Mind on Fire Books

At Mind on Fire Books, we thrive on stories that ignite the imagination and challenge the boundaries of reality. “Surreal Grunge Horror: The Haunting of the Abandoned Bathhouse” is a visceral plunge into the uncanny—a flash fiction piece that melds the raw decay of a forgotten place with the surreal terror of an entity that defies comprehension.

This tale captures the essence of our mission: to explore the dark, the strange, and the beautifully unsettling. Step into the bathhouse, if you dare. The image is from Art.AI.Ficial.

Surreal Grunge Horror: The Haunting of the Abandoned Bathhouse

The air smelled of rust and regret, a metallic tang that clung to the back of my throat as I stumbled into the abandoned bathhouse. The tiles beneath my boots were cracked. They were slick with something black and viscous that seeped from the walls like tears. I’d heard the stories—whispers of a girl who’d drowned here decades ago. Her body was never found. Her screams still echo in the pipes. But I didn’t believe in ghosts. Not until I saw her.

She was crouched in the corner, her skin a sickly gray, veins like spiderwebs pulsing beneath the surface. Her hair hung in wet, matted clumps, dripping with that same black ooze that coated everything. It moved, the ooze, slithering up her arms, wrapping around her like a lover’s embrace. It cracked her skin further with every inch it claimed. Her eyes—God, her eyes—were wide, glowing a faint, unnatural green. They locked onto mine with a hunger that made my stomach lurch.

“You shouldn’t have come,” she rasped, her voice a mix of static and sorrow, like a radio tuned to a dead station. Her lips, smeared with crimson, curled into a smile that wasn’t a smile at all. The ooze tightened around her, and I heard the faint snap of bone. However, she didn’t flinch. She rose, her movements jerky, as if something else was pulling the strings. The air grew colder, heavier, pressing against my chest until I couldn’t breathe.

Surreal Grunge Horror continued

I tried to run, but the floor tilted. The tiles melted into a swirling void that sucked at my feet. The walls groaned, splitting open to reveal more of that black ichor. It poured out in waves. I swear I saw faces in it—screaming, eyeless faces that stretched and dissolved. She was closer now, her fingers outstretched, the ooze dripping from them like ink. It stained the air with words I couldn’t read but somehow understood: Stay. Stay. Stay.

I stumbled back, my hand brushing against a rusted pipe. For a moment, reality snapped into focus—the grime, the decay, the faint drip of water somewhere in the dark. But then she laughed, a sound like glass shattering. The pipe burst, spraying me with freezing water that burned like acid. I fell to my knees, gasping, and when I looked up, she was gone. The bathhouse was silent, the ooze receding into the cracks. It left only the faint scent of decay and a single word scratched into the tile where she’d been: Mine.

I left that place, but I still feel her eyes on me, her voice in my dreams. Sometimes, when I’m alone, I catch a glimpse of my reflection. My veins appear just a little too dark, my skin just a little too gray. I don’t know if I escaped her, or if I ever will.

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