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Uncle J'onn allows me the chance to bond with my new friends at school when they invite me to a weekend 'sleepover'.

The girls on my school's cheerleading squad seem to have genuinely accepted me. I am delighted.

There are games they play.

Most are considered superstitious to Earthlings, and I pretend that I understand their fear and excitement and commotion as we nervously giggle loudly and attempt to raise one of the taller girls on the squad in midair, by chanting and using little strength from our fingertips. I am told I must go into a dark bathroom, light a candle, and recite the name "Hell Mary" thirteen times. I am not afraid, but some of the girls trick me by barricading the door. I can easily escape where I have been "trapped".

But… it is harder to escape my hurt feelings.

Perhaps they would let me "go" if I were to play along.

I am somewhat nervous when I fumble with the lighter, and then recite the summoning incantation. My own ghastly, frowning, upset reflection greets me.

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I am released after fifteen minutes.

Wendy finds me when she notices I am missing, and she is confused. I tell her I am fine.

That it was an accident.

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Her image is always the same when I open my door in the recurring dream.

The number of wrinkles in her red skirt, polka-dotted with clumpy, dark spots, and how the skirt is bunched to her knees. It is always the same. (And I somehow understand that I do not need to keep count.) Her black and chipped nail-polish never fixed up, or ruined more when I see her next. And next.

And she is always staring at the door as it tilts open and I step through the doorway; she stares intently with her wide, human-like eyes. Her pupils blow up against the whites. And then she aligns her pallid shoulders underneath her dress, with her gloves (black with caked soil, satin caked and ragged with mud), gathered in her lap. She smiles.

My mind tells me I should flee, frantically and shuddering, dim to start before it grows into a low roar, but my hand remains frozen on my bedroom door handle.

When her teeth expose themselves in her lifting smile… that is when rivets of blood drips between them.

They slips against the corners of her mouth, over her dark lipstick, over her chin — and her smile continues stretching to impossible lengths on her face. It goes on for what seems like minutes: her smiling and silent, sitting on the edge on my pink coverlet, with her hands folded.

A strangled noise escapes me, cutting the silence in the dream like a gash, a wound to the paradox, and I feel a gush of warm liquid fill my mouth, rushing, rushing until I feel it push against the backs of my teeth and lips. It drips bloody on the folds of my navy boots, and the crossing emblem and blazing white of my uniform.

I can't breathe through the blood pouring out of my throat and my vision spins. Her smile is constant and unwavering.

My fingernails begin to dig and claw at the skin around my throat.

Her pupils morph into the same, terrible shade of red as my smeared lips, and she bows her head to the side, her thick, black hair sliding over her neck.

The terrible sensation of burning, burning where it twists me from within, where it tries to consume my body. The mirror on my wall does not reflect her, pensive and grinning.

There wasn't a reason it should.

She had escaped it in the first place.

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When I wake, the smell of vomit is strong.

I rinse my sheets.

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Her smile is terrible.

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Wally notices my enthusiasm in the simplest of tasks has waned.

He buzzes around, much too concerned to tease, asking me if there is anything he could do to help.

I ask him if he believes in dreams manifesting into reality. His immediate answer is "no" — and I do not believe that his reaction is meant to be pitiless.

Wally, my dear and analytic friend, appears saddened when I walk away.

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Her smile is terrible.

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I miss practice. The squad is angry with me. I am not at full strength.

I am exhausted. I cannot rest my eyes. She waits.

Wendy tries to call me, but I eventually have to hang up on her.

She stops calling after another hour.

I cry.

Blood flows from the corners of my eyes. It has been for the past week.

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She waits for me, sitting on the coverlet on my bed, her dirtied and satin gloves folding primly on her lap. And she smiles a red, ugly slit of mouth.

My back bends forward in the doorway, my hand gripping around the door handle as hot liquid pours out of my throat, past my lips as I choke.

And I ask myself why.

{You summoned me.}

A grunt, like a voice — and it sounds like it growls between its words — answers. I feel myself move again.

I slump onto the puddle on my carpet, my strings unraveling, and the blood soaks onto my uniform. I am desperate.

{What do you want from me?}

{You are not human.}

Her smile stops inching higher. The voice… sounds disappointed.

{I have no need of you.}

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I wake. The smell of my sheets is clean, like the floral laundry softener.

The mirror nailed to my wall, cracked into many pieces still fitting together and leaking a suspiciously red, tacky fluid.

I smash it apart for good measure. The mirror shards are swept into a dust bin.

I cry.

Water dries on the front of my pajamas.

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Repost from my Tumblr (that has the link to the original post) Thought I'd share for Halloween times. :) I hope your holiday is fantastic. Any thoughts appreciated~~