Dr. NoSleep

What?

A pause.

The voice spoke again and stilted, slow barks.

The toy?

From across the room, he heard porcelain rattling, heavy ceramic clattering as if something was jiggling the toilet lid.

He dropped the phone and hurried, stumbling over trash and yellow coverless pillows in the dark into the tiny bathroom.

A tentacle.

A long, pinkish-gray tentacle as smooth as the ceramic that contained it was pushing its way out of the toilet.

It pulsed and throbbed, rising from the bowl in a single bundled lump of suction cups and veins before spilling out onto the floor with a wet splat.

He almost vomited at the way it unfurled itself, its flesh sticky and covered with stinking sewage and clear strings of some salty, viscous fluid.

For a moment it laid on the floor, squirming and trembling, before immediately darting out to wrap around his feet.

One single deft motion cut off his scream as it pulled him clean off his feet.

He fell backward, and in the attempt to straighten himself, instead fell to the right, banging his head on the bathtub.

The tentacle pulled him along the floor, the mucus burning as the suction cups dug tiny fibrous teeth into his skin.

They're attacking me now!

he thought, desperately fighting through the pain and terror to cling to the tub.

But was the person on the phone warning him?

Was he part of them?

Why would he tell them anything then?

These questions would have to wait.