My Friend Mary

Chap 1- The first meeting

If any of you are knowledgeable about Tibetan monk Bhiudist mythology you might know what a tulpa is It is an idea that's brought to life through sheer belief in the fact that exists. That sounds like a made-up concept to explain away the brain conformation biases right well that's what I thought too well that was until I was haunted by mine. We all played the game Bloody Mary It is a silly little children's game where you go into a bathroom and repeat her name three times in a row to make her appear in her mirror. A great way to get kids into catopromancy if you will a little urban legend. Well, not so much of a legend as I've been haunted by her since I was thirteen.

It first started at my 13th birthday sleepover. Me and a few friends were just fooling around and watching TV and without us noticing it had crept into the late hours of the night and as one does we started trying to scare each other with ghost stories and tales of demons under beds. Well, I don't remember how we got there but someone brought up the story of the Bloody Mary and the ritualistic process of calling upon her in a bathroom mirror. Filled with an unearned sense of bravery and skepticism over the tale we decided to try it out. As we scrounged through my home in the middle of the night for a candle I was already getting a bit unnerved and reluctant to sneak around in the dark but my friends peer-pressured me into continuing against my better judgment. If only I had the courage to say no to them back then I would have saved myself from so much grief. Welp it's too late for that now I guess so let's get on with the tale after we found the required items for the ritual we headed to the bathroom and I was the lucky guy chosen to perform the act as "it was my birthday and I should be the one to do it".

Well, that moment was my last waking moment without her looming and begging at every hour of the day. We all headed into the room with a small birthday candle left over from cutting the cake the previous night in this dark room with a small candle in my hands the 6 of us in this small dark room I started uttering the phrase "bloody mary" for the first time and the hair on my hands raised and there was a dark tension in the room as we got closer and closer to the climactic moment. I knew I wasn't the only one feeling it but we were already so far in that I felt a deep intrinsic urge to utter the phrase for a second time as if a small dark voice in my head that didn't belong to me was urging me to.

The second time I said the phrase came far more easily to me the unsettling chill in the room had faded away well at least for me i could sense my friend's fear becomes more and more palpable by the second as the words Bloody Mary" came out of my mouth my friends decided that this was as far as they were willing to continue with this little charade. They decided this was as far as they would like to continue and rushed out of the bathroom however they decided they wanted me to complete the ritual and held the door shut as I was stuck inside the room. Without my friends in the room, my newfound courage decapitated and I wanted out I dropped the candle in my hands and started banging on the door asking to let me out i hid how terrified I truly was as I didn't want to be called a wuss by them or wake my parents who would be furious at us for staying up so late. As I tried to fight my way out of the room they held it in the agreed to only let me out of the bathroom if I finished the incantation.

At this point, I decided this was my only choice to get out of the room so I steeled my nerves and headed towards the mirror and uttered the phrase for the final time. Once the words escaped my mouth it felt like time froze for me and there in the mirror I saw her the Bloody Mary. She looked like a young woman no older than her mid-twenties she was dressed in a white wedding gown. Her gown was splattered with droplets of blood and several charred parts. Her wrists had 4red bruising as if she was tied up for a long time and her eyes were gouged out leaving blondies hollow sockets that seemed to gaze into your soul.

She seemed to still be trapped behind the glass mirror as if it were holding her back. She tried to claw her way through the mirror creating an ear-piercing screeching squeak as if a sharp knife was being glided across the glass, not a human nails shortly after she started slamming into the mirror as hard as she could possibly and I could feel the mirror rattling on the wall. She eventually set her eyes on me and from her hoarse voice cords I could hear one phrase yelled at me "You messed up the ritual you have bound us together therefore you must finish the ritual and set me free!". My friends chose this exact moment to decide they had waited long enough and opened the doors behind me leading me to rush out the door screeching and yelling about the lady in the mirror my parents at this point were awakened and rushed to the yelling.

As I pointed at the mirror in my bathroom the lady in the mirror was seemingly gone leaving behind a blank mirror and me screeching like a
madman about her existence. This led to an early end to the sleepover as my parents called my friend's parents to pick them up and tried to console my freak out. I desperately tried to explain what I saw in the mirror to my parents and sensibly thought I pictured something and tried to put me back to bed against my wishes. After they tucked me in I desperately tried to go to bed and was getting pretty close to dosing off explaining what I witnessed as just imagining things.

However, I caught a glimpse of the reflection created by the streetlights on my TV screen and in that moment I saw her in the mirror attacking the glass shard holding her back and going from pure unbridled rage threatening my life if I didn't let her out to desperately begging her to let her out of the mirror her voice seemingly emanating from the base of my skull. Eventually, she tired herself out and I could get a night of not-so-restful sleep with her gaze full presence watching over me as I slept.

To Be Continued