October 20XX
Fate is cruel.
Fate often liked to play tricks on people, and there’s no escaping it.
No matter how far you run or how fast you go or how you try to forget it, it always has a way of creeping up to you.
My fate is to be a bridge between the living and the dead.
And no matter how many times I tear that bridge down, it manages to rebuild itself.
As my power of sight and my tendencies to unlock ‘doors’ grew, so was the hostility of the ‘things’ around me. Frederick was by far the closest and dearest spirit that had ever been, and I trust him with all my heart. But the ‘others’ were not so nice.
Just the other day, when I was playing the swing with him, I met one of ‘them’. At first I didn’t know she was a spirit. I assumed she was just one of those girls who liked to hang out in the playground at the dead of the night like us.
She was very beautiful for a child, with her strawberry blonde hair running down her shoulders and her bangs arranged decoratively across her forehead. She was wearing a very fluffy dress with frills and ribbons and embroidered flowers everywhere. She almost looked like one of those kids who dressed up real nice to go trick-or-treating during this festive Halloween season.
Come to think of it, it feels almost like yesterday since I last celebrated Halloween.
As I was saying, she was standing there a few feet away from me, looking all pretty under the moonlight. She smiled at me and asked, “Excuse me, where is the merry-go-round?”
“Oh, just right there…”
Before I finished my sentence, I saw her already at the merry-go-round playing with herself, going round and round and round. I didn’t think it weird at first, but as I turned to continue my swing game with Frederick, she appeared closer behind me without warning and asked, “Excuse me, where is the monkey bars?”
I was taken aback. How did she get here so fast? Again, I didn’t think much of it and replied, “Oh, right beside there…”
And again, before I could finish my sentence, she was already there, climbing up the bars back and forth, to and fro. Frederick had a rather horrifying look on his face and his eyes urged me to take leave immediately. By then, I knew something was wrong, and I knew better than to ignore Frederick’s warning. I was about to take leave when all of a sudden, the girl appeared again, this time much, much closer until I could feel her breath near my nape, asking, “Excuse me, where is the see-saw?”
I had to think of something fast. I screamed the first thing that came into my head, “It’s right in the middle of the forest!”
The girl gave me a look that told me that I have blown her cover. She smiled eerily, her grin creased from ear to ear—literally—and suddenly didn’t look like the beautiful little girl I first saw. Her face morphed into disgusting proportions and suddenly went on all fours, letting out an ear-piercing scream and crawled at top speed towards the forest that was behind the playground. It took me 5 minutes flat of staring blankly in shock at this phenomenon to actually let the entire bizarre scenario sink in before I quickly took Frederick’s hand and made a mad dash out of the playground, never looking back.
I learnt from word of mouth that she was one of those naughty spirits of the forest that enjoyed a steady diet of human flesh, and would often play around with their victims before finally getting close enough to devour them. To her, flesh filled with fear tastes the best.
That was just one of the many encounters I’ve came across as my “gift” continued to expand and level up without me even knowing it.
There was another incident where I took to loitering and scrounging up food around school compounds (I must’ve lost like 10 pounds since I left home and eloped with Frederick) where I heard another urban legend at one school I stopped in. It turns out that if you call out Bloody Mary 3 times in front of the mirror of the girls’ locker room where she died, you will see her image and the image of your death beside her.
When I asked about the truth behind Bloody Mary from a really nice cafeteria lady who often spared me some leftovers, she told me that Bloody Mary, when she was alive, used to be a pretty girl who was the object of everyone’s affection. Other girls got jealous of her when her beauty had unintentionally attracted their boyfriends to her and decided to humiliate her in any way possible. The last straw was when they assaulted her and cut her face badly with a penknife. Her beautiful face was left with dozens of scars and those who used to pursue her left her without a moment’s notice. The perpetrators walked off scott-free without any care in the world because some of them were from wealthy backgrounds and can afford to buy secrecy, and they continued to taunt her till no end. Finally, unable to take the pressure, Bloody Mary committed suicide in the girls’ locker room, and a week after her death, the girls who did her wrong also died under mysterious circumstances.
Needless to say, when I managed to sneak into the girls’ locker room to shower and take a piss, I accidentally eavesdropped on a few teenagers who decided to flirt with danger and tried out the urban legend. I wanted to stop them but I didn’t want to risk breaking into the school and using school property.
Soon, hiding behind a wall, I saw the girls stared in horror as Bloody Mary really appeared on the mirror. She looked like Samara from the movie ‘The Ring’, drenched in blood as she looked at them menacingly. There were three girls there and she revealed their death one by one. The first girl’s death was by strangulation, and the look on the girl’s face told me that the person strangling her could possibly be her boyfriend. The second girl’s death was by a freak accident where someone dropped a glass pane while trying to fix a window and it decapitated her clean and through. The third girl’s death was by drowning, whereby a burglar came in and raped her and stuffed her head into the bathtub to drown her.
“Do you fear death? Do you wish to avoid this gruesome fate?”
My head was screaming ‘No’ but the girls, horrified by the sight they saw, nodded desperately.
“Then give me your blood!”
Without warning, Bloody Mary’s hand shot out of the mirror and grabbed the second girl’s throat, and with one squeeze, decapitated her within seconds. Her blood sprayed all over, staining her clothes and the marble floor and all over her friends, before her headless body fell to the ground. The girls screamed and made a run for the door but it slammed shut and closed up tight, barring them from any escape. I told Frederick to wait for me behind the cafeteria, so I doubt he could hear them or me if I ever called for help. I crouched at one corner of the locker hoping that Bloody Mary could not find me. I could hear the girls’ echoing scream as they were scared shitless and met their doom. I wanted to help, but what can I do when I only have the power to see and unlock but not lock them back in?
It felt like forever before the locker room was finally quiet. Trembling in fear, I crawled out of my hiding place and gasped in horror as I saw the girls dead in the same way as predicted by Bloody Mary, but by her standards. The first girl, who was supposed to die of strangulation by her boyfriend, was found with a shower head cord wrapped tightly around her neck and her face bluish-grey as the cord snuffed the life out of her. The third girl, who was supposed to die of drowning, had her head forced into the toilet bowl.
I could feel the presence of Bloody Mary still lingering around. I could literally feel her watching me with her piercing eyes as my back was facing the mirrors. Without looking back, I asked, “Why do you do this?”
“For fun,” she replied.
“Fun? You kill people, for god sake! You call this fun?!”
“I wouldn’t have done it without you.”
“What?” I turned around, staring at Bloody Mary in disbelief.
“I am cursed to be in this wretched mirror world for all eternity, for souls who commit suicide is eligible for neither heaven nor hell. I wanted those bitches who ruined my beautiful face to pay, to show them what it feels like to die a miserable death. I had my chance. Each and every one of them who came into this locker room met their doom in the most degrading way possible through the curse of my image they see in the mirror. They all got what they deserved, but it was not enough. There are still so many bitches in this world that needs to be punished.
“For years, my soul has been trapped here in this mirror world, doing nothing but cursing people to their deaths. I longed for the glory days when I can satiate my blood lust, just like the way I did with those bitches. For years I wanted to just watch those people die in my grasp and feel the blood in my hands as they die the way I predicted them. For years I wanted to see, smell and taste their blood, just like I did when I killed those bitches who think they’re above the law. The stupid urban legend I made my final victim spread before she died was not enough. Cursing them to their death is just not satisfying enough. I need more! More blood! More blood!”
“What does that have to do with me?” I asked. Frederick suddenly came out of the blue and held me in his arms. He must’ve felt something was wrong when I didn’t show up for so long.
“You are the one who allowed me to reach out for the girl and had my first taste of sweet, luscious blood. I’ve felt your presence and your power and it gave me strength since the day you showed up here to beg for food. It was only a matter of time before you’d come in here and those girls show up to try out the urban legend. You are the one who freed me from my confinement in this mirror world and use my powers to the fullest. Now I am invincible!!!”
So saying, her image began to fill up every reflective object possible around us: from the entire row of mirrors to the metallic lockers to the window panes all the way even to the glossy shower walls. Her laughter filled the entire locker room and everything moved at its own accord. The shower heads suddenly burst out water, the locker doors opened and shut, the lights flickered, the water faucets turned on, the door shook and rattled, and the benches began to levitate. She had really worked her powers to the fullest. Frederick held me protectively and glared at all the Bloody Mary-s, daring them to harm me.
“Oh, I won’t do anything to your lover, boy,” the Bloody Mary-s chuckled as they opened the door for us. “I’m not like some people who are ungrateful. But you better take her away now before I change my mind. Happy Halloween!”
Bloody Mary’s maniacal laughter was the last thing we heard as Frederick quickly dragged me out of the school and into the darkness of Halloween night.
It was no surprise when the girls’ death made the headlines.
Another product of my unlocking powers.
………
I feel as if I had committed the worse crime ever.
………
Is there nothing I can do to escape my fate?
Not even the slightest possibility?
What should I do?
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