Practice Building’s 3rd Floor Bathroom

(Chapter originally by MidnightWisher at writing.com)

Makoto already has a course of action in mind. She plans to go floor by floor – it is the most efficient method, after all, and if everything goes as planned it would have her finish her search on the Practice Building’s first floor, just one floor below the entrance to the gymnasium. With that in mind, she takes a right turn when the hallways intersect, marches past the Student Council room and approaches the glass door to the floor’s skyway. She tugs on the handle and glides through the doorway. She does not spare a moment to look out through the skyway’s glass wall, instead she pushes forward, stopping where the hallways meet.

Makoto scans the hallway for anyone else who might be out and about. The Practice building’s hallway is long, but it mirrors the Classroom building’s. When she spies no one, she is thankful. With any luck, she could be done with this and back to class before she knows it. Makoto steps out into the hallway and marches toward the bathrooms. Once again, she keeps her eyes trained down the hall, making sure all is clear, while keeping an ear out for any noise in the bathroom. This time, she does not wait nearly as long before she heads inside, knowing she there is nothing to worry about – she already knows what to expect from the last one. Or so she thinks.

When Makoto rounds the privacy wall, she realizes that might not be the case. Unlike the last bathroom, this one is rather messy and has a hint of a foul odor about it. She finds it to be a closer fit to the stereotype than the last one. Wadded paper-towel balls lay all around the garbage can, some are just strewn about the floor in front of the sink, as if they didn’t even try to get it in the can. Under one of the urinals, Makoto sees a small puddle that she is going to pretend is just water and a light trail leading from one of the stalls. Part of her is thankful she didn’t come in here to find the festival paperwork soaking in that puddle. Just the thought gets her stomach churning.

It is when Makoto moves on to the stalls that she seems to find the source of the odor assaulting her nose. There is an “out of order” sign on the first stall’s door, and the closer she gets to it the more she feels the need to cover her nose. Against her better judgment, she pushes the door open and immediately wishes she didn’t. Calling the sight before her grotesque would be an understatement. The water in the bowl is a putrid, unholy color, resting at level with the seat, even flowing onto it at some points. A small pool of water surrounds the toilet, but it doesn’t look much better. The only bright side is that it appeared someone, probably one of the custodians, turned off the motion sensor so it didn’t start flowing again when she opened the door. Makoto gives the stall the fastest once over in history before shutting the door and checking the other stalls, which thankfully are pristine in comparison to the first. When she does not see anything here that should not be, Makoto makes her way over to the entrance. She eyes the paper-towel balls on the ground on the way back, and, against her baser desires to get out of there as soon as possible, she stops. Soon she finds herself picking up all the paper-towel balls and throwing them into the garbage can, figuring the custodian already has enough to deal with in here without adding them to the list.

The second the last ball is picked up, Makoto goes to make her leave. She makes her way to the privacy wall’s corner, when –