"That mirror might be the reason... for Fay's actions."
Alfred opened Fay's eyelids and tried to find a trace of the mercury color that previously appeared in her eyes. "Do you remember how Fay's eyes looked like? I don't know what's exactly going on here, but all the mirrors I saw before were just ordinary mirrors. This is the only silver mirror I've found after I entered this hospital."
Tabitha stopped leaning on Fay's body. "This mirror... Do you think it holds the key to the truth of this hospital?" She went to the mirror with the shovel.
Tabitha didn't notice that she was covered in blood until she saw herself in the mirror. The girl in the mirror had disheveled hair. There were a few broken holes in her coat, and her shirt had lost a piece of cloth. She could see her skin through the split clearly. Out of her feminine habits, she seemingly forgot where she was. She started to tidy her hair and dry her face. After that, she felt satisfied with the image the mirror.
She looked at herself in the mirror, showing a tender smile... Did she really smile? She couldn't help but touch the mirror. The girl in the mirror exuded happiness. She even seemed to notice a faint smile showing in her eyes. The coolness of the mirror jolted her body. She looked up at her own face, but the smile in the mirror just became weirder and weirder. Eventually, Tabitha no longer knew if the image in the mirror was still the same person as her.
She took a step back and tried to retreat, but her hand that she had placed on the metal mirror was stuck. Tabitha struck the mirror with her engineering shovel. Although the silver mirror looked hard, it shattered from one strike of hers. Tabitha panted and tried to run in the opposite way. The mirror fragments on the ground flowed toward her feet as if they were hot molten metal. Tabitha was too astonished to even react. The mercury-like liquid swallowed her legs and gradually consumed her...
Alfred saw this sudden change and momentarily failed to react. Obviously, his guess was right. Fay's actions were caused by this mirror.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
Carol had something across her shoulders. It looked like a corpse. She faltered from the other side of the corridor with a bright red stone in her hand. When she saw the situation here, she wrinkled her nose in disgust.
"SHE IS ABOUT TO BE BURIED IN THE MIRROR." The corpse on Carol's shoulder said with a voice sounding like unoiled metal rubbing against each other. At this moment, no one paid attention to the weird corpse, but its words made Alfred more vigilant.
He had seen one of the "Carols" kill the other and since he couldn't really figure out which was the real one, he simply left. Now, Carol had appeared again with such a strange thing across her shoulders. All his muscles tightened. His whole body was ready to fight at any time.
"Can this stone do any thing?" Carol didn't care about Alfred's reaction. She shook the stone in her hand and asked the corpse.
"IF SHE IS LUCKY ENOUGH."
Alfred leaned over and took on a defense pose in front of Fay. He vaguely felt that the corpse seemed to know about their mission. On the other side, only Tabitha's head had not been consumed by the liquid.
"What is this stone? Carol, what do you know about it?"
"Well, according to this creature, this stone should be the treasure we should find in this mission. As for this guy, he said he wants to use this stone in exchange for us to escort him out of this hospital. I didn't really get him. You are the brains of our team after all, so I just brought him with me." Carol shrugged, as though she didn't care about his "abandonment" of her at all.
"IF SOMEONE HAS ENOUGH ENERGY TO USE THE SOUL STONE AND IS ABLE TO KEEP HER SPIRIT HERE, SHE WOULD HAVE A CHANCE OF BEING SAVED." The corpse spoke again. Not as perfunctory as it used to be, but what it said still confused everyone who heard it.
"How can we use the soul stone?"
"PEOPLE WHO HAVE STRONG MENTAL STRENGTH JUST NEED TO TOUCH THE STONE WITH THEIR MENTAL STRENGTH BUT IF THEY FAIL THEY MIGHT GET IRON MAIDEN BY THE STONE."
If he could use the soul stone, they would save a teammate who possessed the healing ability, and they could even figure out the solution to this mission. As a mind controller, he believed that his mental strength was strong enough to use the stone, but iron maiden... Alfred hesitated. As a teammate, Tabitha was just a newcomer. In terms of her ability, although she did have the ability to heal, that ability was not strong enough for him to take the risk...
Alfred turned to look at the young girl who only had her eyes left uncovered. The girl's eyes were always bright but now, he could only see the desperation in those eyes.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
The hospital was brightly lit, with tungsten light bulbs hanging over Tabitha's head. She stood, watching the hospital where people came and go. Suddenly she felt overwhelmed.
She remembered that she was being devoured by a mirror moments ago... Where exactly was she now? The abandoned hospital?
She reached out to a passing nurse. The second the nurse saw her, she yelled: "Why are you still here Tabitha? Did you jot down the medical records for the 6-bedroom patients?" The nurse's eyebrows were drawn like two arrows to her temples. She looked like the kind of person one would find hard to communicate.
"I..."
"What about you? Why are you still standing here?! If you're late, you know what Dr. Mile would do!" The nurse left after shrugging Tabitha's hand away.
The young girl stared at the nurse's back and after a few seconds, she noticed the mirror that had just trapped her was still there. She turned back and was startled by the image that showed in the mirror. The person in the mirror was about 5-feet tall. She was in a nurse's uniform and had a bit baby fat on her face. She wore normal pantyhose and looked pedestrian. There was a nametag on her chest, which had "Tabitha D." written on it. This person was not her...What the hell was going on. Did she just fall into another world after she entered the Rubik?!
The mirror reflected her touching her own face. Nothing looked wrong. The person in the mirror did the same actions as her. As if she had grown up like this. She was not the designer Tabitha in the real world but Tabitha D., a nurse in this world.
"What happened to Sasha again? Come on Tabitha! You know that there's something wrong in the hospital recently. Why did you even go touch her!" A nurse who was the same age as the girl in the mirror came over and nudged her with her shoulders. The girl appeared to share quite a close relationship with "her."
"H-Hedy, why are you here?" Tabitha glanced at the nametag on the nurse's chest and responded with embarrassment.
"Well, you said you wanted to go to the 6th room with me. You said the patient you were taking care of doesn't have much time left. Dr. Mile goes to his bed pretty often. I guess that's why Sasha's temperament is as so the past couple of days." Hedy grinned, and Tabitha caught the name "Dr. Mile" from her words. Dr. Mile was the original director of the hospital, wasn't he?! And that imposing nurse had also mentioned Dr. Mile... Did this mean that she had returned to a time before the hospital got abandoned?!