The Spiral Motes

It started with a chill that had no business being there. The bathroom in my flat, number 7B, was always the warmest room, what with the south-facing window and the temperamental radiator that gushed heat even in summer. But that evening, as I stood there in a towel, my skin prickled with goosebumps. I checked the window—latched. I checked the door—shut. The thermometer on the opposite wall read 21 degrees, but I could see my breath curling in the air.

I dismissed it as the tail end of a summer cold and turned to the shower. The water was just reaching that perfect scalding temperature when I noticed them. Little white flecks, like dandruff or lint, drifting in the steam. But they weren’t falling. They were spiraling, rising and falling in a lazy cyclone around the showerhead. I counted seven of them. Two were misshapen, almost like tiny deformed hands reaching for something. The rest were just vague swirls of pale light. I watched, mesmerized, as they orbited faster and faster, until I blinked and they were gone.

I finished my shower, but the image stayed with me. As I dried off, I tried to rationalize. Maybe it was a trick of the light, or some residue on the shower glass. But the more I tried to forget, the more I saw them behind my eyelids. I called my friend Carla and said I’d be ten minutes late. She laughed and said, ‘Better be, you’re missing the tequila sunrises.’

After I hung up, I needed to use the bathroom again. The moment I stepped in, the temperature plummeted. The air felt thick, like walking through cold water. I turned on the shower switch, and as the water began to steam, I saw them again. Not just in the shower—they were everywhere. Dozens of white motes, weaving through the air, converging on the center of the room. The two misshapen ones were leading the others, their tiny, translucent fingers pointing at me.

Then I heard a sound like a hundred whispers, all speaking at once, the words overlapping into a soft, wet hiss. The motes began to coalesce, swirling into a sphere of pale light, and from the center, a shape began to form. A face, featureless except for a wide, gaping mouth, stretched into a silent scream. It lunged forward, and I stumbled back, my hand knocking the shower door shut. The face hit the glass, and the motes scattered, only to reform on the other side of me.

I yanked the door open and fled to the living room. The cold followed me. The motes were now small, but they were clinging to the walls, crawling like glowing algae. I grabbed my phone, dialing Carla, but it went to voicemail. The whispers grew louder, and I realized they were saying my name. ‘Meredith. Meredith.’ The two misshapen motes had fingers that pointed at me, and the others were forming into a hand, reaching out. The world tilted, and I felt something cold brush against my cheek.

I ran to the door, yanked it open, and sprinted down the corridor without looking back. I didn’t stop until I reached the street, gasping for breath under the orange sodium lights. Carla’s call came in, but when I answered, her voice was distorted, stretched: ‘Better be, you’re missing the tequila sunrises.’ I looked back at my flat, and the window was glowing pale white. The motes were swirling in my living room, forming the same face, pressing against the glass.

I haven’t been back to 7B. But every time I step into a shower, I feel a chill that has no business being there, and I imagine I can see a single, tiny white mote drifting in the steam, spiraling, waiting for me to look too long.