Dreams
Mariyah gets a nap (part 2 electric boogaloo)
Warnings: my attempt at horror, body horror, hands, some discriptions of blood (not a ton), lots of body image issues
While I may not be super experienced in writing horror, please read at your own discretion. Take care of yourself :)
Mariyah’s eyelids felt heavy, drooping down every few seconds like slowly falling molasses. She sighed and pushed her hair out of her face. The writing in front of her seemed to meld together into an unintelligible jumble, and she found her grip on her pen slipping. Grumbling, Mariyah shoved her chair away from her desk and stood. Her back crackled as she straightened and her neck ached from sitting curled over her work for hours.
Mariyah parted the blinds, glancing out the window. Dawn was starting to break over Gotham’s smoggy skyline. Faint beams of gray light shone through the buildings like spotlights, diffused by the morning air. Driving back to her apartment was a bad idea, to put it simply. Even Mariyah could acknowledge that an accident was likely with the condition she was in.
And so, settling down onto the lumpy couch in the clinic’s break room was Mariyah’s best option. Her spine protested from the lack of support and her skin prickled at the cool air, but Mariyah couldn’t find the energy in herself to care. Her eyes sagged shut and she slipped into slumber.
.
.
.
Mariyah— or Marie, as her friends called her— stared at her reflection. She angled her head, frowning. Her dark circles never seemed to go away, no matter how much she tried to cover them. Dabbing on more makeup underneath her eyes, Marie stepped back to examine herself.
Her dark hair was already beginning to softly curl. Marie grabbed her straightening iron and dragged it through her hair again. Why couldn’t her hair just cooperate for once? Her friends sometimes voiced their jealousy over her thick locks, but they didn’t have to go through the arduous process of trying to wrangle it into something manageable, only for it to poof up within the hour.
Her curves wouldn’t fit right in her dress. She straightened the hem, tugging the red fabric as far down her thighs as it would go. It was shorter than she usually wore, and the low cut neckline made her squirm, but it was too cute not to wear. Marie would have to endure the awkwardness.
“Stop fussing, you look great,” A voice assured her. Marie glanced back at where it came from. A girl sat on her bed. The girl’s features were indistinguishable, like a blurry memory Marie couldn’t quite recall. She was blonde and blue-eyed, and she was a brunette, and her hair was a fiery red. She was Jenna, and Lucy, and Olivia, and Cathie, all at once. She was beautiful, so much more beautiful than Marie.
Marie turned her gaze back to her reflection, “I know, I just want to be sure.” Marie’s eyes were a dull brown. They were dark, like a dog’s. She had a habit of chewing on her lip, leaving it split and dry.
“What color lippie are you gonna wear?”
Marie pulled her lips back, exposing her off-white teeth, “I don’t know. Red, maybe.”
A high chuckle sounded out from the girl, “Red’s too slutty for a first date.” Marie nodded and reached for a pink gloss. The girl on the bed muttered something about ‘the dress being bad enough’. Marie frowned, she thought it was cute.
“Should I change it?”
“Nah, it’s too late.”
Fussing with her hair one more time, Marie took a last look in the mirror before turning to facing the boy in front of her. Marie giggled at something he said. She played with her hair. She smiled at all the right moments and playfully touched his arm when she needed to. The date was going perfectly. Their food came and Marie was careful not to smudge her makeup as she ate. She sat pretty and ate at the correct pace and didn’t eat too much. Marie didn’t say anything when her date loudly belched and averted her eyes from the sauce dripping down his chin onto his plate.
Marie excused herself from the table. The bathroom took a few moments to find. She almost slipped on a puddle right by the door, her ankles bending uncomfortably in her heels. Glancing around to ensure no one saw her mistake, Marie entered the bathroom.
The florescent lights buzzed overhead. Marie bent over the sink, pulling a compact from her purse. As Marie was fixing her makeup, a girl stepped up next to her. Marie glanced over. The girl was in a little red dress, heels that made her wobble when she walked, and pink lipgloss that made her look like her lips were always coated in spit. Marie averted her eyes.
“Cute date?” The girl asked as she fussed with her long, dark hair.
Marie pressed the powder puff to her face, “He’s alright.”
Marie could see the girl’s reflection in the mirror, smiling, “You won’t think that for long.” Marie lathered on a layer of gloss, popping her lips, before turning to leave.
“I’m sorry,” was all the girl said before Marie walked out the door and into a hallway. Marie’s hand brushed the grimy wall. The florescent lighting above her couldn’t seem to illuminate the end. Marie started down the hall. The darkness seemed to get further away the more she walked, she was never quite able to reach it. Marie wrinkled her nose as a rancid smell hit her. It reminded her of slightly expired milk and her father’s sweaty shirts.
As Marie walked, a mirror on the wall to her right came closer. She paused for a moment to check her face before continuing down the endless hall. Another mirror appeared. Then another. And another. And yet another. Soon, both walls were covered in mirrors of every shape and size. Marie was examining a small, rounded one when her reflection began to frown. It didn’t wear Marie’s usual look of dissatisfaction— slightly downturned lips and a minutely furrowed brow that managed to convey contempt without looking too ugly— it was contorted into a grimace.
Her reflection began to shift, reaching towards her. Marie stepped back, heels sinking into the carpeted floor, only to be stopped by a hand on her shoulder. She whirled around to see who has grabbed her, only to be faced with another one of her reflections. This one had a smile plastered across it, too wide to be appealing to the eye. Its arm reached through the mirror, now resting its manicured fingers on Marie. Marie screamed.
Marie screamed as more hands reached for her. She screamed as fingers wormed into her hair, tangling and tugging at the dark strands. She screamed as they wrapped around her ankles and wrists. Hands, hundreds of them, dragging Marie in every direction. They played tug-of-war with her arms and proded at her ears and grabbed at the soft flesh of her stomach and thighs. They smudged her lipgloss, they ruffled her dress, and they matted her hair.
Marie screamed as they reached for her mouth, her collarbone, her knees, her eyes. She screamed so high that it sounded like a train whistle blasting through the hall.
And it was a train whistle. Marie was on a platform, hands still grabbing at her from every direction as a heaving mass of strangers surrounded. They writhed and sobbbed and begged as Marie desperately shoved them away. Blood was beginning to coat her hands. It dripped between her fingers and embedded itself under her nails. The hands around her retreated until there was nothing standing except her. The mounds of flesh belonging to the cretins that dared to touch her now lay still on the concrete platform. Mariyah’s chest heavied with a mixture of panic and exertion. A train whistle blew in the distance. Blood, stagnant and reflective, coated the ground in front of her. She looked down, and saw herself, angling her head and frowning. Her dark circles never seemed to go away.
