The H₂O Brigade

I smell it before I see it. Not the comforting, vaguely edible kind — toast left a moment too long, or a rogue fish finger committing quiet suicide in the grill — but something sharper. Acrid. Synthetic. Insistent. This isn’t a smell that sits in the air, it hooks into the back of your throat and lingers there, dry and scratchy. Then I see it. Smoke, threading its way out of the attic hatch in a slow, deliberate ribbon, curling with intent, like it knows exactly where it’s going. Alex’s room. My body reacts before my brain has time to catastrophise properly. Phone in hand, I stab the screen, breath snagging mid-inhale. “There’s a fire,” I say. “Come quick.” I barely finish the sentence before the door opens. Not knocked. Not forced. Just… opens. And he’s there. One fireman. Alone. Standing in the doorway like he’s here to view the place rather than save it. His uniform is pristine — suspiciously so — untouched by heat, smoke, or anything remotely threatening. Stitched across the chest, in cheerful, almost playful lettering: H₂O BRIGADE. He holds a plastic-wrapped six-pack of water bottles. I blink. For a brief, flickering second, I wonder if I’ve called the wrong service — a hydration consultant, a very committed Deliveroo driver, a man who turns up to emergencies and recommends fluids. “You called?” he says, voice flat, mildly curious — like this is an inconvenience, not a house fire. “There’s a fire,” I repeat, gesturing upwards. “In my son’s room.” He glances at the ceiling. Nods once. “Right.” No urgency. No radio chatter. No backup. No flicker of concern. He peels the plastic off the six-pack of Evian with the same energy one might reserve for opening a multipack of crisps during a slow film. “No hose?” I ask, deeply concerned. He shakes his head, unscrewing a bottle. “Oh, we’ve got a shortage of hoses at the moment.” “Of hoses.” “Mmm.” A pause, as if elaboration might follow. It doesn’t. He takes a step forward, then another, unhurried and entirely nonchalant. “Have faith,” he says, and sprinkles water at the fire. Sprinkles. Like he’s misting a houseplant. I stare at him. Then at the fire. Then back at him. “I don’t think that’s going to—” Another bottle. Another delicate flick of the wrist. The flames hesitate, as if mildly inconvenienced. He continues. Bottle after bottle. A quiet ritual. No rush. No panic. Just… hydration. And then — The fire gives up. Not extinguished in any satisfying, cinematic way. It just… folds. Like it’s been politely asked to leave and, somewhat embarrassed, obliges. Smoke thins. Heat dissipates. Done. I climb the ladder — because the stairs have apparently gone on strike due to burnout and left without notice — and peer into Alex’s room. There’s no damage. None. Not a scorch mark. Not a curl of blackened edge. The walls are intact. The bedding untouched. Even the air feels… cleaner. Too clean. Thin. Almost… aired out to the point of suspicion. Like the fire passed through and left everything oddly refreshed. I turn back. “Thank you,” I say, unsure whether gratitude or confusion is more appropriate. He’s already halfway out the door, tossing the empty bottles behind him, leaving a glinting trail of plastic in his wake. “Keep hydrated,” he hollers, and then he’s gone. Of course he is. I climb fully into the attic, unease settling into my bones like damp creeping through plaster. “I wonder what caused it?” I mutter. “Must be these old light fixtures,” my mum says. I freeze. She’s just… there. Like she’s been here all along, waiting patiently for her cue. “That’s not—when did you?—“ She reaches up, unscrews a bulb. It sparks violently, a sharp, angry crack lighting her face for a split second — too bright, too sudden, too wrong. “And you’ve got a leak,” she adds, almost conversational. “Water running straight through the electrics.” “Perfect,” I say. “Let’s just flood the fire next time. Save on bottles.” She nods, as if this is entirely reasonable. Which somehow makes it infinitely worse. It all feels… plausible. Until I see it. On the floor, half in shadow. A teddy. It sits in the corner like it’s always been there. It hasn’t. I know it hasn’t. I know this house. Every inch of it. Every misplaced sock, every forgotten charger, every crumb of evidence that suggests we’re just about holding it together. But this — This thing looks like it’s crawled out of a basement furnace nightmare. Its fur is charred, melted in places. Half its face is gone — burnt clean away — revealing something underneath that is very much not stuffing. Wiring. Thin, blackened strands, curled and exposed like veins. One eye is glassy and dead. The other — Moves. A twitch. Small. Intentional. Watching. I feel my throat tighten. “What is that?” I ask. Mum doesn’t react. Of course she doesn’t. I crouch slightly, peering closer. The thing smells faintly of smoke… and something bitter, dry, like overheated wires and recycled breath. Alive, in the worst possible sense. “I have to get rid of this,” I say, louder now. “This is far too creepy.” I pick it up. It’s heavier than it should be. Uncomfortably warm. I don’t think, don’t inspect, don’t grant it the dignity of curiosity. I throw it straight into the wheelie bin and slam the lid. “Good riddance,” I mutter. “Creep-ass teddy.” That should be the end of it. “Alex,” I say later, trying for casual and failing spectacularly. “Did you bring that teddy back into the house?” He shakes his head immediately. Too quickly. “No.” “Because it’s… back.” His face crumples into confusion. Genuine, I think. “I didn’t.” I narrow my eyes. “You once threw a baguette on the roof and denied all knowledge… while we all watched it decompose in real time.” He frowns. “Monkey must have done it.” “Ah yes,” I say. “The cat. A habitual sandwich thief with a fondness for altitude.” He shrugs, unwavering. I look back towards the stairs. The bin lid is slightly open. Just enough to feel deliberate. That’s when it starts. Properly starts. We leave a room. We come back. Everything is… wrong. Not obviously. Not at first glance. But chairs are angled towards the door. The sofa has shifted, just enough to feel intentional. Cushions that were slouched now sit upright. Cupboards creak open by themselves — slow, reluctant — like they’re being coaxed from the inside. TV flickers on in the middle of the night. Static. Then shapes gather beneath it — not on the screen, behind it — leaning into the glass like it’s a membrane, not a barrier. Water begins to appear. Not leaks. Not spills. Patches. Damp footprints leading nowhere. Thin trails running down walls that don’t connect to anything above. And sometimes, when I turn back quickly enough, I swear I catch it stopping, as if it knows it's been seen. The ceiling weeps quietly, but only when we’re not looking directly at it. A soft, intermittent tapping — drip, pause, drip — like it’s waiting to be noticed. The air feels thicker. Heavier. Dry in a way that shouldn’t be possible. Hard to swallow. And the messages. They smear themselves across the walls in something thick and uncertain, written in something that looks like blood — but could equally be Crayola, if you're feeling optimistic. YOU LEFT ME DRY. NOT ENOUGH. MORE. Once, I reach out and touch it; it’s wet, warm, almost fresh. The teddy keeps moving. Never when we’re looking. Always when we turn away. Closer. Each time. Watching. That one mechanical eye twitching with quiet, patient interest. We stop using half the house. Then most of it. Then all of it, really. We huddle in one room like it might make a difference. It doesn’t. The sound follows — slow creaks, soft drips, like the house is leaking what it can’t hold anymore. I find it again in Alex’s room. Sitting upright. Waiting. Its burnt face angled towards me, wires glinting faintly beneath the anaemic light. One eye fixed on me. The other… twitching. “You’re not welcome here,” I say. It doesn’t move. But something in the house… listens. I take it outside. The firepit sits at the back of the garden, still full of old ash and half-burnt intentions. I place the teddy in the centre. For a moment, there’s a stillness. A chance to reconsider, a flicker of doubt. I strike the match. The flame catches quickly, hungrily. The fire climbs the teddy’s fur like it’s been waiting for this moment. And then — those eyes. Through the flames. Watching. Not afraid. Not in pain. Just… amused. Taunting. The wires glow faintly as the heat builds, like something inside it is waking rather than dying. “You should’ve stayed gone,” I whisper. The flames roar, climbing, swallowing. The shape buckles, then collapses. The eyes linger a second longer… then disappear. It’s over. That night, the house is silent. Too silent. The kind of silence that wraps itself around you too tightly. I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for something — anything — to confirm that it’s done. I almost drift. Almost. Then — footsteps. Not the soft, padded steps of Monkey our cat. Not Alex’s flipper-footed, erratic march. These are different. Slow. Measured. Deliberate. One. Then another. I hold my breath, every muscle locked in paralysis, as if stillness might be enough to save me. They stop outside my door. A pause. Then — the handle moves. Just slightly. And in that moment — before the door even opens — it clicks. The water. The bottles. The leak running through the electrics. The damp footprints. The weeping ceiling. “Have faith.” “Keep hydrated.” The door creaks open — And I wake up. Gaping. My mouth feels like sandpaper. Dry, brutally dry. Sahara-level dry. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth like it’s been left on a fire-pit all night. I am parched. Utterly. Profoundly. Almost impressively… parched. I sit there for a moment, blinking into the dark — And then it hits like cold water to the face. Soft. Stupid. Inevitable. “Keep hydrated.” I let out a dry, humourless laugh. “... for fuck sake.”