My brother Joel and I were supposed to be behaving.
That was the rule Dad laid down when we checked into the motel—no running, no yelling, no splashing strangers. But it was July, the sun was still hanging on at seven in the evening, and the pool was empty except for us. Rules soften when no one’s watching.
Joel kicked my inner tube hard enough to spin me sideways.
“Eat water, idiot,” he said, laughing.
I retaliated with the foam noodle, smacking his shoulder. He yelped, overacted, and dunked himself on purpose. When he came back up, slick hair plastered to his forehead, he grinned at me like he always did when he was about to cheat.
“Bet you won’t knock me off,” he said.
I leaned back, wound up—
—and hit something I hadn’t seen.
The noodle didn’t splash the way it should have. It made a soft, rubbery thud, like striking stretched fabric. The water barely rippled.
I froze.
Right in front of me, standing chest-deep in the pool, was a shape.
At first I thought it was a trick of the light. The pool lights were on even though it wasn’t dark yet, and the surface shimmered with reflections of clouds and palm fronds. But this wasn’t that.
This thing had edges.
It stood upright, tall and narrow, its surface smooth and glassy, like a person cut out of water and polished. It reflected the pool around it—but wrong. The reflections lagged, bending and sliding like they were being pulled toward its center.
The place where a face should be showed my own expression back at me.
Stretched.
I swallowed. “Oh—sorry.”
The word slipped out before my brain caught up.
The thing quivered.
Not stepped back. Not recoiled.
It responded.
A tremor passed through its surface, as if I’d tapped a wine glass and set it ringing.
My stomach dropped.
I paddled backward, laughing nervously, trying to aim another hit at Joel like nothing was wrong.
“I’m gonna—”
I sneezed.
It was sharp and sudden, snapping my head back and making my eyes water. When I looked forward again, the thing was closer.
Too close.
The reflection it showed wasn’t mine anymore.
It was Joel’s.
He was still a few feet away, floating on his tube, but there he was—his face mapped onto the thing’s surface. His mouth curved into a smile that didn’t match what he was actually doing. His real body was still laughing, still splashing.
The reflected Joel looked hungry.
A cold, crawling weight slid outward from my chest, thick and sour, like something leaking into me. The air smelled faintly of bile and chlorine.
I gripped the noodle until my knuckles hurt.
“What the hell is that?” I muttered.
Joel stopped laughing.
He followed my gaze, eyes narrowing. Then his face drained of color.
“Oh,” he whispered.
The thing rippled again.
This time, it leaned.
Joel screamed.
Dad’s voice cut across the pool deck. “Hey! What are you two—”
I gasped, lungs seizing as if I’d been underwater too long.
“It’s here!” I yelled. “The thing!”
Dad’s footsteps slapped against concrete. He came to the pool edge, squinting.
“What thing?”
Joel’s screaming turned into choking sobs. He kicked wildly, trying to get away, but the water around the shape thickened, dragging at him like syrup.
Dad’s shoulders sagged.
He sneezed.
It was a dry, tired sound, like his body was bracing for something unpleasant.
“Oh,” he said softly. “That.”
My heart slammed. “You see it?”
He nodded once. “Get out of the pool.”
I lunged for the edge, fingers scraping tile. Dad grabbed my arm and hauled me up, strength sharp with panic. My legs tangled, tube popping free as I rolled onto the deck.
Behind me, Joel shrieked.
The thing had turned fully toward him. Its surface brightened, clarifying his reflection. The mirrored Joel pressed his hands against the inside of it, palms flattening as if against glass.
A tear slid down the reflected cheek.
The real Joel thrashed, mouth opening in a soundless cry as the water around his waist churned.
Dad shoved a noodle into my hands. “Don’t look away.”
“What?” I sobbed. “What do we do?”
His jaw clenched. “We don’t let it think it’s alone.”
The thing’s surface split.
Not open—parted—like wet clay being pulled apart. Inside was darkness and a grin made of broken reflections. Teeth shaped from tiles, light, eyes, mouths.
It clamped onto Joel’s leg.
The sound wasn’t like biting meat.
It was like stepping on ice that gives way.
Joel screamed once, high and thin, then the water swallowed it. Blood clouded the pool, blooming red, sucked toward the thing’s center.
I screamed his name until my throat burned.
The thing drank him.
Pulled him down in a single, eager motion, the water collapsing inward with a greedy gulp.
Then it stilled.
A voice drifted up from beneath the surface. Not Joel’s. Not anyone’s.
“Thank you,” it sighed.
I don’t remember leaving the pool area.
I remember sitting on a plastic chair, knees tucked to my chest, watching the water settle. Watching the blood thin, swirl, disappear into the filters like it had never been there.
Dad stood beside me, one arm draped over my shoulders.
“You okay, kid?” he asked.
I nodded because shaking my head felt impossible.
“Good,” he said. “You did great.”
My teeth chattered.
“Mom…” I started. “Mom would’ve—”
“She already did,” he replied calmly.
I stared up at him.
“What?”
He watched the pool, eyes distant. “Your mother saw it first. Years ago. Public pool. Summer like this.”
My stomach twisted.
“She went toward it,” he continued. “Smiling. Said it felt like being seen. Held.”
His voice softened. “Her body shook so hard I thought she was laughing. Face pulled into the biggest grin I’d ever seen.”
I swallowed bile.
“But… she’s upstairs,” I said weakly. “She was with us earlier. She said she needed to fix her hair.”
Dad glanced down at me, confused.
“She was?” he asked.
“Yes,” I whispered. “At lunch.”
He frowned, thinking. Then his face smoothed.
“Oh. Right.”
Relief washed through me.
Then—
“Oh well,” he added. “It gets confused sometimes.”
The pool lights flickered.
The surface quivered.
My chest tightened again, that thick heaviness spreading, familiar now. Like something reaching outward from inside me.
I sneezed.
Dad smiled.
We stayed by the pool a long time.
The thing beneath the water shifted, stretching, its surface now reflecting only one figure.
Me.
“Joel was always greedy,” Dad said conversationally. “Never knew when to stop.”
I couldn’t speak.
“But you,” he continued, squeezing my shoulder. “You wait your turn. That’s important.”
The water lapped gently against the pool’s edge.
The reflection in the surface raised its head.
It smiled at me.
A real smile.
My nose tickled again.
Dad leaned closer, voice warm in my ear. “Don’t worry. It’ll feel familiar.”
The heaviness bloomed, spilling through my chest, my arms, my legs. The smell of bile and chlorine filled my nose.
I sneezed.
And the water opened its arms.
