“Silly little children,” the Grand Dame sneers. “Squabbling amongst yourselves, when the real danger is still near.”

“Run!” someone yells.

“Where?” another kid responds.

The Grand Dame’s voice floats around the room, circling in the shadows. She could be anywhere.

I know she is everywhere.

The shadows at the edges of the room darken. Congeal. Become a thick, heavy tar that drips down the walls and over the floor. A sludge that pushes against the abandoned lounge chairs, scraping their metal legs against the concrete.

The kids in the pool scramble for the exits, but the sludge around the pool is as fast as it is thick. It spills over the edges of the pool, down the far steps, making it impossible to get out—I watch as kids slip and slide, trying to escape but unable to get a strong hold.

“Hurry!” Rohan yells. He and Mira rush to the edge of the pool. Our end, miraculously, isn’t covered in sludge, but that clearly won’t be the case for long. It’s already seeping toward us, cutting off escape to either side. The only way out is behind us, back into the hall.

A few of the kids start to run over, but then a terrible gurgling noise comes from the drains in the pool.

The sludge

bubbles

up.

The thick black grime slurps out of the drains, achingly fast. It curls around the kids’ feet, snares them in place, or else causes them to slip and slide to their knees. Instantly, everyone in the pool is covered in black muck that rises by the second. The room is a deafening mix of screams and slurps and the Grand Dame’s triumphant cackles. Mira and Rohan desperately try to pull kids up from the sludge as it rises past their waists. But their hands are slick, and no one can get out.

Not even Bradley.

He vainly scrambles up the pool wall in front of me. His normally cruel eyes are wide with fear as his oiled fingers try again and again to grab hold of the slick ledge. Rohan and Mira are crying as the sludge nears us. They reach out for the hands of the trapped kids, but no one can gain a firm grip.

In seconds, the pool will be filled.

In seconds, the sludge will surround and consume Mira and Rohan and me, too.

I kneel down.

“Help me!” Bradley calls out.

I reach out my hand.

I’m not a monster.

I’ll prove to them I’m not a monster.

Bradley’s hand clamps around mine. I steady myself against the edge of the pool. Our grip is strong. But his palm is sweaty, and he weighs more than me, and the sludge rises past his chest, a heavy, living thing, and I can’t pull him out.

I strain.

I pull with all my might.

“Get me out!” Bradley calls. His other hand grasps for the ledge, but it’s covered in sludge and he can’t help pull himself free.

“I’m trying!” I yell back.

From the corners of my eyes, I see Mira and Rohan struggling to pull out two other kids.

Farther on, the sludge rises to my classmates’ necks. Sucking them down.

Devouring them.

Rohan looks over to me. Panic is clear in his eyes, and I hope he sees the panic in mine.

“We have to—” I call.

But I don’t finish the sentence.

With a sickening slurp, the girl in Rohan’s hands is yanked away. Sucked under. The poor girl only has time for one quick squeak before she disappears completely under the black.

Rohan falls back to his butt and then scrambles to his feet.

Coming to help.

I look down at Bradley.

“Please,” Bradley says. “Please help. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t—”

The sludge yanks him.

Our grips slip.

Bradley’s eyes widen in fear. In recognition.

Just as Rohan comes to help me, Bradley is pulled under the blackness. Never to be seen again.