Today, we are featuring Inklings Book Contest 2024 finalist Hanna Mesfin! She finished 8th grade this past school year and wrote an imaginative story called “Sweet Dreams”. Our judges said that it is a “suspenseful horror story that leaves the reader on edge with its ending”. Continue below to enjoy the story in digital book or plain text form.
The candle flames flicker in the darkness of Lilith Garcia’s bedroom, casting a red glow in front of the mirror. There sits fourteen-year-old Lilith, staring into her dim reflection. Her black hair falls in curls to her shoulders like a waterfall of midnight, framing her sharply angled pale face. Next to her is her best friend Margot, a short, round-faced girl with wide baby blue eyes.
“Y’know,” whispers Margot, “there’s always a fun game of chess. It’s way less riskier—”
Lilith lifts a slender finger to silence her. “It’s fine, Margot; it’s just a silly sleepover game,” she hisses.
“But—”
“Hush,” she says through gritted teeth. Lilith looks into the mirror once again, and takes a deep breath before chanting, “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody—”
Before she can finish the final word, Margot lets out a mouse-like squeak.
Lilith turns to glare at her. “Ugh, I told you it’s harmless—”
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
The pair freezes. “Who’s there?” Lilith calls out.
Silence.
Lilith looks to her side to cast Margot a smirk of triumph. Her expression, however, turns to a look of worry when she sees her friend’s ghostly face filled with horror. Margot is as white as a corpse, and just as still. Her once vibrant cornflower-blue eyes that were bright with life are now glazed over and staring beyond her into nothingness.
“M-Margot?” Lilith’s voice trembles as she reaches for her best friend’s frozen-stiff hand. She clutches it but instantly recoils at the frigid feeling devoid of warmth…
Devoid of life.
Lilith’s heart threatens to leap out of her chest as she beholds the state of Margot Robinson. Blood roars in her ears, her body stills with white-hot rage, and, above all, shock courses through her veins. It’s a bewilderment that shuts down her mind and prevents her from shaking as she contemplates the past few minutes. What happened? How did it happen?
Instead, it’s a different thought that comes from her mouth. “Who in the world could possibly be able to do this?”
“Perhaps I did…” whispers a lilting voice so close to Lilith’s ear that she turns around, expecting the source of it to be right behind her.
And that’s when she discovers two things.
One: at some point, her bedroom transformed (except for the vanity and chair—that stayed the same) into a space completely unlike anything she’s ever seen before. It’s a blinding white that makes Lilith blink twice to adjust to the snow-like color that fills the void.
Two: there is absolutely nothing behind her.
Lilith, who comes to the conclusion that this is nothing but a mere nightmare, crosses her arms and rolls her deep brown eyes. “Stupid dream,” she mutters under her breath.
The slightest feather of touch tickles her shoulder, and she whirls around, her heart pounding.
Again, there is nothing—
Wait. Lilith turns back to face the mirror, where again, she catches a brief glimpse of movement; a tall woman wearing a long, blood-red dress swishes past, disappearing in less than a second.
Refusing to be shaken, Lilith looks down at her lap, where Margot lays still. She pinches her upper arm until she bites back a scream, where she then leans her head back and closes her eyes. “So this is definitely not a dream.”
“No, Lilith Garcia,” giggles the same voice. “Absolutely not.”
The girl’s pupils dilate as her heart races faster than it should be capable of. The tart taste of bile rises in her throat, and her mind spins. “Who are you?” Lilith manages to ask. “And what have you done to Margot?”
A foul odor chokes her sharp intake of breath when she sees what appears in the mirror right behind her. It’s the exact replica of her best friend, down to the slightly upward curve of her lips that makes it look like she’s always smiling. But something is horribly, horribly wrong. Where Margot’s hands should’ve been, holding flowers or some other lovely object, are gaping stumps that are gushing bright red blood.
At the sight, Lilith lets out a sound beyond human; a ragged scream of horror and fear that chills to the bone. She gently lays Margot’s corpse across her lap and clutches it to her chest tightly, rocking it back and forth yet still wordlessly howling.
“Foolish girl,” jeers the phantom in Margot’s tone, cutting through the girl’s anguish.
Lilith stands up with shaking arms, carefully places Margot down on the chair, and advances towards the monster. “You…you foul, disgusting, devil—” She leaps at it with her hands clenched in fists, knuckles as white as the room.
“Hardly.” Just as Lilith’s fists are about to connect with its face, the creature suddenly vanishes into nothingness and her face meets the brick-hard ground, sending a shockwave of pain through her head.
“I am a ghost, nothing more. And take the girl. I grow tired of your pettiness.”
Ignoring the pain that flared much like the candles sitting on her vanity, Lilith places her hand on the ground and quickly pushes herself up. Her best friend’s name rises from the panicked thoughts swirling through her mind, and so she runs to the vanity. She lowers her head, expecting the twinge of her heart at seeing her best friend’s still body…
“L-Lilith?”
Her head snaps up, and to Lilith’s awe, her eyes meet a familiar baby blue gaze. “Impossible…” she breathes, not daring to believe.
“Now it’s double the fun!” The ghost, which Lilith realizes could only be Bloody Mary, chirps. She forces her gaze to tear from Margot and instead moves it to her right, where Mary now stands, her arms dangling at her sides.
“How…you’re Bloody Mary?” Lilith questions.
At some point, the wraith had turned back into a brunette young lady, her stringy hair loose and reaching her hips.
Bloody Mary’s lips peel back in a thin smile, and, in that smile, Lilith can see ragged teeth sticky with blood and miniature maggots slithering across them.
Her heart freezes as she realizes that it is the maniacal grin of malice.
“Lilith, what’s happening? And what do you mean by ‘Bloody Mary’?” Margot’s voice quavers as she tugs at her best friend’s sleeve.
Not wanting to scare her, Lilith replies while trying to keep her voice even. “I…I think it’s just a nightmare about the game. Wake up.”
“I AM NOT A DREAM!” the ghost screeches, and the white room spins around them for a few seconds until they appear in Lilith’s bedroom.
“And Bloody Mary isn’t a game after all, is it?” Mary’s gaunt and ashen face appears in front of the girls in the mirror and she raises her pale, bony arms, revealing long claws sharper than needles. “Sweet dreams.” She slashes down, just about to tear their faces open—
—when Lilith sits up, gasping for air. “MARGOT!” she screams.
Lilith wipes tears from her eyes as the room comes into focus. She’s still in her bedroom, except light is streaming through the windows and there’s no ghost in the room. At least she hopes so. Immediately Lilith turns in her sleeping bag and comes face to face with Margot, who is gripping her own sleeping bag. Her eyes are wide and her lips are spluttering incoherent words. Lilith has to call her name five times before Margot meets her gaze. “Listen to me,” she says, making sure to look into her friend’s eyes. “Whatever just happened was not real.”
Lilith doesn’t know who she’s trying to convince.
But it finally snaps Margot out of whatever trance she was stuck in. “But…I saw everything!” She clasps Lilith’s hands, and to the latter’s relief, her fingers were warm. “I tried to move, but it was as if I were frozen and watching through a screen. It was Bloody Mary, right?”
Lilith’s eyebrows fly up in shock.
Margot, taking it as confirmation, slowly gets up from her sleeping bag. “You should’ve listened to me, Lilith. That’s why you shouldn’t play Bloody Mary.”
Pause.
“I need to get out of this place,” she mumbles, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. And she leaves the room.
It’s just a nightmare, Lilith tells herself as she rises from the bag. But there’s a nagging question that lurks at the back of her mind.
Then why did Margot witness the same exact thing? A cloak of uneasiness shrouds Lilith as she steps to her vanity, which is free of candles. She looks up at her reflection, but instead of her face, she sees something that she never imagined, not in a million years.
On the cracked mirror, painted in a scraggly blood red, are two words that stop her heart:
SWEET DREAMS.
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