The black typewriter ribbon whipped through the frosted doorway of Stall #7 like a nest of disturbed iron vipers.
The woven cotton fabric shrieked as it sliced through the mist.
Julian Vance threw his left forearm up to protect his eyes. The leading edge of the ribbon grazed his wool cardigan, cutting clean through the thick knitted yarn with the razor-sharp edge of high-tension carbon tape. The fabric left a greasy black smear of fresh ink across his skin that burned like battery acid.
A pungent stench of fresh printer ink, petroleum oil, and hot iron filled the washroom.
From the square opening of the ceiling ventilation duct, the entity poured into the stall.
Rather than dropping like a dead weight, the mass slithered down the galvanized tin ductwork with rhythmic speed, unfolding itself over Stall #7’s bone-dry brass floor drain.
It stood six feet tall, formed entirely of tightly braided ribbons from the 1998 Underwood Master Typewriter. Black and crimson ribbons coiled around each other in dense, muscular ropes, writhing like greasy muscle tissue under tension. The fabric was saturated with heavy ink that dripped in thick, dark beads onto the wet floor tiles.
Where a human heart would beat, pinned inside the center of its chest, hung the inverted Red Disciplinary Demerit Pad.
