Nothing at All...

It all started a few years ago, when I was fooling around with my Sony camera. It was brand new, having just come in from Amazon. It was an amazing camera; it could capture videos that were so smooth and clear. It was such a miracle!

A few days later, I had my friend over. I was bragging about my new camera and how it could capture just about anything.

"I bet you it can't capture ghosts," he scoffed.

"Oh yes it can," I retorted, as I attempted to make my voice sound a little rough.

"Well," he said, grinning, "try it."

I agreed to his bet, and we waited until the sky was dark. That night, the stars were not visible. The owls were not hooting. It was unnaturally quiet.

"Okay, I'm starting," I called. "Wanna come with me?"

"No way! I'm not gonna go in there!" he responded, ferociously shaking his head.

Laughing at his sudden wimpiness, I went alone.

It was midnight.

I turned my camera on, hesitating for a moment, before creaking open the door to the bathroom. Flipping the light switch on, I stepped onto the cold tile floor. I looked into the mirror placed a few inches above the sink.

I saw my reflection. I saw a glimpse of me smiling, even though I was incredibly scared. Figuring it was just my eyes playing tricks on me, I slammed the door shut and switched the lights off.

"Alright, here it goes."

I took a deep breath before continuing.

"Bloody Mary... Bloody Mary... Bloody Mary."

The little baby butterflies in my stomach morphed into huge moths flapping as hard as they could. Trembling, I felt something cold behind me. Out of curiosity I flipped the lights back on.

In the mirror, I could see the reflection of me holding my brand new camera. However, there was something behind me that was not there before I turned the lights off.

Her skin was pale white, her blonde hair came down to the waist, and she wore a white dress that seemed torn and tattered. Her mouth stretched inhumanly into a wicked smile as I screamed. I dropped the camera onto the floor and tried to run out of the room but the door would not unlock.

"NO, NO, NO!!!!"

I saw Mary drifting behind me. Her transparent hand touched my shoulder, and I began to feel like I was dissolving. I fell onto my knees and slowly lost consciousness. That was when she started laughing. She laughed as if she was going insane. It was all I could before I blacked out...

I woke up alone.

Pulling myself up, I squinted at the beam of fresh light that came through the sun roof and lit the room up. I saw the camera lying next to me and picked it up. It was broken. I had no proof that I had ever seen Mary, and my friend was going to win the bet.

If anything, dying was better than losing this bet. I wanted to disprove him once and for all.

I picked up my broken camera and stumbled down to my bedroom. I placed the camera on top of the wooden cabinet standing right next to my desk, and stretched. I put on some clean clothes and made my way to the camera repair store.

"Eh?" the store owner mumbled when I entered. "What do you want?"

"I want to get my camera fixed," I told him.

"Yeah whatever, just leave it on my counter," he said.

He seemed to be absorbed into his laptop, which was playing some kind of soccer match.

"Well," I started to ask. " When should I pay-"

"Pay me when you get back," he snapped. "I don't have time now. Scram!"

I was practically kicked out of the store. Without letting his rude behavior take over my thoughts, I scrambled back to my house and took a nap.

The time after that was perfectly normal. The only thing that I was missing was my new camera. I was really looking forward to getting it back.

Three days after my encounter with Mary, I received a phone call. It was from the camera repair store.

"Hey kid," he said. "Your camera's ready, come pick it up."

"Okay, thanks," I said, smiling because I would finally get my camera back.

I hung up and took my leather jacket off the metal rack next to the main entrance. After putting it on, I stumbled into the cold night and walked toward the repair shop.

I quickly walked down to the store.. As usual, the owner greeted me with a grunt.

"Camera's over there. Pick it up," he stated, pointing to a glass counter.

"What about the money?" I asked.

"Leave it on the counter," he replied.

I grabbed some money from my pocket and placed it on the counter. Taking my camera back, I thanked the owner and exited the store. As I was strolling down the sidewalk, I turned it on just to make sure it worked.

My face lit up as I saw the boot up screen. My recorded videos list appeared a few seconds later. Upon all of the videos was the Bloody Mary video... and one more that I had no memory of taking.

I stopped walking right on the spot to play this mystery video.

It was a video of a wedding ceremony. The film looked like it had been recorded in the 1980s, because it was fuzzy with unclear colors. Strangely, there was no sound, even though this camera could record and play it. Still playing the wedding, I saw the couple walking down the aisle. They looked extremely happy, as did their parents.

Unexpectedly, the scene switched to view to a mirror hanging from a wall.

There was a distorted reflection shown on it, but I could not make out what it was. This distortion eventually cleared away, and I saw what was in the mirror.

It was my friend's head. It had been wedged onto a wooden pike, splintered and bloody.

Then it went to another scene.

Mary was looking directly into the camera.

She smiled, and pointed her crooked finger towards me.

"Your turn."

Then there was nothing.

Nothing at all.