Ripple sank into the tub until only his nose showed. The water seized—spinning, gaping, the drain yanking his ankle under like a fishhook.
He clawed the porcelain rim, toenails scraping white lines in the enamel, while the duck vanished into the roar. The room tilted. The spinning dark swallowed his last 'No!'
Ripple tumbled out of a cracked pipe joint onto grey rags, splashing bathwater across the rust floor. Children and teens watch from the reservoir walls.
A girl slides a wool blanket across the concrete, its edge stopping just short of his bare toes. She says nothing. Ripple jerks back, hunched against the damp.
Ripple scrubs at the pipe above him, searching for the drain hole, but his slick fingers only find more pipe stretching into black. He stops.
His dripping fingers hang at his sides, and the drops fall into the reservoir below—plink, plink, plink—until the children start whistling between each drop.
The overhead pipe groans and the drain above flushes—a vortex of spinning dark swallowing the cavern ceiling, lifting Ripple's feet off the rags.
He dangles by one hand when a small hand slips a warm, dry sock into his dangling toes and whispers, 'Stay a while.' The spinning dark goes still.