† What Lies Within
An exercise for college where we had to make a complete narrative story in less than 30 minutes. I hope you guys like it!
A couple in their mid-twenties were standing in front of a stained mirror, grimy from the lack of attention. They had their hands clasped together, but the woman eventually broke away after realizing the stupidity of what they’ve just done.
“Damn it! I knew that shit was fake! I don’t know why everyone’s scared to do it, because it’s all a bunch of lies!” she shouted as she walked out of the bathroom and slammed the door, leaving her bewildered boyfriend alone. He quietly followed, reflecting back on what their reason was for testing an urban legend that could have easily ended their life. But alas, in the end, nothing happened. He shook his head as he met up with the girl outside of their house.
“Bloody-fucking-Mary, my ass…” the girl said as she lit a cigarette and blew smoke into the midnight sky. She looked at the boy, whose expression shifted from a calm state of mind to one of paranoia. He thought he heard a haunting whisper that broke the night’s prolonged silence. Suddenly, the air seemed predatory, feeding on his fear.
“Babe, you okay?”
“Why did you make me do this? Huh? Tell me why!” he demanded. “I’m hearing things, you know that? What if we pissed the spirit off and it wants to kill us?”
The girl took another drag of her cigarette before putting it out, taking hold of her boyfriend’s hand in an attempt to comfort him.
“It’s nothing, hon. It’s all in your head. It’s just a game to scare little kids. Come on, be a man!”
“I hope you’re right…” he muttered as they both walked back inside their house.
Their living room was small and cramped, uncared for like the rest of their house. Littered with trash and cigarette butts, the smell of marijuana and stagnant beer lingered in the air, but it was as if the couple had already grown immune to the stench of their own mess. Falling asleep at that moment seemed like such a good idea, drifting away to a dreamland where only nightmares would threaten their serenity, but reality would soon reveal its ugliness.
Craaaassh. The sound of glass being thrown to the floor was loud enough to rudely awaken the couple. The air was colder now, and they noticed. The boy held the girl tight as he scanned the surrounding for the source of the noise.
He could hear the voices again. They were back. It was all in his head, right? It must be.
“She’s here, isn’t she? Stay here, babe. I’ll go check it out…” he whispered to the astonished girl.
“You’re not real. You’re not real. You’re not real!“ he repeated inside his head, hoping it would protect him as some sort of prayer against evil.
She begged him not to go, pleaded him to stay by his side, but what kind of a man would he be if he didn’t check out the source of the noise?
The girl held on to her blanket, worried about what might happen. All of a sudden, the air shifted to a higher temperature, as if it were somehow threatening their safety with ominous signals. The lamp beside her flickered on and off, causing her to hide inside of the sheets. She closed her eyes, attempting to shut off her fear.
Craaaasssh! Another louder noise caused her to jolt upright, and hearing her boyfriend’s scream broke her heart. It was one of those screams where it sounded as if his life was being taken from him. As if someone had come back to take vengeance.
She ran into the bathroom and saw a pool of blood. Panicked and confused, she looked around the entire place but found no trace of her lover’s body. As she tried to run away from the bathroom drenched in crimson, the door slammed shut.
“Let me out!”
The girl screamed as if she knew the force that trapped her in the bathroom. She banged on the door, sobbing uncontrollably and exhausting all of her strength, but the door wouldn’t budge. The lights flickered off and on, causing her anxiety level to shoot up even more. Her heart raced. Her voice ran dry. Her hope grew slim and her faith faded away.
She stopped banging on the door when she realized that it wasn’t going to open. Her eyes were sore from all the tears she wasted. Facing the mirror, the visual depiction of horror appeared before her. It was her boyfriend, lying dead in the bathroom, eyes gouged out and his face peeled off, revealing his bleeding flesh. She looked around the bathroom, but he only appeared from within the mirror.
“What the fuck is going on?!” she screamed. No answer. She was trapped in a living nightmare. She stroked the mirror, hoping to feel the warmth of her deceased lover, wishing that somehow she’d be transported beside him.
The mirror shattered into a thousand pieces, the shards tearing through her face and body and knocking her against the door. Helplessly tattered and wounded on the floor, she bled. She attempted to scream, but conjured nothing but silent, croaking sounds. As she gazed up at the remnants of the mirror in front of her, the apparition of an old, disfigured woman wearing clothes that seemed to resemble an older time period.
The woman had no eyes, mirroring the disfiguration done to her boyfriend. Her skin was wrinkled and peeling, her crimson flesh torn open by living maggots that squirmed as she got closer to the girl.
“You wanted to test the urban legend, didn’t you?” the old woman spoke in a menacing tone. “Let me tell you something. I killed about a hundred beautiful girls like you. I slit their throats and bled them dry. Their blood kept me young, and yours will do just fine.”
“Please… Please don’t do this…”
“You know very well not to tempt the spirits of the deceased!” the hag exclaimed, as she drew a sharp knife from her back. “You’ll pay for your mockery of the dead, young girl. And in return, I’ll be beautiful again. Just… like… you.”
The girl could only watch as the woman came closer to her. The woman’s knife was death incarnate, waiting to reap her soul for her insolence. All she could blame was herself.
The hag gave a menacing laugh before she slashed the girl’s stomach open. She knelt down and cupped the warm blood and splashed it all over her face.
“Beauty… Come back to me!”
The girl attempted to scream once more, but only silence escaped the depths of her throat.
All she felt was pain. In her final moments, she weakly smiled, knowing that she’d be back in his arms, even if death would become her final destination.
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