Danger Zone One

The following is an excerpt from the book A Complete Guide to Urban Legends by Ivor Branek.

SCHOOL SPIRITS

An entire sub-category can be devoted to urban legends involving schools. Some center around school restrooms, where students are often alone or in small groups, as isolation tends to be an essential ingredient in many of these stories.

A popular restroom-based legend is the infamous Demon in the Drain. It is said that if a student spends too long sitting on the toilet, a ghostly hand will reach up and pull them down into the bowl. A lurid variation suggests the hand will drag the unfortunate victim straight to the “bowels of Hell”. The danger is not limited to toilets. Spending too long at the sink can have equally dire consequences, with a spectral hand springing forth from the drain, seizing the student, and pulling them head-first to their demise. How a human body can be squeezed through the plumbing is best left to one’s morbid imagination.

In the case of the Bleeding Woman, boys can breathe a sigh of relief. Female students should be cautious, though, since this bloody phantom only visits the girls’ restroom. To test this urban legend, all one needs to do is put on red lipstick, kiss the restroom mirror, leave a lip print on the glass, and recite this rhyme:

With this kiss I summon,
The face of the Bleeding Woman

If the ritual is successful, the Bleeding Woman’s ghastly visage will appear in the mirror. Unfortunately, a horrific death awaits any who encounter her. Sometimes called Hemora or Annie Mia—colorful plays on the words hemorrhage and anemia—the Bleeding Woman is a nude specter completely drenched in blood and possessing lifeless white eyes. Gazing upon this entity results in the victim bleeding from every orifice until they die—a grisly end even by urban legend standards.

The Demon in the Drain and the Bleeding Woman may be thinly veiled cautionary tales against loitering in the restroom and defacing mirrors, yet both have become enduring staples of student folklore over the years.

The most chilling school-related urban legend is not relegated to the restroom, however. Few legends can compare to that of Melpo Thalia. Much like the Bleeding Woman, this tale is also connected to a rhyme—but one with a far more terrifying history.

Danger Zone One. Story by Midnight. Art by Salaiix.