Chapter 3
OLIVIA
Iwake up in the same clothes I wore yesterday.
The smell of dried extinguisher foam and cold sweat clings to me like shame.
My hair’s a rat’s nest, my mouth tastes like battery acid, and I haven’t slept—not really.
Every time I started to drift off, I’d hear it again.
That chittering. That thing. My brain keeps replaying the explosion of the door, the way its eyes locked onto mine like it had been waiting for me specifically.
But it’s morning now. Light is a kind of armor, right?
I force myself into jeans, a fresh sweater, and the kind of ponytail that says “I give a damn, but only because I have to.” I make it halfway through brushing my teeth before I check my phone.
Bad move.
The headline pops up immediately:
CRYPTID COLONOSCOPY: Local Librarian Reports Two-Faced Toilet Monster.
Beneath it, a freeze-frame of me mid-interview—eyes wide, mouth open, fire extinguisher foam on my sleeve. I look like I just crawled out of a meth dream.
There’s already a TikTok remix. A dozen memes. One gif of me saying, “It had TWO faces!” looped to the sound of a toilet flushing and a fart horn.
My stomach lurches.
I make the mistake of checking the comments.
“Someone’s been hitting the banned book section too hard.”
“Girl saw her own reflection and panicked.”
“Miss Wilkins got possessed by the plumbing poltergeist!”
I drop the phone like it burns.
Then I pick it back up and go to work anyway.
When I pull into the library parking lot, there’s a cherry-picker in front of the building, a construction crew already patching the busted window. Caution tape flutters in the wind like an afterthought.
Inside, the scent of plaster, drywall dust, and scorched wiring mingles with old books and floor polish. It’s a cocktail of “we survived something” and “you still gotta clock in.”
Peggy Sue is behind the front desk, coffee in one hand and a look of maternal suspicion in the other.
“Olivia,” she says slowly, like my name’s suddenly a diagnosis. “You sure you wanna be here today?”
“I’m fine,” I lie, setting my bag down harder than I mean to. “It’s not like the ghost of Elvis is gonna pop out of the plumbing again.”
Peggy snorts, but it’s not exactly a laugh. “You smell like fear and bad decisions.”
“Better than what I smelled last night.”
She eyes me. “The cops said there was no physical evidence of anything… otherworldly. Just broken glass and a terrified librarian. That’s their wording.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I’m just saying, maybe take a day. Let the memes cool down. Internet has a short attention span.”
“So do I,” I snap, then soften. “Sorry. I just... I can’t sit home all day wondering if everyone in town thinks I’m crazy. I need something to do.”
Peggy looks like she wants to argue, but instead she sighs and hands me the keys to the AV room. “Fine. But if you see anything with more than one face today, you scream and I’ll throw the coffee.”
I manage a weak smile. “Deal.”
By noon, I’ve heard the phrase “Bathroom Beast” eight separate times.
Some guy from Public Works walks past and says, “Don’t let the two-headed toilet demon bite ya!” followed by a wheezing laugh like a busted radiator.
Three teenage girls come in just to giggle near the bathroom and take selfies. I catch one of them whispering, “Is that her?” like I’m a wax dummy in a haunted house attraction.
Booger and Burnout show up after lunch with matching homemade T-shirts that read:
I SURVIVED THE CRYPTID COLONOSCOPY OF 2025.
I raise an eyebrow. “Where did you even get those printed?”
Burnout grins. “Mister Felix at the screen shop owes my mom a favor. She caught him peeing behind the bowling alley and didn’t report it.”
Booger adds, “I added the toilet seat halo. For branding.”
“You two are not helping.”
“Oh, we believe you,” Burnout says, suddenly serious. “We know what you saw was real. You looked like you’d been through Vietnam.”
I blink. “That’s… actually kinda sweet. And unsettling.”
“Also we’re starting a club,” Booger says. “Cryptid Hunters of Walnut Falls. CHOWF.”
“Chowf,” I echo.
“Yeah,” Burnout says. “We meet Thursdays. We’re gonna do recon near the sewer drains.”
“I hate how much I believe you.”
They beam like golden retrievers with half a clue.
I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to focus on my tasks—shelving books, processing returns, organizing a display for banned books week that now feels far too ironic. Every time someone walks through the door, my shoulders tense. Every time a pipe groans in the wall, I flinch.
And every time someone says something like, “Hey, did the monster use the Dewey Decimal system or just ask for the occult section?” I smile a little less.
By closing time, I’m exhausted. Mentally, emotionally, and physically.
And I know tomorrow’s going to be worse.
“I’m staying this time,” Peggy says firmly, arms crossed over her chest like she’s challenging me to argue.
“You really don’t have to.”
“Last night you got ambushed by a toilet monster, Liv.”
“I think we’ve established it came out of the toilet, not from it,” I mutter.
Peggy stares. “That’s not a counterpoint.”
I give her my best tired smile. “Look. I appreciate it, I do. But what are the odds of it happening again?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Is that a rhetorical question? Or have you just gone full Final Girl on me?”
I exhale and shake my head. “You don’t believe me either.”
“What?” she says too quickly. “No, I— Look, I believe you believe it.”
“That’s exactly what people say right before they schedule an intervention.”
Peggy softens, her sarcasm draining just enough to show the worry underneath. “I’m not trying to be a jerk, Liv. But you didn’t sleep. You’re shaking like a leaf in a wind tunnel. Maybe… a quiet night here isn’t the best medicine.”
“Maybe it is,” I say. “I need normal. I need familiar. And honestly? I need to not look like a charity case.”
Peggy studies me for a long moment, then relents. “Fine. But you text me the second something weird happens. Not after. Not ‘when you’re sure.’ Immediately.”
“Scout’s honor.”
“You were never a scout.”
“Then it means even more.”
She rolls her eyes and heads out, but not before grabbing the fire extinguisher from behind the desk and placing it like a trophy beside the computer monitor. “Just in case. Again.”
Closing goes slower than usual. Every creak makes me jump. Every shadow feels like a prelude to chittering madness. But nothing happens. No monsters. No voices. No creepy girls with cell phones doing TikToks by the urinal.
Just books. Dust. And me.
I finish the sweep, double-check the doors, and turn off the main lights. The glow from the EXIT sign bathes the lobby in an eerie red. The library feels… hollow. Like something’s missing. Or waiting.
“Alright,” I mutter. “No ghosts, no goblins. No—”
The men’s room door explodes outward.
Again.
“OH COME ON—”
But it’s not splinters and claws this time. The door doesn't disintegrate into confetti. It slams open with force, yeah—but the man who comes barreling out is all solid, all mass, all heat and muscle and motion.
He’s huge. Not just tall—built. The kind of powerful that looks sculpted by war gods and punishment.
Skin like burnished green stone, hair braided back in thick cords, sharp tusks framing a face that shouldn’t be beautiful but is.
There’s a scar cutting across his jaw and a snarl on his lips, and my body goes into DEFCON 1 before my brain can process why.
He’s speaking. Loud. Fast. Angry.
Not English.
It rolls from him in a guttural cascade of consonants and deep, shaking vowels that hit like thundercracks. I don’t know the words, but I know the tone—this man is pissed and determined and utterly sure of himself. It’s the sound of a storm walking on two legs.
“Whoa—HEY!” I yell, backing up, fumbling behind the desk for the extinguisher. “You can’t just burst out of—again—what even IS this bathroom?! A rift in space-time?!”
He ignores me. Or doesn’t understand me. His eyes—sharp, amber, animal—lock onto mine. I swear the world tilts.
He stalks toward me, one hand gripping a long, black weapon—some kind of twisted spear. Not a gun. Not a blade. But I don’t care what it is, because I’m cornered again.
He grabs me.
Not hard. Not painful. But firm. Like I might vanish if he lets go. His hands are rough and warm and cover half my torso, one around my waist, the other braced on my shoulder. I open my mouth to scream, to fight.
He kisses me.
Just—kisses me.
What the hell?
It’s not gentle. It’s not soft. But it’s not hungry either. It’s… deliberate. Heat blooms across my lips, down my spine, radiating outward like lightning in my bloodstream. The room pulses once. Something unseen shifts—like the very air has been rewired.
He pulls back.
My hand shoots up on instinct and slaps him.
Hard.
“What the HELL—!”
He blinks once. Then speaks.
In perfect, accented English:
“I do now.”
I freeze. “What?”
“I speak your tongue,” he says. “Thanks to the Kiss of Communion.”
“The what now?”
He straightens, releasing me but not stepping back. His brow furrows, like I’m the unreasonable one here. “You were panicking. I needed to understand you. You needed to understand me. The spell works fastest with physical contact.”
“You—you magicked me with a kiss?!”
“Yes.”
“That’s not okay!”
“I was in haste.”
“You were in my face!”
He says nothing for a moment. Then: “I will admit... I did enjoy the spell a great deal.”
I open my mouth, then close it.
Then open it again.
And then point a shaky finger at him. “You—you didn’t even ask for my number first, jerk!”
“Who are you calling a jerk?” he asks, actually sounding offended.
“You kissed me! With no warning! You burst out of a toilet portal and mouth-attacked me!”
“It was a communication spell!”
“That’s what all the creeps say!”
He pauses.
Slowly, he nods.
“…You’re right. That was dishonorable. I should’ve asked permission.”
I blink. “Wait, what?”