Archive of Our Own ^beta

Tim stared into the mirror, but it wasn’t he that he was looking for, it wasn’t him who stared back, with cold, evil eyes. He was there, sure, but he didn’t stare into the mirror to stare at himself, that was selfish. He just had to make sure she was still there, if she wasn’t… Then what if she had gone to one of his brothers instead? There were dark shadows under his eyes, evidence of restless sleep and constant paranoia - he couldn’t carry on like this, but what else was he to do? Once she was done with him, she’d hurt someone else and yet had only been a harmless joke when he was ten. Now his childhood friends were dead, their parents grieving, and now he had to deal with her - Mary.

He took a shaky breath and nodded when he saw her there, she was there. She wasn’t going to just let him go. The cat never gave up the chase when hunting its prey.. His eyes looked over her hair, messy but clearly once had been a golden brown. She was beautiful, in a sick, zombie like way. He kept his eyes on her for a few moments, before suddenly yanking the cover over his mirror again, watching. She always ran when he did, running towards him, screaming, desperate to escape the mirror and kill . Her whispers hurt his ears, but the cover blocked them. It stopped her, and she was trapped in the mirrors again, but he wasn’t safe, he never was. It didn’t need to be a mirror, he could see her in every reflection. Whether it be the rain in his window on a dark night, or in a puddle. Hell, he saw  her at breakfast in his spoon. She was always there, always watching, ready to pounce whenever the chance arose.

He moved towards his closet, feeling the temperature in his room grow slightly warmer again. He got changed, and headed downstairs to join the other’s for Bruce’s ‘weekly compulsory family dinner’. He sat at the table beside Dick, and began to eat the food Alfred had prepared. Everyone talked, and laughed, but he just sat at the side, occasionally chiming in so he didn’t look like he was isolating himself. Which he totally was, but only so they wouldn’t get hurt. He glanced at his cutlery, and winced; just her eye. Not even the rest of her face, just one, terrifying eye pressed right up against it. He gulped, and shoved the cutlery into his bowl of food. 

The sound it made attracted everyone’s attention. He glanced up, watching as they stared. He’d just put a knife, a fork and a spoon into a bowl of soup. So he slowly, and very awkwardly pulled them back out and wiped them with a napkin. He left them wrapped in it as he placed them down on the table. “Sorry. Don’t know what that was.” He muttered, going back to eating his soup with a spoon, like a normal person, like someone who wasn’t being haunted by a ghost. The others, thankfully, minded their own business and went back to talking about anything and everything. 

After dinner, he made his way to his room. He made sure to keep away from the mirror, and climbed into bed, pulling the blankets tightly around himself. Not like he’d sleep - how could he sleep when there was a girl ready to kill him the moment she got the chance? She’d probably win too, how could he fight a ghost? So he laid there, on the verge of passing out yet on the verge of death. It was whatever took him first, one would lead to the other either way. If he fell asleep, he’d be dead, and if he was dead, well, he’d be sleeping… permanently. 

That’s how it happened, his body betrayed him, and he fell, fell, fell into a sleep that would be his last. His eternal sleep. Death. He had felt her hands first, one cold hand wrapping around his throat and then he had heard her scream. His eyes jolted open, and there was a large shard of mirror in his chest. He gasped, choking on blood as his body began to seize. She hovered there, holding him down, grinning down at him. That wide, wicked smile would haunt him in the afterlife, he knew it. Blood, cuts and scars littered her face. Some looked new, some looked old, but one thing remained the same… Those yes. They weren’t… evil though, not like he’d seen them before. Not that he paid close attention. They were lonely, sad eyes filled with spite, “Don’t hurt my family.” He mumbled through the blood dripping from his lips. She just stared, a cold hard glare of loneliness, of revenge. Then that sickening, painful whisper which hurt his ears, but comforted him in that moment was heard, “I won’t.” He passed out, then his body just stopped. He was gone. She grinned, moving back towards the mirror that laid smashed on the floor, “Yet.”