Tim was shaken awake by Patrick. Still groggy, he didn't want to get up.
"Dude, get up," Patrick said. "C'mon, the doctors are moving your family." Tim bolted awake.
"To where? Are they okay?" Tim asked as he jumped to his feet. Patrick backed away from him, startled by his sudden movement.
"Chill out, man. They're fine. They were all checked over, once the doctors confirmed that they were healthy and uninjured, they decided to move them to their own rooms to be monitored," Patrick explained. "They're moving them right now; I knew you'd want to know."
"Have any of them woken up yet?" Tim asked as he followed Patrick back.
"Not yet. That's one of the reasons they're putting them in rooms for observation," Patrick said.
"Do they know why they're not waking up?" Tim asked.
"They wouldn't tell me anything; I'm not family," Patrick said. "You'll probably be able to find out something."
"Why don't you go back to your home," Tim suggested once they had gotten back to his family. "I'll let you know if anything happens."
"Alright," Patrick said.
Tim watch as Patrick turned to leave, then turned his attention back on his family.
"How are they?" Tim asked as he stood by his mother's bed.
"Still unconscious," one of the doctors answered. "We're moving them, all of them," she motioned to the filled ER, "to separate rooms to be monitored."
"Step back, please," a nurse told Tim. Tim mumbled an apology and stepped back from his mother's bed. The nurse unlocked the wheels of the bed and started rolling the her down the long hallway. Tim followed.
Hopefully his family would be placed in rooms close to one another so he could visit them without having to walk all over the hospital. Tim looked behind him to see all the other beds following. It looked like a parade of sleeping people. He followed the beds up to the fourth floor, by the looks of it an ICU. Tim stayed by his mother's side now; he had been with Kaylie when she had come out of the Lesser Glass, so he felt it was his mother's turn. He wasn't sure what to think of his father… the last time he had saw him he was only 11. Would his father approve of the man he'd grown into?
"Are you Tim Russel?" One of the doctors asked.
"Yeah," Tim said.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Russel. I'm Dr. Clew, your family's doctor. They're all stable and seem to be in excellent health. It's a mystery why they won't wake up," Dr. Clew explained.
"Thank you," Tim said. "Are my other family members somewhere close?"
"Yes. Kaylie Russel is in the room to the right, and Allen Russel is to the left. We wanted to make sure they were near one another," Dr. Clew said. "I'll be checking back in shortly."
Tim smiled and nodded to the doctor as he walked out of the small room. He realized that he hadn't taken in his surroundings yet, as he had been too preoccupied with his mother. He was in a small room, walls made of glass. The glass separated the rooms, making it possible for you to see who was in the room next to you. From the looks of it, all the rooms formed a cube like shape, each facing the main help desk. There wasn't much in the small rooms except for the beds, various machines, and a chair.
"Mom, can you hear me?" Tim asked. Tim watched his mother closely, for any little twinge that might indicate she could hear him. But alas, nothing. Tim sat down in the chair, disappointed. He needed to clear his head; it had been a crazy night, after all.
As he walked around the different cubicles, he saw that each room held one of the spirits who had come out of the mirror. He stopped in front of Luke's room. He looked fine, considering that he had been murdered just a few hours ago. Tim walked back around to the rooms where his family was, this time gravitating back to Kaylie.
"I kept our promise," Tim whispered to her. "I destroyed the mirror."
Tim swore he saw Kaylie's finger move an inch. Maybe it was a sign that even though she couldn't talk to him currently, she still wanted to know how he destroyed the mirror.
"Alright, sis. It's a long, long story, so you're in for the long haul," Tim laughed. "This story starts when I was released from the mental hospital for the second time. I tried to start over without you there to help me. It was hard; it was as if not a day had gone by since our parent's deaths, or your death. I got a job, surprisingly. I thought they wouldn't have accepted me because of my criminal record. Later that night, I just couldn't shake our promise from my head. You had died trying to keep it, I guess at that point I was ready to die for it, too."
Tim looked at Kaylie, checking to see if she had done anything else. There was no change, but Tim could just tell that she wanted to know more. Call it a brother-sister thing.
"The next day, at my first shift, I met two new friends. Luke and Patrick. They listened to my story, my tragic past. They actually listened, you know? Not the way the psychiatrics would; they'd already have their own opinions before I opened my mouth. But not only did Luke and Patrick listen to me, they believed me. I told them about our promise, and they agreed to help me destroy the mirror. Little did we all know that last night was going to turn into the fight of our lives."
Tim looked around, making sure no doctors were in earshot. He didn't need another doctor hearing his story; he just wanted to talk to his sister. All the doctors seemed to be preoccupied with other patients, so Tim continued.
"I went to the house early, just to try and prepare myself for the upcoming night. All of your things were still there, just laying around untouched. The mirror was already up to its old tricks again. It made me believe that Luke and Patrick had already come, when really, I was alone in the house. We tried to destroy it multiple times throughout the night, but whatever we did, it never worked. We just didn't have the determination yet. Each time we tried to kick at it, we'd either kick the wall or get distracted. Luke was slowly getting pulled into the mirror's trance. I knew there was nothing I could do to save him, so when I found that he was roaming the house with a knife... I had to kill him. It was for my own safety; he was trying to attack me!"
Tim leaned back against his chair, ready to tell Kaylie the part that made it all worthwhile.
"He died in the same room our mother was chained to the wall in. There were spirits surrounding Patrick and I, Marisol one of their leaders. I lost Patrick at one point, but I kept running. I ran until I found myself in the office room, where the evil mirror hung. It talked to me through its raspy old voice. It showed me all the people I had killed, including you. When it came around to telling me about you, your spirit talked to me. It told me everything I feared; that there was no escape from the mirror, and that I really had killed you. It made me so upset that I ran straight into the mirror, shattering it."
Tim took Kaylie's hand; he still couldn't believe she was really back.
"Once it was shattered, all the spirits disappeared, and Patrick was able to find me. It told him that it was finally over, that we could both go back to our homes. I had already started walking out when he called me back. Luke was walking out of the mirror; it was an amazing sight. When he came fully out of it, he collapsed on the floor. I don't know if you'll remember any of this, but you were next. I caught you, but before I laid you down I had to feel for your pulse, confirming that you really were alive! You were, by some miracle. Everyone else that the mirror had ever killed came back; they're all on this very floor, in fact. I was ready to accept that you were still gone, that you were never to come back to me, but here you are. And now I not only have you back, but I have my whole family. Mom and Dad are here too, Kaylie. They're right beside you, but they're asleep too."
Tim sighed as he finished his story. It was a long, bittersweet tale, but in the end he had gotten his family back. Tim put his head in his hands. Maybe he had wished that by telling Kaylie the whole story she would have woken up. But Kaylie still laid sleeping before him, as did his other family members.
"Timbo?" A voice asked. Tim would've recognized that voice anywhere.
"Kaylie?" Tim asked as he slowly took his head out of his hands and looked up. He nearly fell out of his chair – Kaylie was awake! She was looking around, like she had just woken up from a long dream.
"You're okay," Tim assured her. "Listen to me. You're in a hospital, Mom and Dad are here too. Do you remember anything that happened?"
"There was searing pain," Kaylie said slowly. "Then everything just went black."
"Your kill switch for the mirror, it killed you," Tim told her. "That was ten years ago, but you're okay now. So is everyone else that the mirror took."
"How is everyone else back?" Kaylie asked. "They were dead."
"I don't know, but they are. Doctors are probably going to swarm you very shortly. Just remember, you're not in that mirror anymore. I saved you, I kept our promise. I shattered the mirror," Tim told her. He was ready to burst with excitement.
"Thank you," Kaylie said.
"For what?" Tim asked. "You were the one who set me up to do this."
"For saving me, our whole family," Kaylie said. "And shattering the mirror."
"Anytime sis," Tim said. He could already see numerous doctors starting to swarm the ICU. There were doctors in other rooms, hopefully all the other patients had woken up as well. Kaylie smiled back at Tim.
As Tim stood by the glass wall, letting the doctors work, he couldn't help but think of his crazy life. It seemed like for every ten years of his life he had an encounter with the mirror. Now the mirror's life was over and his could finally begin.
Just want to say, thank you all so much for reading this! I just needed the movie "Oculus" to have a happy ending. This story hit me hard, most of the time I was feeling what these character's felt.
I hope you enjoyed it!