The Sink That Ran Cold

In the autumn of 2014, I moved into a cramped, drafty flat above a derelict bakery in the town of Millbrook. My partner, Liam, and I had been together for a year, and the place was cheap, which was all we could afford. The building had a musty smell, and the walls were thin, but it was ours. The first incident happened about a month in. I was in the bathroom, which was a narrow room with a cracked porcelain sink and a shower curtain that never quite closed. I was under the warm spray, eyes shut, when I heard the door creak open. I assumed it was Liam, needing to grab his toothbrush. I called out, ‘Liam?’ but there was no reply. Then the tap on the sink turned on with a sharp hiss, and the water began to run. I yanked the curtain back, expecting to see him there, but the room was empty, except for the tap, which was now silent, dripping a few final drops. I chalked it up to a faulty valve, though something felt off.

A few weeks later, Liam went on a business trip, leaving me alone for a week. The loneliness made the flat feel larger, and I found myself double-checking locks and leaving lights on. One night, I was in bed, reading, when I heard the bathroom tap turn on again. It was a distinct, repeated squeak of the handle. I got up, my heart thudding, and walked to the bathroom. The door was ajar. I pushed it open. The tap was running, but the water was ice cold, and the mirror above the sink was fogged up, even though the water was cold. The fog formed a single word: ‘OUT’. I stumbled back, my breath catching. I turned the tap off, and the word slowly disappeared. I called Liam, but he didn’t answer, and I spent the rest of the night in the living room, the bathroom door firmly shut.

The next day, I tried to rationalize it. Maybe I had sleepwalked, maybe the plumbing was haunted. But then the phone calls started. My phone would ring, and when I answered, there would be a sound like a deep, wet breathing, and then a voice, not quite male or female, whispering, ‘You don’t belong here.’ I blocked the number, but the calls came from my own phone, as if from within. I went to the bathroom, and the sink was running again, this time with a thin trickle of red-brown water, resembling old blood. I screamed and ran out of the flat, but when I came back an hour later, it was dry.

Desperate, I contacted a friend who dabbled in the paranormal. She suggested leaving a voice recorder in the bathroom overnight. I did, and the next morning, I listened to the recording. At first, there was only the hum of the fridge. Then, a soft thud, and a voice, clearer than I expected, said, ‘This is my room.’ Then, a child’s laughter, which turned into sobbing. The recorder captured a scraping sound against the walls. I was terrified, and I showed the recording to Liam when he returned. He paled and admitted he had never felt comfortable in the flat. He said the previous tenant died there, a woman who had lost her child, and had drowned herself in the bath. He had known but hadn’t told me because he wanted the cheap rent.

The events escalated. Objects moved on their own. My toothbrush would be found in the trash. The shower curtain would be wrenched open when I was in the kitchen. I began to see a figure in the mirror, a woman with wet hair and hollow eyes, standing behind me, but when I turned, nothing. The final straw came when I was in the bathroom, and the door slammed shut. I was trapped. The mirror began to fog up again, and this time, the word was ‘STAY’. The tap turned on full blast, and the water began to rise in the sink, spilling over the edges, flooding the floor. I pounded on the door, screaming, until Liam, who was outside, broke it down. He found me weeping on the floor, the water retreating as if it had never been.

We moved out within the week, but the flat’s hold didn’t let go easily. For months, I would hear the tap turning on in my new home, and the same voice whispering, ‘Stay.’ I still have the recording, and on some nights, I swear I can hear a child crying in the walls. The sink that ran cold has become my own internal haunted idea, a constant reminder that some places claim you, and they never let go.