Rise Of The Guardians: Bloody Mary

8) Ax Murder And Other Cheery Topics

Mary found herself, yet again, in the Parallel alone and confused. Her first thoughts were to go running off to find the Guardians. The fact that Pitch was trying to take over the world seemed pretty important. But she stopped herself. What would she tell them? They already know Pitch is crazy and alive, and Pitch hadn’t really said how he intended to do it. She considered telling them about his secret lair, but she didn’t even know where it was. She was practically unconscious when he dragged her in there anyway. Another factor was she just didn’t want to do that. That was the worst part. Pitch had attacked her, but he had also told her about her memories, and he was the only thing that mattered to her when she was alive, and Pitch had kept all of his promises to her. When she lined up the pros and cons, Pitch had been better to her than the Guardians. Pitch was her oldest friend, even if he was evil. And was he even evil? Being scared had saved peoples lives, he was just doing his job like the rest of the Guardians. Tooth had called her evil for scaring kids, and Mary knew she wasn’t evil. What it really came down to was the fact that Pitch wasn’t wrong, and he had been trustworthy and loyal to her and only Jack had been kind to her out of the Guardians whose only real goal at the moment was to hunt people down that they didn’t like.  

It didn’t make sense. Pitch is the bad guy. The Guardians are the good guys. But somehow Pitch’s ideas seemed more good than anything the Guardians were doing. All they were doing was providing children with cheap thrills, while Pitch was trying to save the world. All Mary had wanted was to be friends with the Guardians, she had been so sure that it was the right decision. But what even made them good? The fact that a bunch of spoiled children liked them? And what made Pitch so bad? The fact that children didn’t like him. But why did the kids get to decide that? They were all so oblivious to the real state of the world, they weren't qualified to make that decision.

She suddenly found herself questioning why she was even in this mess. She drifted through the blackness lazily, her arms folded behind her head. Why was Pitch so attached to her? What made her so different from all the other kid’s he met? Maybe it was because she hadn’t screamed and run when she saw him.

Mary jolted upright, “Oh my god. I’m his Lizzie.”

The Parallel seemed to tremble at the name. The same green house as before squeezed itself out of the darkness. The road appeared underneath her feet, the driveway stretching out toward her like a beckoning hand. 92 Second Street in Fall River, Massachusetts.

Mary glared at the Parallel, again frustrated by it’s pushiness, “Fine. But I really don’t see what it’s going help.”

Mary walked into the house, carelessly passing through the closed front door. It wasn’t real of course, just an illusion from the Parallel. She walked up the stares, and shuddered as she could see underneath the bed in room down the hall. She made her way to the familiar bedroom. In the room the curtains shone white and lazily danced in the morning breeze. To the side of the room there was a dresser with a mirror set into it’s wooden frame. Mary walked over to it, and saw her reflection. Her reflection, as always, was drenched in blood, her eyes cut in a horrific ‘x’ across her face. Her shoulder wound pouring blood into her white dress. Her neck carved with a huge gash that circled all the way around. Similar circular gashes stretched around her arms and legs and all of her fingers and toes. She had seen this horror show plenty of times. This was how kids saw her. And for the longest time she had wondered why she looked like that. Now she knew that the mirrors made her look the way she was when that bastard had cut her into little bits. Mary scowled at her reflection, then allowed herself to switch places with it.

She was in the real world now, and her reflection in the mirror showed her looking young and smooth skinned and beautiful. She sighed once, appreciating momentarily that at least she didn’t look horrifying all the time. She turned to look at the room again, and wondered how many times she had been here. The answer was in the hundreds, probably. She remembered being summoned here over and over. Then just sitting on the bed with Lizzie and talking and laughing for hours. She missed those days. But quickly felt the nostalgia replaced by nausea. She wondered what had gone so terribly wrong.