- [Woman] He grabbed me.

He grabbed me by the throat and lifted me midair,

choking me, my eyes about to pop out of my head.

"Say another word, and I promise, it'll be your last."

We were in a rundown motel in the middle of nowhere.

The room, it might've been retro 15 years ago.

Now it just looked like I did; beat up.

The only piece of artwork was a green landscape

so faded it might as well have been a scene

of a post apocalypse.

As for my captor, Chuck he called himself?

He had this sort of disarming neighborly look;

a pudgy face, an easy smile, beady eyes.

The kind you see all the time at grocery stores

comparing brands of cleaning products.

That's what I'd thought when he pulled over

beside the highway and offered to give me a ride.

He seemed boring, nice.

Why was I hitchhiking in the first place?

Long story.

Suffice it to say when you've run out of money,

luck, and friends, without anything to call your own,

your life doesn't feel like it's yours anymore.

Just another pile of debris for

the garbage trucks to pick up.

In this case, the garbage truck had been

a kidnapper named Chuck.

(Chuck laughing evilly)

Now, Chuck was holding me, a 21-year-old college dropout

with more debts than a failing business, ransom.

I'd been in this seedy motel room for,

had it already been two days?

With barely any water or food.

My body was covered in fresh bruises

and Chuck wasn't getting nicer, that's for sure.

"Call your parents," he demanded,

shoving the phone in my face.

"Tell them you're in trouble,

"that they need to bring 50k to get you back."

"I told you, they're dead," I gasped, coughing.

Still recovering from his choke hold.

"All right, your sister, I don't care," he shouted,

even louder now.

Chuck had a chewing problem.

Everywhere he went, he spat;

on the ground, over his shoulder, out the car window.

If you looked closely, you could see the tobacco bump

in his upper lip.

The only evidence of his fixation, of his sickness.

In fact, the more I watched the man,

the more I realized he had a constant need

to mess with the environment around him.

When we passed a tree, he'd rip off a branch

just for the fun of it.

A pile of fresh earth?

He'd kick it.

He lit things on fire when he was bored.

He spat constantly.

As if all the elements were his to waste

whenever he saw fit.

He spat again on the motel floor,

not caring who'd have to clean it up.

Then, frustrated, he grabbed my phone

and headed for the door.

"One of these people in your contacts

"is gonna cough up," he snarled, "I'll make sure of it."

With that, he stepped outside,

slammed shut the door and locked me in.

I looked around, desperate to find an escape,

but Chuck was smarter than that.

He picked a room with only one window

looking at the motel's dreary courtyard

where he was pacing now beside the pool.

It looked like no one had swum inside of it in centuries.

Leaves and rot covered the water.

For a moment, I swore I saw something

rise out of the water.

A humanoid shape, like a person but without a face.

Perhaps the leaves and muck were covering it,

but why was the figure so perfectly still?

It didn't breathe, it hardly moved, it just stared.

Stared at Chuck pacing back and force,

phone to his ear.

He spat into the water beside it, oblivious.

He threw some gum wrappers from his back pocket

onto the cement, littering even though

a garbage can was right next to him.

The figure in the water seemed to cock its head for a moment

and then it descended back into the water silently.

The only proof it had even been there, a small ripple.

I felt a chill go down my spine.

Surely I must've imagined it.

How else could a person have disappeared

underwater without needing air?

Unless it wasn't a person.

Unless it was something much much worse

like a monster.

(dramatic music)

But that was crazy talk.

There were no monsters in this world,

only the human kind like Chuck.

"I said, if you want your girl back

"you bring me my money," Chuck shouted into the phone.

"I don't care what she owes you.

"Don't try anything stupid."

With that, he hung up.

I realized he must've called one of the loan sharks

I owed money to, my heart plummeted into my stomach.

If they found me, they'd probably do worse to me than Chuck.

I watched as Chuck fished in his pocket for his lighter,

clearly feeling the need to burn something,

and chose a target.

The only flower left in the motel's

pathetic excuse for landscaping; a wilting daisy.

When Chuck had first tied me up,

he told me that this is what I get.

"Finder's keepers," he'd snarled.

"I found you, I can do what I want with you."

I wondered what he would do when he realized

nobody was going to cough up the money on my behalf.

I'd wasted every cent I ever owned

pouring all my assets into a stupid investment;

a pyramid scheme I found out later, and now I was broke.

I was spent.

Physically, economically, and emotionally.

My only hope was to leave town and start over

before the loan sharks came knocking.

Now, who knew if I'd ever get the chance.

Chuck said finder's keepers,

but what was there left of me to keep?

I watched as he kneeled down and brought

his lighter beneath the daisy's petals.

For a reason I couldn't explain, I wished I could save it.

It was just a little flower sticking out

between cracks in the cement.

What'd I care?

But it was as if the daisy had come to represent me;

alone, dying, with only a glimmer of hope left.

Just as Chuck's lighter ignited, though,

something crazy happened.

A hand made of rippling liquid rose

from the depths of the pool.

This time, I was sure of it.

My mind wasn't playing tricks on me,

something was in that water.

A monster, it had to be.

The watery fist flew at Chuck,

and as it made contact with the burning petal

of the daisy, the whole fist burst to flame

slamming into his chest in an explosion

of burning hot embers.

Chuck collapsed to the cement, flat on his back,

crying out, "What the?"

His shirt was on fire.

He quickly ripped it off, stamping on it,

and ran toward the room.

I backed away from the window, scared,

as he barged inside, eyes wild.

"What did you do?" He asked.

"How did you do that?"

"I didn't do any," I began to respond.

But a moment later Chuck's hand roughly grabbed my jaw.

"I'm going to remind you who is the boss around here,"

he said between clenched teeth.

"Remember, I found you, you're mine."

He turned to spit again, and then I saw it.

Beside him standing in the doorway

was the same figure I had seen in the pool;

a monster made entirely out of water,

transparent, female-shaped, terrifying.

As Chuck spat, something impossible happened.

The brown spit hung midair from his lip, then solidified,

turning into a sharp icicle, frozen solid.

Chuck hardly had a moment to frown

because the next second the creature was behind him,

taking the icicle and breaking it from Chuck's lip.

The skin split wide open, blooded poured,

as Chuck shouted in agony, turning to face his attacker.

He went silent when they were face-to-face.

"What?" he stammered.

"What are you?"

The monster held up the remains of

the discarded gum wrappers, the litter, in her watery hand,

and I could almost imagine it saying, "finder's keepers".

A second later, the monster shoved the trash

down Chuck's throat along with her entire arm of water,

drowning my captor before my eyes.

He fell to his knees, choking and sputtering,

searching left and right for anything

to defend himself with.

But there was nothing.

To my surprise, Chuck had more fight in him

than I expected as he leapt midair toward the monster,

slamming his whole weight against her.

The monster hit the wall in a splash of water,

turning to a puddle beneath his feet.

He smirked, thinking himself the winner.

When the water reformed around his legs

and grabbing hold, swung his entire body against the wall,

cracking it wide open, dust flying everywhere.

Gashes in his head were spraying blood.

He kicked and clawed at the water,

punching the slippery substance with all his might,

but she only punched back even harder.

Slamming his head into the carpeted floor

over and over again making him nothing

but a heap of trash just like he'd treated

the world and me.

At last, she let him go and I thought Chuck

might be done for.

Then, his eyes flickered open, fixed on me,

and he roared with rage.

He crawled toward me, certain I was

to blame somehow for this.

I tried to back away, but Chuck was too fast.

His hand was around my throat again

as he spat a mix of tar and blood.

The whole world began to become blurry

as my eyes swam.

I was sure this was the end.

When suddenly, with an ear-splitting screech,

the monster, now the color of tar,

mirroring Chuck's rotten insides, no doubt,

flew into Chuck through his eyeballs,

through his ears, through his open mouth,

every orifice choking on the black tar-like substance.

He was forced to let go of my neck

as I scooted away as fast as I could, gasping for air.

Chuck's entire head began to double in size

like a tumor growing fast forward.

His beady bloodshot eyes locked onto mine

as if begging "please help".

But I simply smiled in response.

"Was I worth keeping, Chuck?"

His whole body convulsed violently

as his veins bulged from his skin,

rupturing him from the inside out.

Then, like a watermelon hitting cement,

Chuck's whole head exploded in

an endless gush of black tar and oozing brains.

A moment later he slumped and hit

the motel floor with a sickening thud.

Dead as can be.

I stared in disbelief, both exhilarated and horrified.

Whatever had just saved me, whatever that monster was,

she was pooling together.

Leaving the black tobacco-stained remains of Chuck behind

and becoming clear as rain again.

She slowly reassembled until the figure was humanoid again,

feminine, looking at me curiously.

"Are you?" I whispered.