WATCH ME DO CHINESE WATER TORTURE—WILL I FALL INTO PSYCHOSIS!?!

Yeah. You read that right. I’m a content creator and I decided to drip water on my head for 5 hours, and livestream the entire thing.

The things we do for money, huh?

“My friend Leslie here has restrained me,” I said into the camera, as the dripper hovered above me. “My hands are handcuffed behind my back, my ankles are strapped to the chair, and I am completely unable to move.”

Leslie gave an awkward thumbs-up at the camera.

“Did you know Chinese water torture didn’t originate in China? The earliest account is from 15th century Italy. There’s also a kinda creepy drawing from Sweden with it. Leslie, can you hold that up for them?”

She held up the drawing I’d printed out from Wikipedia, of a murderer screaming as water dripped onto his head. I grinned into the camera.

“Apparently, if you do this long enough, you start hallucinating. 10 hours, and you go into psychosis. I don’t believe it. But we’ll find out, won’t we? Leslie, do the honors?”

She reached up and turned the knob.

A second later I felt a cold, fat drop of water fall onto my scalp.

-

“One hour has elapsed,” I said, looking into the camera I’d placed across the room. “I feel… mostly good. The water was really annoying at first, but I’ve gotten used to it. I just wish I could dry off my face. And get out of these handcuffs.”

The metal was biting into my wrists and my left hand was asleep. But I was stuck—like an idiot, I had no backup plan.

I had to wait for Leslie. Four hours to go.

-

“Hour 2. This sucks.” I nodded to my sweatshirt, which was soaked. “I’m tired. I’m cold. And—” Drip. Another drop of water hit me on the head, oozing into my hair.

“The dripping isn’t at regular intervals, and it’s driving me crazy. I never know when they next one’s coming. Sometimes it drips out one, then another right after. Sometimes it waits several minutes between drips. Sometimes I hear this little gurgling noise beforehand, and then I try to get ready for it, but somehow that makes it worse, you know?”

This still wasn’t as bad as the Frosting Challenge I did last year (don’t ask), but it was starting to become very un-fun.

Maybe Dad was right. Maybe, it was time for me to get a “real” job.

-

“Three hours.”

I was cold. My wrists stung. And there was this pressure in my chest, a ball of anxiety, as I waited for that next godforsaken drop of water to hit me.

It was stupid—logically, I knew that. It was just water. But the repetition, and the irregularity of it. It was like listening to a ticking clock. A broken clock, out of rhythm, out of sync. Tiktik-tock. Tocktick… TICK. Sometimes I heard a soft gurgling sound and my entire body would seize up. When the drop didn’t come, I relaxed. Only for a big fat one to hit me square on the head and slowly, ever-so-slowly trickle down my face.

Then it would bead there, sticking to my chin, for what felt like hours until finally breaking free and splattering onto my already-soaked sweatshirt.

“I’m not hallucinating or anything,” I said. “But I’m really stressed out. I can’t remember the last time I was this stressed.” I closed my eyes and let out an anguished sigh.

And then I remembered.

I was handcuffed to the chair… but I didn’t need my hands to make a call.

“Hey Google,” I shouted in the direction of my phone, sitting on the kitchen counter. “Call Leslie.”

She picked up after two rings. “Hey, Charlie? Everything okay?”

Relief flooded me. Suddenly the handcuffs didn’t hurt so much; the water dripping onto my face barely made me flinch. “Yeah. Sort of. I think I’m done with this water torture thing.”

“Oh, already? It’s that miserable, huh?”

“Yeah. I’m freezing and sore and I just don’t think I can keep this up much longer.” *Drip—*this one hit me on my cheek, and slowly traveled down my neck like an icy finger. “Can you come over and untie me?”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

My stomach dropped. “Uh, what?” I asked, with a nervous laugh. “Why not?”

Silence.

“Leslie?”

A pause.

Had the call disconnected? I glanced at the counter—

My phone wasn’t there.

What the… But then I remembered. Before setting up for the water torture, I’d left my phone charging upstairs. There’s no way I’d actually talked to Leslie just now.

I have to get out of here.

I violently rocked my body back and forth, trying to move the chair underneath me. If I could just get my chair a foot forward, I’d be out of the water’s range. With a grunt, I lurched forward.

But the chair barely budged.

-

Three and a half hours.

I sat completely frozen in the chair. Drops of water slowly slid down my cheeks and onto my sweater, but I didn’t even blink. I wouldn’t let it get to me. *Drip—*another drop—the 107th one since the hallucination. I’d been counting them to keep my concentration, and it was working. Gurgle—here comes 108—

Creeeeeeaaaak.

I froze, staring towards the hallway.

But no sounds followed. I let out the breath I’d been holding and closed my eyes, trying to calm myself. Breathe in, breathe out. In less than two hours, Leslie will be here. I just have to make it until then—

Something cold poked against my spine.

I froze as it slowly, carefully, made its way up my back. Tears burned my eyes as I resisted the urge to turn around. It’s not real. It’s not real.

But it felt real.

In my research of water torture I’d read about an artist in New Zealand, who’d done it as part of some art exhibit. In the final hours she said she felt the presence of her dead husband, stroking his finger up and down her back.

But the cold finger slowly moving up my spine did not feel loving. I began to sob as it passed my shoulderblades, heading towards my neck.

Drip.

-

Almost four hours.

I heard a child laughing softly, just beyond my view in the hallway. Little pattering footsteps across the wooden floor. But when I finally saw a glimpse of it, there was something horribly off with the way it moved. Like it was something inhuman, trying to imitate human movement.

Drip.

Something was walking behind me. I could see its shadow passing over me, stretched out on the tile floor. Cold fingers grazed my spine again, and this time when the fingers reached my neck… they squeezed.

Drip.

And then the most horrible one. The last one I remembered, before everything went black.

The voice started off soft, barely audible. But I recognized it instantly: my mother’s voice. She was singing Brahm’s lullaby, which she used to sing to me as a child.

Before she died, 14 years ago.

The lullaby got louder as I sat strapped to the chair, frozen. Pleasant dreams until the dawn… The sound moved around the house, sometimes coming from out in the hallway, sometimes from upstairs. Tears ran down my face as I listened to her sing. Start the day, with a smile…

Drip.

Her voice was right in my ear.

I screamed. I began rocking the chair back and forth, violently. Trying to desperately escape. But the chair barely moved—

Drip.

She was standing in front of me.

I stared at her baby blue slippers on my tile floor. My gaze slowly went up… across her white nightgown… towards the face I hadn’t seen in 14 years—

-

I woke up in the hospital.

Leslie’s face hung over mine, her eyes red and swollen from crying. “I was so worried about you. I thought—I thought we’d lost you…”

That night, after I returned home, I watched a replay of the livestream. I fastforwarded to the last thing I remember—around four hours into the video.

I could see myself sitting on the chair. The dripper hanging above me. I watched myself scream, as I heard my mother’s voice in my ear. Then I saw my eyes slowly travel upwards… and stop about five feet off the ground, where her face would be.

Then I violently turned away—

And began bashing my head into the kitchen table.

After several sickening thwacks, I could see the blood. Thick patches blooming out of my hair, running down my face. But I didn’t stop. If anything, I sped up, wildly thrashing my head into the table as hard as I possibly could—

And then my entire body went still.

I’d knocked myself unconscious.

I watched in horror as I lay there, eyes closed, blood pooling out onto the table. No wonder Leslie had thought I was dead. Several minutes went by, and then I saw her run into the frame, frantically tending to me.

But then I saw something else.

Just for a second. In the water pooled on the floor. A dark shape, flitting across the reflections—then vanishing from sight.

Maybe there is more to water torture than we thought.