Eleanoreel

The Eel-Fated Bath 01 Friday Escape At five o’clock on Friday, Eleanor Sanz saved her work, shut down her computer, and stood up before another request could arrive. The office printer started up behind her. She kept walking rather than checking whose job it was.

It was the first time she left on time in nearly three weeks.

“You're actually going?” Daniel asked from the next desk. He glanced at the clock, then at the stack of folders beside her keyboard.

“Yes. The folders can wait until Monday.” Eleanor took her coat from the back of her chair. Her shoulders ached when she lifted her arms, and she decided that was another reason to leave.

Daniel leaned back to let her pass. “Happy weekend El.” he paused and looking back at his own screen still held a spreadsheet,"I really do think you need one"

Eleanor stopped for a moment, and begin to think to help him finish it. He saw her look and shook his head. “Na-ah I'm fine on my own, besides i don't have much to do at home.”

“Okay...” she said. "Don't force yourself much too, Dan,"

She got a better plan than the one she usually made on Friday nights: go home, eat whatever required the least work, and fall asleep while pretending to watch something.

For this Friday, she booked an appointment before she could talk herself out of it. Her friend, Marisa, recommended the spa twice earlier this week, and two other friends backed her up when Eleanor mentioned she wanted somewhere quiet.

Her manager was surprised when she asked to leave on time. He reminded her about Monday's report, and Eleanor wittily told him that she sent him it that morning. She did not argue. He checked his inbox, found the message, and told her to enjoy her weekend.

That small exchange somewhat bring more satisfaction than she expected mostly because She spent so many evenings waiting for permission to go home that makes leaving at 5 felt like a miracle.

“Ask for the mud bath,” Marisa said over lunch. “I know how that sounds, but trust me.”

Eleanor tried plenty of spas over the years. She knew which ones played music too loudly, which ones kept the rooms too cold, and which ones called a ten-minute foot soak a complete treatment. A bath full of mud never appealed to her. This week, though, Marisa looked rested enough to be convincing.

She booked the last slot she could manage after work. If she went home first, she would sit on the sofa and never get up again.

And for the occasion, she brought her swimsuit and a change of clothes to the office in a small bag, then spent the afternoon checking that the bag still sat under her desk, as if it might somehow disappear.

The spa sat at the end of a side street away from the traffic. Eleanor reached it as the evening lights came on. Warm light showed through the front windows, and the entrance smelled faintly of clean towels and something herbal. She silenced her phone before stepping inside, though her thumb stayed over the screen for a moment. Work could wait until Monday.

02 Spa Reception At the reception desk, a woman in a dark green uniform looked up from a booking screen. Eleanor set down her bag, careful not to knock the small dish of locker keys beside it. “Good evening. Can I help you?”

“Eleanor Sanz. I booked for six.”

The receptionist checked the screen and smiled. “Welcome, Ms. Sanz. It's your first visit with us?”

“First mud bath, too.” Eleanor rested her bag on the counter. “Three people told me to try whichever one everyone recommends, so I clicked that one. I hope they weren't playing a joke on me.”

“Ahh...The Deep Marsh treatment,” the receptionist said. “No joke. It keeps our Friday evenings busy.” She handed Eleanor a short form. “The mud is warm, and you can rinse off in the room afterward. Your booking is for fifty minutes. If you need anything, there's a call button beside the bath.”

Eleanor read the form. It asked about allergies, skin conditions, and whether she felt unwell. She ticked the boxes that applied and signed at the bottom. While the receptionist checked it, she glanced at a photograph behind the desk: a dark, quiet marsh with reeds along its banks.

“Is that where the mud comes from?” Eleanor asked.

“From Fenmere Marsh, yes. Our supplier brings it in.” The receptionist checked Eleanor's signature and filed the form. “We got a fresh delivery this afternoon, actually.”

Eleanor looked back at the photograph. “Is it brought straight here like that?”

“No, they prepare and check each delivery before we use it,” the receptionist said. She pointed toward the pale strip of water visible between the reeds. “The marsh is fed by Fenmere Creek. It's a large place. People are usually surprised the treatment comes from somewhere local.”

Eleanor knew the creek's name from a road sign near the research estate on her drive across town. She never went that way unless traffic forced her to, and she could not picture the stretch of water from the photo. She gave the receptionist the form back and thought no more about it.

“So it's real mud...”

The woman gave her a small smile. “Very real. It's prepared before it reaches the bath. You won't be finding twigs in it.”

“Good. I wasn't looking for the full swamp experience.”

The receptionist laughed, then came around the counter with a locker key. Eleanor followed her down a short hall. A door stood open to a changing area, with a row of pale lockers, benches, and folded white robes. Beyond it, another corridor led toward the private rooms.

“Locker twelve is yours,” the receptionist said. “Take one of the robes after you've changed. Your room is number four, at the end of the hall. The door closes for privacy, you may lock if you think it's necessary, but if something happened, we obligated to open it.” the receptionist pause and give her an assuring smile. "Surely there no such case before and i think we won't"

Eleanor looked toward the quiet corridor. “And someone will let me know when the time is up?”

“We'll knock. There's no rush to get dressed afterward, though. The fifty minutes are for the bath.”

“All right. Thank you.”

Inside the changing room, Eleanor put her bag and work clothes in the locker. She changed into the plain black two-piece swimsuit she brought from home, pulled on a white bathrobe, and tied its belt around her waist. The robe sleeves covered most of her hands until she turned them back. She cleaned a mark from her glasses and checked her reflection. Without her work clothes, she felt oddly unprepared, as though she forgot something important in the locker. Then she noticed she was still carrying her phone.

03 Changing Room She turned it over. Two work messages waited on the screen. Neither needed an answer tonight. Eleanor put the phone in her bag, locked the locker, and left with only the key around her wrist.

Room four was quiet when she entered. Low lights along the walls gave her enough to see without shining in her eyes. Towels sat on a shelf beside a shower, and a wooden tray held a glass of water within reach of the bath. The long stone tub was built for one person, with a broad rim, an entry step along its near side, and a sloped backrest at one end. Dark brown mud filled it almost to the line marked inside. Its surface looked smooth and heavy, apart from a few small circles that slowly closed again.

Eleanor closed the door and hung her robe on the hook beside it. She went to the tub in bare feet and stopped at the entry step. The backrest showed her where the seat should be, but the mud hid the bottom of the bath completely. The glass of water was close enough to reach once she settled in.

04 Private Mud Bath “Well, Marisa,” she said to the empty room, “this had better be good.”

05 Careful Entry Eleanor stepped up and sat sideways on the broad rim, keeping one foot planted on the dry step. She held the stone on either side of her and lowered the other foot into the mud. It was warm, thick enough to resist her movement but loose enough to give way. She moved the second foot over the rim, then used her arms to lower herself onto the seat. She did it slowly because she could not see where her feet landed. Once she found the broad seat and rested against the slope, the worry passed.

The mud reached above her waist. Eleanor moved her legs a little, testing the space. There was room to straighten them, although each movement took more effort than it would in water. She leaned her head back and drew a slow breath.

She kept one hand on the rim while she worked out where everything was. The shower stood behind the bath, the tray was beside her backrest, and the call button sat on the wall a short reach from her shoulder. She could get out by pushing up on the broad rim and returning both feet to the step. She pictured doing it while covered in mud and made a face. The shower would earn its place tonight.

06 Relaxing “Oh,” she said.

She expected grit or an earthy smell that would follow her home. Instead, the mud held steady warmth around her sore calves and the back of her thighs. The room was still. She could hear a low flow of water somewhere behind the wall, and nothing from the street. She tried to remember why Marisa found the treatment so calming." I guess i should hear her opinion once in a while" she muttered under her breath.

As she shifted, a faint cooler thread moved between her ankles. Eleanor stirred the bath with one foot, and the feeling went away. The thicker mud below still felt evenly warm, so she settled again. When she moved her hand from the rim, a brown print stayed on the stone. She wiped it with the edge of the folded towel and thought about telling Marisa that the treatment worked. She would probably leave out how quickly she started talking to herself.

Eleanor stayed upright long enough to drink from the glass, then set it carefully back on its tray. She left her glasses on. She meant to keep track of the time, perhaps watch the little clock near the door, but closing her eyes felt better. Her shoulders eased down against the backrest. The warmth made her legs feel heavy, then made that heaviness seem like somebody else's problem.

07 Asleep She drifted off without noticing when it happened.

At some point the warm pressure around her legs changed. Her feet seemed to brush together, then slip past each other, and the feeling became too vague to pull her awake. A slow movement ran along the tub and sent a little mud against the rim. Eleanor shifted her shoulders, found a comfortable place for her head, and kept sleeping.

When Eleanor woke, the room was as quiet as before. She blinked at the ceiling. For a few seconds she could not remember where she was, only that something warm pressed around her lower body and her neck rested at an unfamiliar angle.

The spa. The mud bath.

She raised her head and looked toward the clock. The hands were too far away to read clearly through the soft light. She couldn't tell whether she slept for ten minutes or most of the appointment. The surface of the mud felt cooler against her skin than the warmth underneath.

“I really did fall asleep,” she said, embarrassed though no one was there to hear her.

She tried to bend her right knee before sitting up. Nothing moved the way she expected. The mud shifted at the far end of the bath, and pressure rolled along the backs of her legs.

08 Waking Eleanor paused. She tried again, slower this time. She knew what she wanted her knee to do, but she could not find the familiar point where it bent. Her left leg seemed to move with the right one.

“That's odd.”

She slept with her legs still for too long. Both feet must be numb, and the mud was too thick for small movements to feel distinct. That explanation made sense until she tried to flex her toes. The effort went somewhere, but she felt no separate feet answering it.

09 Mud Ridge Eleanor sat forward. The mud pulled lightly at her skin. She gripped the rim and shifted her hips, trying to give her legs room. A dark rise pushed against the surface farther down the tub, well past the place where she thought her knee should be. It dipped again before she could tell what caused it.

She lifted her left hand and made herself take a breath. If she felt frightened, she would start fighting the mud and lose her footing. She needed to put her feet beneath her first. Eleanor pushed down toward the bottom of the tub. Something broad pressed back against the floor, but it did not feel like either of her feet. When she tried to shift the other one into place, the pressure slid along the base of the bath instead.

“It's the mud,” she said. “It has to be.”

10 Hidden Touch Maybe the bath included jets. She hadn't noticed any earlier, but the small circles on the surface could be from something under the tub. She watched for another one. Instead, a long rise crossed the mud in front of her, following a movement she felt begin at her hips.

Eleanor held still. The rise settled when she stopped moving.

She tried to move one leg without the other. The surface shifted again, this time along a single curve. There was no matching movement on the opposite side. She tried harder, almost angry at herself for failing to do something so simple. The curve swept sideways, and mud lapped against the far wall of the tub.

Her breathing quickened. She put her hand into the bath near her thigh, but stopped when her fingers touched something smooth and firm beneath the mud. For an instant she thought an animal got into the tub. Then that same place registered the touch of her own fingers.

She snatched her hand back. Mud dripped from her wrist onto the rim.

“No.” Eleanor swallowed and looked toward the door. The call button was on the wall beside her, close enough to reach. She could press it and let someone come in, but she couldn't yet explain what was wrong. She needed to see for herself.

11 Bracing On Rim She pressed both palms against the rim. Her first attempt to lift herself only dragged the unseen weight after her and sent a slow wave down the bath. She stopped, waited for the mud to settle, and tried again with her elbows closer to her sides. Her shoulders and arms took the strain. Her upper body rose a little; her hips followed more reluctantly.

Thick mud slid down a dark surface that came up with her.

Eleanor stared. Mud ran from her waist, uncovering the place where her body changed into a broad length of mottled brown and black skin. It was continuous with her, not a separate thing caught in the bath. The thick part rose against the surface in front of her, curved toward the far end, and disappeared under the mud. She could not see either of her thighs. When she shifted, the exposed length shifted too.

Her arms shook. She lowered herself just enough to keep her balance, still gripping the rim. Mud slid down the exposed curve in slow, heavy streaks. Its weight pulled at her from below, and she pressed harder against the stone to stay upright.

“My legs,” she said. Her voice came out thin. “Where are my legs?”

She freed one muddy hand from the rim and touched the smooth skin in front of her. The touch ran through her as plainly as a hand against her arm. She jerked away and caught the rim again. Farther down the bath, the hidden length reacted with a heavy sweep that pushed mud against the wall.

12 Eel Tail Reveal Eleanor looked from the movement to her own hips and back again. There were no knees to uncover. No feet waiting somewhere under the dark surface. The one long body filled the space where her legs should be, curling because the tub gave it nowhere else to go. When she tried to hold it still, it trembled with the effort.

“Help!” she called. The sound caught in her throat. She took a breath and shouted again, louder this time.

Then she screamed.

13 Attendant Hears Scream In the hallway, Lind Howard pushed a trolley of fresh towels past room four when she heard a woman call for help. Lind stopped, kept one hand on the handle, and turned toward the closed door before she could decide whether the voice came from that room.

Lind knocked softly. "Is someone inside?"

"SOMEBODY HELP ME!!!!" cried a woman from the other side of the door

Lind pulled the spare keys, one that her manager told only be used on emergency situation, and she thinks this is the one.

The door clicked, and Lind opened it, seeing a scene she would never forget.