We got caught in a sudden downpour during our weekend getaway. By the time we finally made it back to the hotel, my best friend was already shivering and complaining. “I swear my brain is completely waterlogged,” Polly grumbled, tossing her damp jacket onto the armchair. “Who in their right mind decides to go sightseeing in a storm like this?” “Then why don’t you just pour the water out?” I replied absentmindedly, throwing our room key onto the dresser. Polly paused and nodded seriously. Tilting her head to the side, she began wiggling her finger deep inside her ear canal, wincing slightly as if she were actually trying to drain her skull. I smiled, waiting for the punchline. But in the next second, my heart skipped a beat. A thick, steady stream of liquid began to pour from her ear. It wasn’t just a few stray droplets—it was a heavy, rushing flow. And it wasn’t clear. It was a dark, sickly crimson, thick with the unmistakable scent of copper. Blood. My eyes stretched wide, a cold knot of terror tightening in my chest. “Polly… what… what are you doing?” Polly stared straight at me, her eyes completely blank, though a flicker of mild confusion crossed her face. “What’s wrong, babe?” she asked, her voice perfectly casual. “We got absolutely soaked out there. Aren’t you going to drain yours?” 1 I stood frozen, barely two feet away from Polly. I could only watch in mute horror as the bloody water continued to cascade from her ear like a miniature, grotesque fountain, pooling onto the cheap carpet. Yet, she didn’t show even a flicker of discomfort. In fact, she looked at me with genuine, helpful encouragement, as if emptying a pint of bloody fluid from your skull was as routine as brushing your teeth. “What are you waiting for?” Polly nudged, tilting her head the other way. Another splash of crimson sloshed out, splattering onto the floorboards. “Doesn’t it feel heavy in there?” Every instinct in my body screamed that the thing standing in front of me was not human. I dug my fingernails deep into my palms, the sharp sting of pain anchoring me to reality. I forced my lips to stretch into a tight, artificial smile. “I… I had my umbrella up most of the time,” I stammered. “My head actually feels fine. I don’t think there’s any water in there.” It was just the two of us in this cramped hotel room. If she—if it—realized I was different, I had no idea what would happen. I had to play along. She shrugged, seemingly satisfied with my answer, and climbed onto the king-sized bed. Within seconds, she was scrolling through TikTok. When a video of a shirtless fitness influencer popped up, she gasped and giggled, turning the screen toward me just like she always did. “Oh my god, Mandy, look at those abs,” she sighed, shaking her head. “If I ever strike it rich, I’m buying a dozen of him.” In that moment, she was entirely normal. She was the same girl I’d grown up with, the hopeless romantic, the dork who shared her fries and her deepest secrets. I swallowed the lump in my throat, carefully sitting on the very edge of the mattress. “Hey, Polly? I’m kind of starving. I was thinking of ordering some oyster chowder from the place downstairs. Do you want some?” Polly immediately dropped her phone, her eyes narrowing in irritation. “Are you serious, Mandy? You know I have a massive shellfish allergy. Your family literally sent me to the ER for a week when we were kids because of those lobster rolls! How could you forget that?” I mumbled a frantic apology, but my mind was spinning out of control. This thing had Polly’s memories. It had her exact personality, her history, her outrage. What was it? Was I losing my mind? Was the bloody puddle on the floor just a stress-induced hallucination? No. The dark, copper-scented stain was still there, slowly soaking into the beige fibers of the hotel carpet. It was entirely real. I waited until Polly was distracted by another video, then grabbed an empty plastic water bottle from the nightstand. I knelt down, scooped a sample of the bloody water into it, and made a quick excuse. “I’m just going to run down to the lobby and grab a soda from the vending machine.” The moment the elevator doors closed, I pulled out my phone with trembling hands and dialed 911. “There’s something wrong… my friend, she’s not herself. I think she’s been replaced. Someone hurt her…” The dispatcher told me officers would arrive in ten minutes. I couldn’t bear the thought of going back up to the room, so I shrank into one of the plush velvet armchairs in the lobby, shivering. The middle-aged receptionist, a woman named Marsha, noticed my pale face and walked over. “Are you alright, dear? Do you need some help?” I nodded quickly, holding up the plastic bottle. I wanted her to look at it, to validate that it was indeed blood, to tell me I wasn’t crazy. But before I could utter a single word, Marsha reached out, took the bottle from my hand, unscrewed the cap, and drank it. 2 “What… what did you just do?” My voice cracked, a high-pitched squeak of pure terror. Marsha wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, looking thoroughly refreshed. “It’s brain-water, isn’t it? Rich and metallic. Delicious. Why else would you offer it to me?” My stomach turned. I wanted to vomit. She had just swallowed a bottle of bloody brain-water like it was a morning juice cleanse. And no one else in the lobby even blinked. The bellhop, the couple checking in, the family sitting near the fireplace—no one cared. It was perfectly, terrifyingly normal to them. My head throbbed. It wasn’t just Polly. Everyone here was wrong. But what about the police? What about the officers who were on their way? Suddenly, a bloodcurdling scream shattered the lobby’s quiet ambiance. “You’re all insane! This is sick!” I whipped my head around. A woman in disheveled pajamas burst out of the elevator, sobbing, her eyes wild with panic. Behind her, a man in a business suit casually walked out, holding his own eyeball in his hand, trying to pop it back into his socket like a loose contact lens. She was like me. A normal human. Terrified out of her mind. I wanted to run to her, to hold her, but my survival instinct screamed at me to freeze. What happened to the ones who broke character? Marsha and two other hotel staff members immediately lunged at the screaming woman, pinning her to the floor. Right then, the police cruisers pulled up, sirens wailing. The staff handed her over to the officers. “Officer, we’ve got another lunatic here,” Marsha said, smoothing down her skirt. “She’s hysterical, claiming we can’t take our organs out. Can you believe it? How else are we supposed to clean them when they get dirty?” The officer nodded grimly, clicking handcuffs around her wrists. “Don’t worry. We’ll take her to the facility for correction. She’ll be back to normal soon.” Correction. What did “normal” mean to them? Popping out eyes and washing them like dirty laundry? A cold dread settled deep in my bones. My phone suddenly buzzed in my hand, making me jump. It was the police dispatcher calling me back, but the officer standing in the lobby saw my screen light up. He walked toward me, his boots clicking heavily on the marble floor. “Are you the one who called about a domestic disturbance?” I swallowed hard, forcing my facial muscles to relax. “Oh… yes, Officer. But it was a complete misunderstanding. My friend is perfectly fine.” The officer’s eyes narrowed, sharp and calculating. “A misunderstanding? You sounded convinced she had been replaced. What exactly did you see?” 3 Panic gripped my throat. I didn’t know how to answer. When I called, I had told them there was a “strange creature” in my room. That meant they were already looking for anomalies. If they suspected me, I’d be thrown into that police car and taken to the “correction” facility. I had to speak their language. I had to pretend I was one of them. “I… I was just confused,” I stammered, offering a sheepish laugh. “We got caught in the rain, and I had already drained my brain-water. But when I looked at Polly, she was just sitting there, not doing it. I thought she was losing her mind, behaving like one of those ‘un-drained’ crazies. I panicked. But then I realized she was just wearing noise-canceling headphones, listening to an audiobook. Once she took them off, she tilted her head and drained her ears right in front of me. We had so much left over, we even shared some with Marsha at the front desk. Right, Marsha?” Marsha smiled, licking a faint smear of dried copper from her lip. “That’s right, Officer. Quite a tasty batch, too.” The officer’s tense posture relaxed slightly. “I see. Good. It pays to be vigilant. Those lunatics are a threat to public safety. Show me to your room, though. Just a quick welfare check and I’ll be out of your hair.” If he saw Polly, and she didn’t play along with my specific story, or if he saw through me… Suddenly, a loud crash echoed from outside. The pajama-clad woman had broken free from the police cruiser, her forehead bleeding as she scrambled across the wet asphalt. “I am not crazy! You’re monsters! All of you! If you rip out your heart, you die!” Her voice was raw, filled with a desperate, agonizing truth that echoed my own silent thoughts. But I couldn’t help her. To survive, I had to mock her. “Wow,” I said, forcing a mocking chuckle. “She really is far gone, isn’t she? Are there really that many of them, Officer?” “Not for long,” the officer muttered, turning on his heel to chase after her. The moment he was gone, I practically ran to the elevator, my clothes soaked in cold sweat. Back in the room, Polly was still scrolling on her phone. “Where’s the food?” she asked without looking up. “A crazy woman was making a scene in the lobby. The police locked the place down. Total nightmare,” I lied, collapsing onto my bed. I couldn’t sleep that night. Every time Polly snored, my heart leaped into my throat. Who was I living with? What had happened to my world? At 3:00 AM, staring at my phone screen in the dark, I searched desperately for any keywords related to the “crazy people.” Finally, deep in a hidden thread on an obscure forum, I found a post written in a complex cipher. Fortunately, my background in cryptography made it easy to crack. Is there anyone left out there? Anyone who hasn’t been turned into them? 4 My fingers trembled as I typed a reply. What do you mean? What monsters are you talking about? The reply came almost instantly. If you’re asking, you already know. If you don’t trust me, ignore this. My heart hammered against my ribs. I trust you. Please. The world has gone mad. I need to know what’s happening before I lose my mind. The user sent a coordinates link to an address in a neighboring state, then went completely offline. The next morning, I packed my bag with trembling hands. “Polly, my mom just called. There’s an emergency at home, I have to take the first train back,” I lied. “I’ll Venmo you for my half of the hotel.” I fled to the train station. Outside the terminal, my Uber driver finished his cigarette, casually unbuttoned his shirt, pulled his lungs out of his chest cavity, and shook them out to clear the soot before stuffing them back in. I swallowed my vomit, kept my face completely blank, and got into the passenger seat. At the station, I saw the pajama-clad woman from the hotel. Had she escaped? I felt a surge of hope and took a step toward her. But before I could speak, she paused, reached into her eye sockets, pulled out both eyeballs, wiped them on her sleeve, and popped them back in. The man from the elevator walked up, wrapping an arm around her waist. “Honey, thank god. You’re finally back to normal.” She smiled, looking slightly dazed. “Did something happen? I feel fine.” She had been “corrected.” Her memories of the truth were wiped. She was one of them now. I backed away, my blood turning to ice. I couldn’t let anyone know. Not my parents, who had texted me earlier saying, Your heart has been acting up, Mandy. Make sure you take it out and check the valves tonight. Not my boyfriend. No one. I arrived at the coordinates. It was a run-down diner in a quiet town. A man was sitting in the corner booth, wearing a heavy trench coat and a low-brimmed hat despite the warmth. His voice was a dry, exhausted rasp. “Are you BlueJay99?” I nodded, sliding into the booth. “I’m Mandy. Please, you have to tell me. What is happening to everyone?” He looked at me, his eyes hollowed out by a deep, eternal fatigue. “In forty-eight hours,” he whispered, “you’re going to become one of them, too.”
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