FOREWORD: This story is uncannily based on the Bloody Mary urban legend that we've all come to know and love. So just remember, I'm not a rip-off artist, just..."quirkily inspired."

Andrea Marquez was never in the spotlight in class. Most of the students thought she was the creepy kid, and nobody really paid her much attention. In high school, you had to be vocal and boisterous to gain any recognition from your peers, and most of all, you had to be funny. And while on occasion she was funny, it was almost never intentional. The only attention she did receive was in the form of cruel jokes because everyone knew she wouldn't speak. She never spoke in class; she hadn't spoken in a while. She was mute. Most students and teachers thought she was creepy. Apparently, nobody had ever told them that she simply couldn't speak. While that, in itself, is not a valid reason to find someone to be disturbing, what truly bothered everyone were her eyes. She had very pale blue eyes, and they were always wide open. She never blinked. Her hair had strands of white, which many students simply thought was the result of an odd choice in hair coloring. So while she wasn't terribly remarkable, she was known at the very least as "the spooky kid."

When she joined the school newspaper, being shunned by her peers didn't last very long for Andrea. In an environment like that, she needed to interact with other people. Though the students kept that interaction to a minimum, it was there. And the people she communicated with found her only eerier still. The teacher supervising the newspaper, Mrs. Wilcox, always found her unusual, but when Andrea suggested adding a short story section to the school newspaper, The Sunnyvale Times, Mrs. Wilcox immediately ordered it into the next edition. The Sunnyvale Times had been falling on hard times and few students cared to read it. Mrs. Wilcox figured that the short stories would help attract attention to it. So they did.

The first couple of editions contained the standard lovelorn story submissions from girls, and ludicrously violent stories from guys, both of which had to frequently be edited for explicit content. Every trace of a hormonal influence had to be removed from the stories.

The idea to print student-submitted short stories didn't garner much attention to Andrea. She was still shunned. But something happened when the fourth edition of The Sunnyvale Times with short stories went into circulation on the campus. After the stories had been read by many of the students, Andrea found herself the center of attention.

Andrea's story in The Sunnyvale Times was an incredible take-off from the usual fare the newspaper regularly printed. She was the first person to get a horror story printed, and the most unusual thing of all was that the story went into the paper unedited - the English was flawless, and there was no objectionable content whatsoever in the work. It was a work of art in the vein of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven", but more contemporary, and far more chilling.

Her story, called 'Crystalline Silence', became the topic of discussion all over the campus. For whatever reason, the story was able to hold the elusive and capricious attentions of the students on campus, and it became the stuff of legend, Urban Legend. It had its roots in the old urban legend of Bloody Mary, where a person is supposed to stand in front of a mirror in a pitch dark room and say "Bloody Mary" over and over again, growing in intensity until virtually screaming the name. At this time, a woman shrouded in a red glow would appear in the mirror, and slash the face of the person who summoned her.

"Crystalline Silence" functioned in much the same way: a person would stand in front of a mirror in a pitch black room and whisper "echo" over and over again, and a strange female spirit would appear in the mirror.

The biggest part of the controversy on campus was that Andrea had left the ending open, wide open. There was no conclusion to the story, and no sign anywhere that it might be finished in the next paper. Students sat at lunch speculating as to the ending, because the story cut off just as the spirit appeared in the mirror.

One of Andrea's biggest antagonists, Melissa Graves, was particularly enthralled by the story. Though she continued to abuse Andrea on a regular basis, with petty phrases like "only sluts stay silent, 'cause they never say 'no'" and "did someone beat the words out of you?" She couldn't help but remain interested in the story. It held a unique fascination to her.

During one lunch period, the story came up in her conversation with her boyfriend, Rick, and her two friends, Rochelle and Allison.

"Hey, wonder if that story isn't real?" Rick asked casually.

"Of course it isn't real, nimrod. It's FICTION. How could a story like that possibly be real?" Melissa replied.

"Well, there are a lot of unexplained things in the world. I mean, nobody has disproved Bloody Mary because everyone's too scared to do it. Who's to say the spirit isn't real?" Rochelle interjected.

"Rochelle, you have to remember that this is a work of fiction," Allison replied.

"Yeah. From a very sick little girl, too," Melissa said. "You guys know she's got problems. The light isn't on upstairs. There's space for rent."

"She's staring at us, you know," Rochelle said, gesturing to a table far from theirs, where Andrea sat alone, staring at them with her vacant blue eyes. Rick involuntarily shivered.

"Man, she's giving me the creeps, can't she stare at someone else?" he said.

"Oh come on, Rick, you're a big boy. Go tell her to look some other direction," Melissa said, smirking.

"You go talk to her. You couldn't pay me enough to talk to a girl like that, someone that writes stuff like the story in the paper. Hell no. Melissa, you can go talk to her," he replied.

"Fine, then. You're such a weak suck, Rick," Melissa grumbled as she stood. She walked over to Andrea who quickly looked back to the book she was reading. Melissa shut the book fast, very nearly on Andrea's fingers.

"Hey, what the hell were you staring at?" she snarled. Andrea just looked up at her pleadingly with those eerie blue eyes.

"Come on! Answer me!" Melissa snarled again, shoving her against the wall. "You got problems, you little whore. You better not be staring at us." Andrea shivered a little, saying nothing upon being slammed against the wall.

"SAY SOMETHING!" Melissa slapped her across the face hard, and Andrea recoiled to the ground. "Heh, yeah, that's right. You just cower, you little puke." Melissa kicked Andrea in the stomach, then walked back to her table. Everyone in the cafeteria stared at her wide-eyed.

During seventh period, the final class of the day, Andrea stared quietly at Melissa, and every now and then, Melissa shivered. Each time she shivered, the smile on Andrea's face grew a little. Melissa never noticed, but she felt that something was very wrong. Nevertheless, considering herself to be a strong, free thinking individual, she dismissed the feeling. When the bell rang, she went home without so much as a second thought to the chills she endured during her final class.

When she arrived at home, she immediately opened her backpack and pulled out the latest copy of The Sunnyvale Times, the copy containing Andrea's story. She carried it to her room, where she lay down on her bed and read it over and over again. She couldn't tear her eyes from the pages. She just kept reading the story. Every time she reread it, it offered her new fascination, an unreal fascination, as if she were hypnotized by it. She didn't enjoy the sensation of being so taken by the work of "the spooky kid."

She decided to re-assert herself as Andrea's antagonist instead of her willing captor, and to prove to herself how ridiculous Andrea's story was, she walked into her bathroom and turned the lights off. She laughed as she stood in front of the mirror, and closed the door, sealing the room in darkness.

She began chanting, resting her hands on the sink and staring into the mirror.

"Echo."

"Echo."

"Echo."

After the thirteenth chant, a strange feminine figure appeared in the mirror, glowing bright blue. Her head was darkened and Melissa could not see her face. Melissa was terrified, but could not stop chanting. As the chanting continued, the figure slowly reached out to her, and its hand seemed to reach out of the mirror. Melissa's chanting grew louder and more frenetic. The hand seemed to move through her skin and into her throat, where it clasped tightly to an unknown force deep within Melissa. Melissa screamed. As the hand pulled out of her throat, leaving no trace of its having been there, Melissa's mouth remained open, but she screamed silently.

When the figure's fist returned to behind the mirror she opened her hand. A glowing sphere of energy floated there. She raised it to her face, and the sphere illuminated it, and the vacant blue eyes were familiar.

Melissa moved her lips to speak, but was unable.

The spirit was Andrea.

Great Stories Online 2000Ó TJ Greaton