin, the pain sharp and immediate. He gagged as a thin stream of pus and blood oozed from the cut, and then—they began to emerge.

Dozens of tiny, translucent worms wriggled out of the wound, their slippery bodies wet with blood. Jason screamed, clawing at them, trying to crush them between his fingers, but they slipped away, disappearing down the drain or burrowing deeper into his flesh.

Panting and covered in his own blood, Jason collapsed to the floor, too weak to fight. The pain was unbearable, a burning fire coursing through his veins as the parasites continued their invasion.

His vision blurred, the room spinning. He could feel them, inside his bloodstream now, invading every part of his body. His head lolled to the side, eyes fixing on the toilet.

In the dim light, the water rippled again.

This time, it wasn’t just the translucent worms that swirled beneath the surface. The water itself seemed alive, pulsing and undulating like a living thing. As Jason's consciousness faded, he realized, with sickening clarity, that the toilet had been the source all along. It wasn’t just a host for the parasites—it was their gateway.

The last thing he heard before everything went black was the sound of the toilet flushing.

***

The maintenance worker wiped his brow, oblivious to the faint shiver that passed through the building’s water pipes. He shut the door behind him and stepped into the hallway, his boots squeaking on the faded linoleum. As he left, the bathroom returned to its still, eerie quiet. The toilet gurgled softly, the way old plumbing systems often did. And below, far beneath the floorboards, in the tangle of sewage lines, something pulsated.

A few floors down, inside apartment 3B, Elise hummed a familiar tune as she prepared dinner. The evening was quiet—too quiet, really—and she was grateful for it. Life had been stressful lately: work deadlines, a sick mother, and the constant pressure to stay afloat in a city that seemed ready to swallow her whole. She hadn't felt this relaxed in weeks.

But the gnawing sensation in her bladder was becoming impossible to ignore. She put the kitchen knife down and wiped her hands on a dish towel, walking to the bathroom in a daze. The air in the hallway was thick, heavy with a humidity she hadn’t noticed before. Maybe the building’s heating system was on the fritz again.

She turned on the light and lifted the toilet lid, not bothering to look inside. Her mind was elsewhere—on tomorrow's tasks, on her mother’s condition. The flow of her urine was steady, splashing against the water below. Elise sighed, closing her eyes.

The water rippled.

Her urine, too, rippled—subtle, barely noticeable—but something under the surface of the water stirred, responding. A faint shimmer, barely perceptible, formed tiny waves along the bowl’s edge, moving in circular patterns.

Elise shuddered, but didn’t know why. A sudden chill ran up her spine, goosebumps prickling her arms. She quickly finished and flushed the toilet, shaking off the unease.

As she washed her hands, a slight discomfort bubbled in her lower abdomen. A cramp, maybe, or the aftereffects of sitting too long at work. Nothing to worry about.

She hadn’t noticed the flicker in the corner of her vision—the faint, nearly invisible shapes squirming just beneath the surface of the toilet water before it flushed away.

***

The next morning, Elise woke with a deep ache in her belly. She sat up, frowning at the dull throb that had settled just below her navel. She stretched, trying to ease the stiffness, but the sensation persisted, a pulsing tightness that made her wince.

Something wasn’t right. She could feel it.

She stumbled out of bed, padding across the cold floor to the bathroom, her mind fogged with drowsiness. In the mirror, her reflection startled her—paler than usual, with dark rings under her eyes. And then she noticed the faint swelling, a slight but noticeable lump forming just above her pelvis.

Elise frowned, pressing a hand to her abdomen. A sharp sting made her jerk her hand back. She blinked, squinting at the skin.

Beneath the surface, something moved.

Her breath hitched. No, it had to be a trick of the light. Her mind was playing games with her. But as she leaned closer to the mirror, she saw it again. The lump beneath her skin shifted, a slow, wriggling motion, as though something was crawling underneath.

She let out a strangled gasp, backing away, her hands trembling. What the hell was that?

Panic rose in her chest. Her fingers clawed at her skin, trying to press down on the movement, but the more she pushed, the more it seemed to agitate whatever was inside her. Her stomach churned violently as though something was moving, stretching, growing beneath the surface.

Elise turned toward the toilet, remembering the slight shudder in the water, the way it had rippled unnaturally last night. She thought of the dull ache she’d felt since then and now, looking at the growing lump, her mind connected the dots with terrifying clarity.

The parasites were inside her.

Her knees buckled as nausea washed over her, bile rising in her throat. She collapsed to the floor, gripping the edge of the sink to steady herself, but the sensation in her abdomen intensified. The crawling, squirming motion was growing stronger.

Her stomach rippled.

“Oh God, no…” she whimpered, her voice shaking. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she doubled over, clutching her midsection, her body trembling uncontrollably.

She could feel them now—hundreds, maybe thousands—tiny, thin creatures writhing beneath her skin. Her vision blurred with tears, and her breath came in ragged gasps as the realization hit her.

They were trying to get out.

***

In her panic, Elise fumbled for her phone. Her fingers slipped as she dialed 911, the shrill tone of the line ringing in her ear. She couldn’t stop shaking. The pain was unbearable now, her insides roiling with the parasites.

The operator picked up. “911, what’s your emergency?”

“Please… please help me,” Elise sobbed into the phone. “There’s something inside me… something’s moving in my stomach…”

“Ma’am, can you tell me your location? We’ll send—”

She never heard the rest of the sentence.

A searing pain tore through her abdomen, and Elise screamed, dropping the phone. She clutched her stomach, feeling something beneath the skin, pressing outward. It was moving, crawling toward the surface. Her skin stretched grotesquely, and she cried out again as the thin, transparent shape of a worm pushed through the surface, breaking her skin.

Blood and clear fluid oozed from the wound as the parasite emerged—long, translucent, and writhing. More followed, slipping out of her flesh like threads pulled from a needle, each one wriggling, alive.

Elise’s vision swam, the pain overwhelming her senses. She tried to scream, but no sound came out. Her body convulsed as the parasites spilled from her stomach, slithering down her legs, their thin bodies glistening with blood.

Her consciousness faded as she collapsed onto the cold bathroom floor, the writhing creatures crawling over her, retreating back toward the toilet. The last thing she saw before darkness claimed her was the water in the toilet bowl, rippling.

***

A knock echoed through the empty hallway. It was the same maintenance worker, clipboard in hand, his face expressionless as he noted the complaint for "strange smells" and "weird plumbing issues."

"Third time this week," he muttered, stepping inside the apartment. The smell hit him immediately—foul, like something had died. He frowned, heading toward the bathroom, the source of the stench.

He lifted the toilet lid. The water inside was murky, the faintest ripple disturbing the surface. A glimmer of something moved below.

He flushed it away without a second thought.

The pipes groaned, echoing throughout the building. Somewhere, far beneath the city, the network of sewage lines pulsed. The parasites waited.

And they were still hungry.