The Stall

• Breanna Dacey, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2019

Mia stands in a public toilet. Her sobs are the only sound, the cold air contrasting with the warmth of her tears on her skin.

Her hands can barely hold her ring without dropping it.

It’s a perfect engagement ring. She wants to smash it against the wall. See it break into a thousand pieces, see it break like he broke her heart.

Her phone still shows his breakup message, the blue light taunting her.

A bang explodes through the room, the sound hits her like an electronic shot, her heart-stopping, then beating brutally against her ribs.

She drops her ring, the rolling sound deafening against the heartbeat in her ears.

Mia turns around and watches as the ring rolls before landing in front of a closed stall.

The silence weighs down on her as she slowly walks towards the ring.

She goes to grab it, her hand moving closer, closer, closer before another hand reaches from under the stall and snatches it.

Mia grips the cold sink with sweaty hands. A storm rages in her lungs, violently ripping the wind out of her lungs and then back in again.

Once she calms the storm she slowly walks towards the stall again. Each footstep pounds against the ground.

Closer, closer, closer until-

She kicks the door open, the sound cracking through the night.

Empty.

Frowning, she drops down onto her knees to check under the stall walls.

Slowly her vision adjusts to the darkness to find nothing but shadows, she checks the other side, the same.

Her legs barely hold her as she stands, only to have them crumble under the sound of her stall door banging shut.

Mia’s scream can’t even escape past her choking fear as she stares at it.

Two shoes, peeking out from under the toilet stall door. The black leather shoes menacingly stare up at her.

Her heart beats in her throat as she climbs onto the toilet.

And slowly, slowly, slowly, looks over the wall.

Empty.

She looks over into her stall, empty, she looks back into the other stall, empty.

Fear burns in her body as she runs to her phone, ready to sprint out of the building.

The rolling sound of metal stops her.

Mia turns and sees her ring roll out from the far stall, eventually stopping.

Her heart and mind battle, but her heart wins and she rushes to the ring.

She goes to pick it up, terror altering reality into sickening slow motion.

Just as her hand grazes the metal, it moves.

Gently, like on a string, it moves back towards the stall.

Mia watches the ring move, heart melting in white-hot fear, which burns her insides, as she hears the stall door creak open.

Mia watches as it is slowly revealed by the door.

A scream has barely enough time to be ripped out of her mouth before she’s pulled into the stall.

Then silence, and silence, and silence, before the stall door slowly creaks shut.