"Why I No Longer Shower With My Eyes Closed" Creepypasta

0:02 I graduated college three months ago, and it already felt like a lifetime. The ceremony had been small and awkward. My parents hadn't flown in. I stood there alone, clutching a piece of paper that had cost me nearly seventy thousand dollars, wondering how it was supposed to fix anything. The degree was useless communications, some vague, frilly word that had sounded smart when I was nineteen and sounded absolutely idiotic now. Every interview ended with a half apology about experience requirements or budget freezes. I finally landed something entry level in the city, but the pay barely scratched the minimum wage. I had enough in my checking account for a single tank of gas and maybe two decent meals.

0:56 My savings, what little I had hoarded through part time jobs during college, disappeared faster than I could even feel it. Leaving the car became my home. I'd been sleeping in the back seat for the past week, folded up awkwardly across cracked faux leather that stuck to my skin. Every morning I showered at the gym, I kept my interview clothes folded on the passenger seat to keep them from wrinkling too badly. I told myself it was temporary, but every night staring up through the cracked windshield made it harder to believe. The affordable apartments I could reach were two hours away by bus from my job if the bus even arrived on time, two hours each way, four hours of my life every single day wasted before I

1:51 even clocked in. My body already ached by the time I finished my shifts, and the thoughts of sitting stiff and sweaty in a plastic while the city crawled past the windows crossed whatever energy I had left. There was another option. A building ten minutes from work, tucked between a broken laundromat and an abandoned Peter's shop, dirt cheap, less than half the rent of the units across the river.

2:23 The photos online made the place look rough, but at that point I would have slept in a closet if it meant a roof and a locked door. I barely hesitated. Pride was for people who had choices. I signed up for reviewing. The next morning. The landlord met me out front, a thin man with nervous hands and a sweat damp collar.

2:49 He looked at me the same way somebody might look at a problem they could not avoid. His greeting was short, almost mumbled. I followed him up the cracked front steps and through the main hallway, which smelt sharply of bleach that had failed to mask a deeper, more sour odour. Every doorway past seemed slightly off its hinges, and there were dark patches and the ceiling that looked suspiciously fresh.

3:19 The unit he showed me was on the third floor. He fumbled with the keys before getting the door open. The walls had been painted once, maybe a decade ago, but the color had faded into a sickly yellow green. Chunks of paint curled up near the corners of the rooms. The floors were stained soft in places where water must have gotten underneath. The living room held a single ceiling van that sag downward, spinning slowly and unevenly. The windows were cracked at the corners, patched up poorly with clear tape.

3:58 There was no furniture, no appliances, beside a dented mini fridge shoved against the far wall of the kitchen. I wanted to turn around and leave, but there was nowhere else to go. Sleeping in the car for another week meant risking parking tickets I could not afford, or worse, I kept my mouth shut as we tore the bedroom, which was just large enough for a mattress and a pile of regrets. When we reached the bathroom, the landlord hesitated.

4:34 He touched the door frame with his finger tips, then gave me a stiff smile. You should take a look at this, he said. I stepped past him and peered inside. The bathroom was small, narrow enough that stretching both arms would have hit either wall. The floor was lined with cheap linonium tiles. A cracked mirror hung over a rustained sink.

5:03 The toilet looked usable, but sat slightly uneven, as though the floor beneath it had sunk inward, My eyes finely landed on the shower, a small box in cabin with frosted tempered glass walls that had gun cloudy with age at the bottom near the drain. Near the drain, there was a jagged crack stretching across one panel, sealed over sloppily with silicone colk. The patch job was so obvious it almost drew the eye before anything else. The landlord cleared his throat softly behind me, but said nothing. I nodded stiffly, pretending to examine the rest of the room, but I had already made my mind up. It did not matter. I had no other options. I signed the lease that afternoon. The building was already humming, with muffled

6:08 voices and the occasional slam of a distant door. When I unlocked the apartment, the door scraped against the floor as I pushed it open. I stepped inside and dropped my duffel bag on to the cracked floorboards. Dust puffed up in little clouds where it hit. I did not even bother unpacking. I kicked the door shut behind me and went straight for the bathroom, tugging my shirt over my head as I went. The floor of the bathroom was called against my bare feet. I twisted the shower knob and waited, half expecting the water to come out brown or not at all. Instead, a weak but steady stream poured from the shower head. It was lukewarm at best, but after days of Jim showers and cord gas station sinks, it felt almost luxurious. The cracked patch near the drain

7:07 caught my eye again, but I forced myself to ignore it. The water pattered against my skin, washing away three days worth of grime. In exhaustion, I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes, letting the sound of the water drown out everything else. For the first time in days, maybe longer, my muscles loosened. The worry, the fear, the constant hum of hunger and anxiety that lived behind my ribs eased just a little. I do not know how long I stood there before it happened. At first I thought it was the pipes, a faint noise buried under the rush of the water. Then it sharpened, frantic shuffling sounds, as if someone were dragging themselves back and forth across the bathroom floor. Behind that, rising up in broken waves,

8:11 came the unmistakable sound of screaming, faint but filled with a raw, ragged panic. My eyes snapped open. I stumbled backward, slamming my shoulder into the wall of the shower cabin. The sound stopped instantly, cut off mid scream. All I could hear was the water splashing against the plastic floor and the frantic pounding of my own heart. There was nothing now, no shadow moving under the crack of the door, no handle rattling, no shape looming in the steamed up mirror across the room, as I'd feared. It took a full minute before I managed to breathe properly again. I wiped the water from my face and gave a short, humorless laugh. It had to be stress, sleep deprivation. Maybe something I had read online was playing tricks on my brain.

9:11 I remembered to read it thread buried deep in a horror of bread it where people talked about hearing strange noises if they closed their eyes too long in the shower. Still, it made more sense than anything else. I finished rinsing off as quickly as I could. I dressed and crawled onto the bare mattress I had dragged into the bedroom.

9:35 The ceiling van creaked and shuddered with every rotation. Sleep came slowly, weighed down by a knot of her knees, and I could not shake loose. The next day at work was worse than anything that had come before. My boss, a red faced man with a voice like a broken radio, found new ways to humiliate me. Me Every mistake, every misst memo, every delayed email was met with a fresh round of public brating. I spent the whole day swallowing my words and smiling through clenched teeth. By the time my shift ended, I was barely upright, my feet ached, my spine felt as if it had been compressed into half its size. My head pounded with the dull pressure of a migraine creeping in. I needed a shower. I needed to scrub away the stink of the day before

10:35 it soaked into my skin. My body moved on autopilot. I peeled off my work clothes, tossed them into a sad heap in the corner, and stepped into the bathroom. The shower groaned. When I turned the knob, the lukewarm water drizzled out, and I stepped in, letting the spray hit my face and chest. I closed my eyes. The screaming hit almost immediately. It clawed at my ears, shuffling heavy, dragging footsteps. Just beyond the shower door. Before I could even react, a loud thud echoed through the tiny bathroom.

11:18 It was as loud as what I'd imagine a grenade going off is like. I jerked my head up, so burning into my eyes, blinking against the sting, I saw my shampoo bottle lying on the floor of the cabin, spinning slightly as it leaked bright blue. My heart pounded. I wrenched the door open and stepped out into the bathroom, dripping water everywhere, searching for something, anything. I stood there for a long moment, breathing so hard my vision blurred around the edges. There had to be an explanation, so I decided to check. I started with the apartment up stairs.

12:07 If someone was messing around up there, making noise, it would explain everything. I trudged up the narrow staircase, the carpet crunching. I knocked, waited, knocked again. The hallway lights flickered weakly overhead. No answer. I knocked louder, my hands stung with the effort. Still nothing. A door downstairs creaked open.

12:40 I headed back downstairs and saw a woman poking her head out, white hair pulled into a messy barn, glasses perched low on a nose. She looked at me with a curious tilt of her head. You looking for someone, dear, she asked. I cleared my throat, suddenly feeling foolish. Yeah, sorry to bother you, Just trying to figure out if any one lives right above me. I thought maybe there was some noise coming from that unit. She smiled a soft, patient smile and made a look even older. Nobody's been up there in months empty. You must have heard something else.

13:28 I nodded, feeling heat rise into my face. She introduced herself, said her name was Missus Cartwright. She lived across the hall from me. She mentioned her grandkids used to visit, but they had moved away recently, and now it was just her. I thanked her quickly, said something about needing to get to work, and retreated down the hall before the embarrassment could root itself any deeper. Back inside my apartment, and I locked the door and leaned against it, breathing out slow. If the place upstairs was empty, and if the place next to mine housed an elderly woman who needed help carrying her groceries, then who had been making those noises. I chewed on it for the rest of the day, even at work the next day while my

14:22 boss barked orders and slammed drawers. The thought gnawed at me from underneath. By the time I got home, I decided to test it. It felt stupid, superstitious, but there had been a pattern, and I had ignored it. The noises only ever came when I closed my eyes. Every single time it started the moment my vision went dark.

14:53 That had to mean something. I stripped down, stepped into the shower, and twisted the knob. The water sputtered and spat before settling into a weak stream. I let it run over me and kept my eyes wide open, staring straight ahead at the fogging walls. Nothing happened. The minutes dragged on, the air grew heavy with steam. My arms prickled from the temperature drop every time the water pressure stuttered, but the bathroom stayed silent. I let out a slow breath and decided to push it. I closed my eyes instantly.

15:43 The bathroom exploded into chaos. Screaming, furious and desperate rattled the walls. Heavy dragging footsteps stumped around the outside of the shower. The shampoo bottle bounced off the floor with a sharp crack. Once again, I yanked my eyes open. The sound vanished so fast and left a hollow ringing in my ears. I had proven something to myself, but it did not feel like a victory. It felt worse if I'm being honest, But I was stubborn, and admittedly I was curious. I decided to try again. This time, I would keep my eyes closed longer. Maybe it would stop, maybe it would burn itself out. I shut my eyes, squeezing them tighter to brace against the expected noise. The screaming came fast, roarer than before, as if whatever it

16:48 belonged to had been waiting for me to test it. It built into a frenzy. The temperature around me dropped sharply, cutting through the steam with a damp, icy edge. I felt something brush against my back, a cold, wet hand that smeared water across my skin. I flinched, but kept my eyes shut, muscles locked. Then came the pane. A sharp, raking sensation tore across my upper back. It was deep and hot, blooming into immediate agony that stole the breath from my chest. I screamed and staggered forward, slamming into the shower wall. My hand scrambled for the door handle.

17:38 I shoved it open and tumbled out, falling onto the cold linonium of the bathroom floor. I gasped for air every inch of my back, screaming at me. Water splattered onto the floor beside me. My hand shook as I pushed myself upright, moving straight for the mirror above the sink, I turned, craning my neck. Three long scratches ran diagonally across my back. The skin was torn in uneven lines, angry and red, already starting to bead with a thin trail of blood. I pressed the towel against the wound, wincing as the fabric stuck to the blood. My mind spun with explanations, each one weaker than the last. There had to be a reason, There had to be a way to understand. It was the shower haunted. I hated using that word. I had already started feeling like a

18:44 lonesome reditor, screaming into a dead subredded about ghosts. Yet I couldn't deny what was going on, not when I'd just been attacked physically. I did not sleep that night. Every time I closed my eyes, even for a second, I felt the memory of the scratches burn across my skin. Morning came slowly bleeding through the cracked blinds in sickly strips of light. I got up, already dreading the day.

19:20 I sat at the kitchen counter. If the battered slab of plywood could even be called that, and opened my banking app. I knew it would be bad. I had been ignoring the low balanced alerts for days, pretending that if I did not see the number, it would not be real. Thirteen dollars and seventy three cents. I stared at the screen until the numbers blurred. Rerent was coming up.

19:49 Food was becoming a luxury gas for the car was hanging on by a thread. There was no money for anything else, not even small indulgences. Forget moving out. I was trapped in a place that was clearly haunted. I pulled up a search bar and typed in cost of exorcism. The results made me laugh, short, brittle laughter that cracked and died in my throat. Hundreds of dollars for consultations alone, thousands for anything serious. Half the websites looked scammy. The other half looked worse. I slammed the laptop, shot and rested my forehead against the counter. I could not leave.

20:39 I could not fix this. I could barely afford to stay alive. The next few days blurred into something heavier than exhaustion. I went to work, I came home, I slept. I avoided the bathroom unless it was absolutely necessary. I stopped showerings. It was manageable, deodoran, wet wipes, anything I could find to scrub away the worst of it. But as the days stretched on, the smell clung to me.

21:12 It wrapped around my clothes, settled into my skin, buried itself into every inch of fabric and hair. I caught people at work wrinkling their noses when I passed. My boss started mentioning personal hygiene standards during meetings, staring pointedly at me when he spoke I no longer had a gym membership. I thought I was going to be fine now that I had a place, but clearly I was wrong, and now with rent, I could no longer have forward one.

21:46 I felt it. I felt every minute a sickly, oily grime that no amount of wiping could scrub away. It made my skin crawl. Still. The thought of stepping back into that shower of closed my eyes, even for a second. While trapped in that narrow coffin, rooted me in place. I told myself I would figure something out. Maybe find a cheap motel for a night, maybe find a public pool where I could sneak a rinse. One night, after another shift, spent awake and fully miserable, I collapsed onto my mattress and opened my phone without thinking. A notification blinked at the top of the screen. A friend request a name jolted something in my chest. Allison. We had shared two classes during my second year of college. We

22:45 had laughed over terrible group projects and late night coffee runs. We had made promises to keep in touch after graduation. I hesitated, thumb hovering over the screen. Then I accepted. The messages came fast. Hey, long time, no sea. How have you been? What are you go up to these days? I lied, said work was keeping me busy. I said the city was treating me well. Before I could second guess it, she asked if I wanted to grab a drink sometime, catch up properly. She would be my part of town over the weekend. I stared at the message, heart hammering. I thought about the shirt tugged in the back of my chair with dried sweat. I thought about the sour, greasy smell that clung to me so stubbornly I could barely smell anything else. I did not have

23:45 a choice if I showed up like this, I would be dead in the water before the night even started. I needed a shower. I needed a step into that cursed rotting shower. I tossed my phone on to the mattress and stared up at the ceiling, counting the slow, uneven rotations of the ceiling van until I could convince myself to stand. I peeled off my clothes, feeling my stomach twist into knots. Every step toward the bathroom door felt heavier. My hand trembled. When I reached for the knob.

24:24 I pushed it open. The air inside was thick and heavy, still damp, even though I had not run the water in days. I stepped inside and shut the door behind me. I twisted the knob on the shower. The water came sputtering out, colder than usual, but steady enough. I waited until the cabin filled with steam before stepping in. The door clicked shut behind me. I tore myself. I would keep my eyes open the entire time. I would not let them close, not even for a second. I repeated the promise in my head as I reached for the shampoo bottle. As I scrubbed the layers, of filth that coated my skin. As the water poured down steadily, I tilted my head back to rinse out the SuDS, careful to keep my eyes open. Soaps stung, the foam slid

25:25 down into my lashes. My eyes stung, and my body almost betrayed me, but my eyes stayed open. The cabin shook slightly as I managed to keep my vision going. That surprised me a little. Things would only happen when I closed my eyes, never when I had them open. Minutes crawled by, I washed, I scrubbed, I rinsed, and through it all I kept my eyes wide open, fixed on the walls. Reliefs started to creep in at the edges of my mind, a dangerous feeling, but I could not help it. I was almost done. I could towel off, get dressed, leave this nightmare behind me. I reached for the forest to shut the water off, and suddenly the pressure in the shower changed. The steady stream faltered, stuttered, then surged back stronger, hammering down against the floor, Something

26:33 shifted in the air. The temperature dropped hard enough to suck the breath from my chest. A scream irrupted from all around me. It sounded furious and almost sad. The walls around the shower shuddered, vibrating so hard I thought they would tear themselves apart. Was this thing mad that I kept my eyes open the entire time. The floor underneath my feet jumped and twisted. Bottles shot off the shelves, slamming into walls and the floor with heavy, wet cracks.

27:09 Something dense and heavy banged against the outside of the shower door, over and over again, loud enough that the entire cabin shook under the force. Ice cold water was getting into my eyes, blurring my vision. The drain beneath me gurgled, heaving upward instead of pulling the water down. Thick clumps of hair, long and matted with something black and sticky, twisted free and floated up toward the surface.

27:40 Small jagged objects bobbed up alongside it, teeth tiny and cracked, some still speckled with dry blood, something red roseen, thick slow bubbles staining the water in white pink streaks that swirled around my ankles. The cabin floor pitched under me, and I nearly slipped. I forced my fingers against my water filled eyes and rubbed them hard enough that bright spots exploded across my vision. It hurt, but I managed to keep them peeled open. The world came back into focus.

28:20 Pressed against the inside of the shower door, directly in front of my face, a palm flattened itself against the tempered glass. The skin pulsed faintly, as if breathing. There was no arm connected to it, just the pale, bloated hand flexing his fingers against the door. I fumbled backward until my spine hid the opposite wall of the cabin.

28:48 The water kept pouring from the shower head above me, colder than ice, now soaking through to the bone. It stung across the half field, scratches on my back, and made my teeth chatter so violently I could hear them clacking. I reached for the knobs to shut the water off. My fingers slipped once, twice, three times, but I finally managed to twist them both shut. Nothing changed. The water kept blasting at full force, roaring against the cracked floor, splashing high enough that it sprayed over the doorframe. The drain only vomited more filth up into the small confined space.

29:32 Hair wrapped itself around my ankles tightening with every shift of my weight. The water level was rising. It climbed past my ankles up to my shins. The coald bit deeper with every inch. I grabbed the door handle and yanked. It did not budge. I pushed harder, using both hands, now throwing all my weight against it. The shower door groaned under the strain, but held. I slammed my shoulder against it once, twice, three times. Still nothing. Another handprint bloomed beside the first one. The fingers splayed wide across the surface, some longer than others, joints bent at strange angles.

30:22 The prince pressed in, dimpling the plastic, as though something immense leaned on them from the other side. Who was trying to trap me in here? I screamed high and panicked, raw air tearing out of my throat. I punched the door pane, lancing up my arms. As my fists met the unforgiving glass, My knuckles split on the rough edges.

30:47 Blood smeared across the door in messy, broken arcs. I punched the gain again. The water rose past my knees, swirling with hair and teeth and bitter of something too small to name. The hand Prince did not pull away. They pressed harder. I could barely feel my fists anymore. My knuckles throbbed with every heartbeat, slick with a mixture of blood and water. The shower filled up hire lapping up toward my waist, the freezing water numbing everything it touched.

31:25 The hand Prince leaned in harder, the plastic bowing inward under the pressure. I knew I could not keep hitting the door. My arms were spent. I needed to do something else. I braced against the wall of the cabin, sucking in a breath so cold it burned the back of my throat. I lifted my knee and slammed it against the crack section near the bottom of the door.

31:51 The impact sentered sholt through my bones, rattling my teeth together. The crack widened, spider webbing across the surface, jagged, uneven lines. I pulled back and did it again, putting every shred of strength I had into it. The third hit split the tempered glass completely. The pressure of the water burst the door outward with a violent pop, sending a tidal wave crashing across the bathroom floor. I was carried with it, thrown against the base of the sink. My head cracked hard against the cabinet, and for a second the world spun into dizzying, colorless shapes. I crawled backward on shaking hands and knees, slipping across the flooded lenonium, gasping for air.

32:43 My body shuddered uncontrollably, soaked through to the bone, every muscle twisted up tight with fear and cold. The bathroom lights flickered overhead. Somewhere behind me, the water sputted to a from a broken shower, the last of the water pouring across the floor in steady, unstoppable waves. I pressed myself into the corner, panting, watching the shattered door swing uselessly on its broken hinge. When I finally stood, my knees buckled. I grabbed the door frame for support and staggered into the main room, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind me. I did not step back into that bathroom again. The next morning, I made a decision. It was not a proud one, it was not a brave one.

33:43 It was what I had to do. I knocked on Missus Cartwright's door, standing awkwardly in clothes that smiled faintly off panic. She answered quickly and knitted shawl wrapped around a narrow shoulders. Her face softened and when she saw me, I asked if she needed any help around the house. Grocy runs heavy lifting, anything at all. I told her I'd be happy to do it. I told her it was no trouble. She smiled a real smile, the sort of smile that lit up a whole face, and said she could use her hand now. And then I mentioned, as casually as I could, that my shower was broken.

34:31 I asked if she would mind letting me use hers once or twice a week until I could get it fixed. She agreed without hesitation. From then on, I spend as little time in my own bathroom as possible. I brush my teeth of the kitchen sink. I used the bathroom only when I absolutely had to. Luckily, the date went well, Allison did not seem to I noticed the faint stiffness in my posture. I returned home and decided to hang up curtains just past the kitchen sink so I wouldn't have to look at the shower anymore. I don't know what to tell my landlord about the damage, but he'd have to deal with it. I'm sure he knew the place was like this, and he never decided to tell me, so I won't tell him either,