Chapter Fifty: The End

“Fear is a poison produced by the mind, and courage is the antidote stored always ready in the soul.”

-Dean Koontz, One Door Away from Heaven

12:10 a.m

Present day

Tim knew he was a lightweight and had half expected himself to be swept off the roof by the high altitude wind. But when he stepped out of the service exit and onto the skyscraper's rooftop, he encountered not one breeze nor a drop of rain. The portal floated menacingly above the centre of the roof, just waist height above the 'H' of the helicopter landing pad, purple and blue Mist swirling around and above its bus wide diameter, spewing gas like a fountain. It was like a tear in the universe, someone unplugging a drain in the sky and the water was travelling out in reverse. He watched as the gas spun on the outskirts of the edge of the building, just out of reach from the parapet, wind swirling outside of his little bubble like the centre of a tornado.

“Eye of the storm,” he muttered to himself.

He had confidence up till that point. Balls of it in fact. But faced with the whirling portal, it occurred to him that he had no clue of what to actually do to close it. He climbed onto the helipad platform and carefully walked up to the portal. Raising his hand to it, he focused, squinted, tried to close it with the power of his mind.

It did not work. He waved his hand over his view. Nothing. Once again, movie logic - of magic this time - had failed him.

Beyond the centre of the portal, he saw what he could only describe as the universe horizon. Similar to what he learned in science class about the event horizon of a black hole, where not even light could escape, there was an image, sharper than anything around it, curved and distorted as the world would seem through a droplet of water. Within it, there were figures, clear entities of green, moving around in a pattern aside from the chaotic whirl that happened within his world.

“Is that...” he squinted, trying to get a clearer view. “Dream world,” he concluded that he was starring at the barrier that separated reality and the worlds between.

He paced around the portal, thinking of how to close it. He wondered if he needed physical contact to even interact with the energy. But just as he contemplated on going closer, his left hand raised itself instinctively towards the direction of the portal.

Some of the veins in his forearm began to glow white, though disjointed and few, they spread upwards towards his elbow almost like a circuit, blooming like a flower.

“I don't know what you're doing,” he calmly said to his arm, feeling silly as he did so, but quickly concluded that it might be the most normal thing he had done in weeks. “But I hope you have a plan.”

XXX

Another spectre slowly returned to its physical form. Sleek black hair, drooping eyes, another bullet wound to the forehead. Adam Pearlman was not Joshua Kleve, and Sister frustratingly released the dead back to the realm of incorporeal.

She was running out of time, with Brother's hard earned extra seconds ticking away for her. There were literally billions of dead. Even though the group she stood in seemed to be of those who were killed in Ridge Valley, that was still hundreds of thousands of spectres to comb through. She had barely covered the first hundred.

“Come on girl, think!” she yelled out loud, as if screaming would allow her to trigger some ideas. “If I was Tim, I'd think of something smart. Okay, my powers are based on emotion and personality. Mine is lust, Father is rage. So what? Think angry thoughts?” she felt plenty of anger as she was, yet nothing seemed to be working. “Lust. Lust is...lust is!” she slapped her forehead in realization.

She closed her eyes, her mind drawing up the image of Timothy. The maroon hair. The focused, determined green eyes. The rare smile. The missing arm? No. He had an arm before coming to the dream world. She felt a breeze pass her and opened her eyes to a green spectre floated mildly before her.

“Love,” she said to herself as she placed both hands on the face of the spectre.

Slowly, the gas peeled away, revealing the face underneath it. The hair was almost golden, and his build was muscular. Despite the polar contrast, she knew, without a doubt, that she had found Joshua Kleve, for his face was a splitting image of his son.

“Come on old man, time to wake up,” she focused even more energy into him, moving her hands down his body until she held him by the hands. The spectral form broke off like the shell of an egg, the green ghastly outer layer spinning and dispersing into their surrounding. Body, still dressed in the white singlet with the fateful cut that killed him, blood dried across his chest, the man was physical once more. Tenderly, she whispered, “Joshua.”

His eyes flickered open, his fingers twitched as life after death flowed back into him. For a moment, he stared at her drowsily, almost as if he was a baby who had just woken from a nap, trying to make sense of the world around him. A glint then rushed back into his eyes as they wandered the landscape.

“Where am I?” he asked. He turned his attention back to Sister, looking her up and down as he struggled with pulling something out of his fragmented memory. No matter how hard he tried though, he could not find any idea on the identity of the girl “Who are you?”

“My name is Sister,” she told him. “Your son asked me to find you.”

Memories of his death at the hands of The Father flooded back. Distracting the creature to save his son, to the cut with the saw that took his life. He looked down to his shoulder, still dried red. “I was dead. It was so...quiet,” his eyes flew wide as his brain wrapped itself around the situation. “Tim! You said Tim sent you? Is he okay? Where is he?”

“Hang on! Hang on! He's fine, but he needs your help,” she said pleadingly.

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“I'll do it,” he replied without hesitation.

She had expected some resistance. “Aren't you going to hear what it is first?” from what Stella had told her, Tim's relationship with his father had been rocky for years.

“He's my son,” Joshua said, a conviction in his eyes the same as that during Tim's moments of strength. “If he needs my help, not even death is going to stop me.”

She nodded understandingly. His love for his son was proof that the method she had used to locate him had not work of coincidence. She explained, “He's trying to stop The Father from tearing into your universe. Basically, Tim's trying to kill him,” she noticed his shock and eagerness to reply, but stopped him with an understanding nod. “I know it's dangerous, but there's no other way here.”

He must have held his breath through that explanation for Josh let out a loud sigh in resignation. “Okay. What does he need me to do?”

“When Tim kills The Father, someone needs to take that place, otherwise, The Father will just resurrect again,” she saw a flash of defeat in his eyes as he grasped the situation. “I'm sorry,” she solemnly said.

“No. It's not your fault. Tim's always been selfish.”

She chuckled, “Yeah. He's the most selfish selfless person I've ever met.”

Zoot. Zun. Zoot. Zun.

Sister spun towards the sound. Standing just a hundred meters away was The Father, apparently finished with his battle with The Brother.

Joshua exclaimed, “Back for round two, asshole?!”

He made a step forward but Sister held him back. “No! If you break contact with me, you'll lose your consciousness. You've been away from your physical body for too long, you'll just become one of these ghost again!” she gestured at the spectres around them. “If that happens, you won't be able to help Tim!

“Then what do we do?” he asked. The Father stepping closer. “We're sitting ducks like this. He'll just pry us apart!”

Sister starred down The Father, once again cornered by the man with the saw and straw hat. Uttering a rare curse, she prepared to buy enough time for Tim to get to them, despite knowing her combat ability not matching up to that of her opponent's. But just as she readied her cloth for battle, a gentle hand placed itself on her shoulder.

She turned, and Tim, in his real world white shirt and brown cargo pants, both arms intact, stood beside them. Behind the teenager and at the base of the whirl of energy, a tunnel was cut clean through it. In the middle of the passageway, past the universe horizon, was the crystal clear, albeit inverted image of the rooftop of Hotel Alexandria.

“Tim?” she exclaimed. She could sense that he was no longer an entity in the dream world. She was speaking to Timothy Kleve, in the flesh.

He smiled to her, “I got this. Go close the portal.”

“Wait! You can't-!”

But before she could finish, he said, “I love you, Sally Sparrow,” and with the blink of an eye, the girl in white vanished from the dimension.

“Tim!” Josh grabbed his son by the arm before the former could run off. “I know what you're thinking, and I'm not going to let you sacrifice yourself, you hear me?!” the slime-green gas began to wrap itself around the man's body, slowly engulfing him once more. “Screw the world, I am not letting you die!”

“Sorry dad,” he smiled back, with all the love he could put behind the gesture. “Say hi to mom for me.”

He yanked away from his father just as the man faded completely, before making a mad dash for the tunnel home. Tim could hear The Father speeding towards him, slashing through the air with the same ferocity and whistle as a jet would across the sky.

“Let's end this!” Tim yelled back. The Father closed in, its saw raised, just meters away from slashing. “Vashmir Commons!”

The Father bleached away from the dream world, reappearing right on the opposite end of the portal, its weapon cutting through the empty air in front of it. Pulling out his revolver, Tim jumped just at the edge of the whirlwind. He glanced left, and a flash of strawberry blonde caught his eyes, Stella's last smile forever burnt into his mind. Shoulder first, he crashed through the universe horizon and slammed down onto the helipad.

He could not afford the time to cry in pain, settling for a grunt of discomfort as he quickly shot back up to his feet. Revolver out, sights aimed down at the figure at the edge of the roof and beyond the helipad, Vashmir Commons turned just in time to see the first flash from the muzzle and felt the bullet ripping through his shoulder. Tim fired two more rounds in succession. Still with his supernatural abilities, Vashmir brought up his saw, moving at a speed fast enough to block them, the bullets clanking and sparking off the blade.

The teen rushed in. With just three bullets left, he could not afford to miss. Tim aimed at his opponent's face and fired two more rounds. The sawman raised its weapon again, blocked the shots before they could reach him. For the split second that his own weapon covered his line of sight, Tim leapt wildly from the helipad, landing both his feet firmly onto the creature's chest. One hand holding The Father by the head, he jammed the barrel of the gun into the gap between the saw handle and The Father's finger.

The trigger clicked.

The firing pin knocked in.

The bullet exploded out of the chamber.

Smoke rose. Dismembered fingers, smashed and some disintegrated, burst apart from the hand. The saw dropping to the floor.

Tim jumped back and landed on his feet. He threw the emptied gun at The Father, who swatted at the projectile. But without his weapon or his fingers, missed completely, and the firearm simply smacked him in the eyes. Vashmir swiped the weapon away, the blood from his hand smeared across his face, no longer a shadow of a nightmare, but that of a human, twisted with anger.

He lost track of the teenager, and could only watch as the helipad moved further and further away as Tim tackled him square in the gut with the full, desperate force of his body. He was lifted off his feet, arms flailing in desperation as the two of them toppled over the parapet.

As Tim fell off the roof, watching The Father plummet away from him towards the ground below and the adrenaline of death by fall shooting through his veins, he could vividly see the faces of his best friends, Clay and Stella. His father, Josh, and his mother, Miranda, the day before she died. There were images of birthday parties and outings. Sleepovers and dinners. First day of school and last days of summer. He willed himself to skip all those memories. Life would have another chance to flash by his eyes when he dies of old age.

He reached towards the outstretched hand above him, grabbing it just before he was out of reach. Tim swung back to the building, slamming face first into the steel wall. His nose bled, but he did not care. One hand held up, he kicked desperately against the wall to prevent himself from falling and pushed and flailed against gravity. He swung his free hand, found the edge of the parapet, and with his saviour's help, pulled himself up, over, and back on the rooftop, collapsing onto the ground in a final heave.

Lying on his back, staring up through gaps in the dispersing Mist, the stars wrinkled in the night sky. Tim panted to his rescuer, “Thanks.”

Sister knelt beside him. After a moment however, decide to lie down instead, his arm stretched out as a pillow for her to lay in. “Don't ever make me do that again,” she huffed out, curling into his shoulder.

He could hear her heartbeat, the steady thumbing as she tried desperately to calm it down. From the corner of his eyes, he could see that the portal had been closed. The purple gas no longer spewing, the wind no longer twirling, the world no longer crazy, he could finally feel all the aches in his bones and creaks in his muscles.

“Sally?” he asked the girl in white.

It took awhile for her to answer, “Yeah?” her own name contradictorily sounded both foreign and familiar to her.

“I'm gonna take a nap.”

“Okay,” she turned to face Tim, but his eyes were already closed.

His chest rose steadily with each breath. His heart no longer beating at death's door. The moon peeked out from the clouds. She kissed him on the cheek. He slept in evening's gaze.