Tim stared at Luke's body. He couldn't believe that he had been tricked into killing someone again. First his dad, then Kaylie, and now Luke.
"Tim..." Patrick said as he walked into the room. "What did you do to him?"
"H-he was attaching me, I did it out of self-defense," Tim said shakily.
"You killed him," Patrick said, dropping the knife he was holding.
"Don't you say that. The mirror killed him," Tim corrected. "He was too far gone by the time I got to him for anyone to save him."
"You put the knife in his back," Patrick said softly.
"We need to destroy the mirror," Tim said as he stood with sudden resolve. "It's been distracting us all night from what we came here to do."
"No!" Patrick shouted. "You wanted us to come here because you wanted to keep your stupid promise. Now Luke is dead, who next?"
"Patrick, if we don't destroy the mirror it will continue to take souls. It will just imprison people in it. We can stop it, we can make sure that Luke was the last soul it takes," Tim said earnestly.
"Imprison?" Patrick questioned. His anger suddenly stopped. "You said that Luke was dead… now you say he's imprisoned."
"He's imprisoned in the mirror, but his body is dead," Tim said. "There's no way to get him back."
"What happens if we destroy the mirror? Do the souls get released?" Patrick asked.
"I have no idea; I've never tried," Tim said. "I doubt it would work. There are many souls that have been trapped there for years. I don't think there's any way to get them back."
"Yeah, I guess you're right," Patrick agreed. "So, what now?"
Tim walked past Patrick on his way down the hallway to the stairs. "We came here to destroy it, and we will. Even if doesn't release the souls it's trapped, I'll be able to say I kept my promise."
"This is what I'm talking about," Patrick sighed as he followed Tim. "Why not just leave? The mirror has already killed one of us."
"That's why we need to destroy it!" Tim argued. "We have to make sure Luke didn't die in vain. Right before he died, I told him that we'd destroy the mirror. We must break the mirror, so Luke can be the last soul it took."
"We tried to destroy it," Patrick said. "It didn't work, remember?"
"Before we didn't have the determination. Now we do. We've lost one of our own; if that's not enough to make you scared of that thing, I don't know what is," Tim said.
"So, we kill it, then what?" Patrick asked. "We get nothing from destroying that thing!"
"But it doesn't take any more souls," Tim repeated. "It can't hurt anyone tha…"
Tim stopped dead in his tracks on the stairs and started backing up into Patrick. The spirits of the mirror's victims were surrounding them, pushing them back from the office room. Marisol was in front, leading the pack of souls.
"Dude, what was that for?" Patrick asked, not realizing what was happening. "You can't just go ramming into me like that!"
"Run," Tim instructed Patrick under his breath. Couldn't he see the spirits?
"What?" Patrick said.
"I said, RUN!" Tim yelled as he pushed past Patrick.
Tim bolted up the stairs, Patrick directly at his heels. The spirits were right behind them, chasing them through the hallway. Tim ran into his parent's room, letting Patrick run inside before closing the door behind them both, locking out the evil spirits.
"They're not real. They're not real," Tim whispered to himself. "They're the mirror's tricks."
"They look pretty real to me!" Patrick exclaimed.
"They're not. They can't be. Most of them were killed years ago," Tim said, breathing heavily.
"What now? I'm not going back out there with them," Patrick said as he crosses his arms.
"We have to. For Luke and my whole family," Tim said. He was scared to death to face the spirits again, but he had done it twice before. Third times a charm, right?
"What if we can't break it? The crack was caused by someone being shot against it, and I'm not shooting anyone," Patrick said.
"No one's getting shot," Tim assured him. "All we need is one direct hit, that's all it takes. Then it can be over; we can go back to our normal lives."
"Things will never be normal again," Patrick muttered.
"I'm going to open the door, then we run. Only one of us has to make it to the office room. Don't worry about the other, whatever happens. Our duty is to destroy that thing, and we don't stop hitting it until we do," Tim explained. The fear inside him had vanished as he accepted life or death.
"Don't stop, destroy the mirror, don't worry about anything else. Got it," Patrick said.
"Ready?" Tim asked, hand on the doorknob.
"Ready as I'll ever be," Patrick said.
"Go!" Tim yelled as he threw the door open.
Spirits surrounded him as he ran through the hallway. Tim couldn't see Patrick anymore, but he didn't care. His only thought was to get to the mirror and destroy it. As Tim ran down the steps, Kaylie's old fiancée, Michael, blocked his path. His blue shirt was still stained with blood from all those years ago. His eyes still glowed like the mirror's bright reflection.
"Get away from me," Tim growled. Spirit Michael didn't respond, he merely smiled that creepy grin of his. Tim looked behind him, the other spirits were closing in on him. Tim took a deep breath and ran straight through the spirit that blocked his path. He turned the corner and peered into the office room, nothing there. Tim wondered why the mirror hadn't positioned spirits around itself, it was always eager to defend itself.
Tim looked behind him, no spirits were chasing after him.
"No protection, huh?" Tim questioned the mirror. "I thought you'd be more capable of protecting yourself."
"I need no protection from you," the whispers of the mirror rang out. "You're weak. You're still the scared little boy that couldn't defend himself twenty years ago. You're still the boy that killed his father and sister, though you claim it was me."
"You're wrong," Tim growled. "I've faced you twice, each time I've survived. I'll destroy you once and for all, then I'll finally win. I'll keep my promise to Kaylie."
"But at what cost have you survived? First you murdered your father, then you killed your sister to survive. Now you've killed your friend, Luke. There is no escape from me, you're stuck with me," the mirror rasped.
"You caused those deaths and many others. My father was an innocent man who was driven insane by you. My sister thought of everything when we tried to destroy you. From food and water, to a kill switch. My friend, Luke, was an innocent man. He was trying to start over, like me, now he's dead," Tim told the mirror.
"You think I caused those deaths? Take a look," the mirror said. In a blink of an eye the scene changed before him. Tim saw his father, laid down by the mirror, blood running down his shirt from the gunshot wound. "You think I shot the bullet that killed him?"
The scene changed again, this time to show Luke's body. He, too, was laid in front of the mirror, blood pooling from his knife wound. Tim stared at his friend as his eyes started to sting with tears.
"Did I put the knife in his back? You think I caused all those deaths, but you haven't seen the worst one yet. Your sister's death. The one you caused, and she blames you for it," the mirror said in the same raspy, whispering voice.
The scene changed again, now showing Kaylie's body, pinned to the mirror by her kill switch. Tim stared at his sister's body, tears overflowing. Kaylie's spirit appeared beside her body.
"Look what you did to me, Timbo," the spirit said in the whispery voice. "I had a life to live, until you ended it."
"I-I didn't kill you," Tim stuttered. "The mirror did, you should know that as well as anyone. The whole point you brought me here that night was to prove that the mirror was responsible for all the deaths over the years."
"Oh, but you did. You activated the kill switch, not the mirror," his sister's spirit said. "I thought better of you, Timbo. I thought you would be able to help me destroy the mirror so we could both live peacefully. Yet, you decided to kill me instead. How does it feel to be a murderer? To be the only one left in your family? You know that there's no escape from your fate, and you know that you murdered me."
That was the last straw for Tim. He refused to be called a murderer, or have his family say such things to him. He roared and charged at the mirror, hitting it full force with his body.
And the mirror shattered.