The Dry Drowning

The rain in Grimsley Hollow didn’t wash things clean; it just made the rot swell. It was a relentless, cold drizzle that turned the sky the color of a bruised lung and made the air smell of wet wool and decaying pine needles.

Cassie stood behind the counter of The Rusty Spoon diner, watching the coffee in the pot turn into sludge. She was seventeen, but her eyes were old. They were the eyes of someone who had seen too many endings and not enough beginnings. She wore a stained apron over a faded hoodie, trying to disappear into the beige background of the diner.

It was 6:00 PM on a Tuesday. The dinner rush was nonexistent. Just Old Man Abernathy nursing a pie in the corner, and Mr. Henderson, the high school history teacher, sitting at the counter grading papers.

"Refill, Cass?" Henderson asked, not looking up. He was a nice man. He tipped well. He always asked about her foster placement, even though he knew the answer was always 'fine.'

Cassie reached for the pot. "Sure, Mr. Henderson."

She stepped forward to pour. As the dark liquid streamed into his mug, the air in the diner seemed to warp. The ambient noise—the hum of the refrigerator, the hiss of the rain—dropped away into a vacuum of silence.

Cassie froze.

Mr. Henderson wasn't grading papers anymore. He was clutching his throat. His face, usually flushed and healthy, was turning a mottled, hypoxic blue. His eyes bulged, the capillaries bursting.

He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Instead, water poured out. Gallons of it. Murky, brackish water spilled from his lips, splashing onto the counter, soaking his papers. He was drowning. He was sitting on a dry stool in a warm diner, and he was drowning from the inside out.

Cassie dropped the coffee pot.

* CRASH.*

The glass shattered. Hot coffee splashed over her sneakers.

The vision snapped.

Mr. Henderson jumped, startled by the noise. He looked at her, concerned. He was dry. He was breathing. He was alive.

"Cassie? You okay?" he asked, reaching for a napkin to help her.

Cassie backed away, her hands trembling. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. "I... I slipped. I'm sorry."

"It's just coffee," Henderson said gently. "Go get a mop. I'll watch the counter."

Cassie ran to the back. She gripped the edge of the sink, hyperventilating. It had been six months since the last one. She thought maybe it was over. She thought maybe she was just a normal, traumatized teenager again.

But the Sight never left. It just waited.

She knew what she had to do. She also knew what would happen if she did it. If she walked out there and told him, *“You’re going to die tomorrow. Stay away from water,”* he would look at her like she was crazy. Or worse, he would die anyway, and she would be the girl who knew.

She ripped a piece of paper from her order pad. Her hand shook as she wrote.

* STAY AWAY FROM WATER TONIGHT. PLEASE.*

She folded it. When she went back out to clean up the mess, she slid the note under his coffee cup. She didn't say a word. She just prayed, to whatever cruel god managed Grimsley Hollow, that he would listen.