(eerie dramatic music)
- [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.
"Are you going to hurt me?"
The monster smiled, if you can call
a watery pair of lips turning upward a smile.
Although she didn't respond,
I remembered the daisy and felt like
I could almost hear what she was thinking;
only if you hurt me first.
Then, without warning, the monster collapsed upon herself,
turning to a puddle of water on the floor and nothing more.
I slowly stood up and walked past the remains of Chuck
making sure to tiptoe around the puddle.
I didn't wanna offend my new savior.
But when I stepped outside, at last free,
breathing in the cool year, grateful to be alive,
I heard footsteps.
I looked down at the pool
to see three men in leather approaching.
The loan sharks.
They'd found me.
I was done for.
But as one man threw his cigarette into the pool
and it hissed upon impact, I smiled.
The water was rising again, coming for them.
The monster made of water, of fire, of earth, of wind,
she wouldn't rest until all those
who hurt the world suffered.
The monster who had found me and kept me safe.
Now, I knew how to spend my life, by guarding her in return.
As the men screamed in terror, I smiled.
Terra, my savior.
"Go ahead," I told her, "do your worst."
(dramatic music)
(water sloshing)