Echoes of Us

Twelve

Harrison was home now, sat on the edge of the couch with the camera resting on his lap.

He hadn’t touched it since he left the park. The stillness of the house only amplified the thoughts swirling in his mind.

It was just a camera, just plastic and metal, nothing else, but it felt like it held all the answers.

He stared down at it, his fingers tracing the outline of the lens. Everything pointed back to this. The strange visions, the flashes of the past, and the night he saw Avery in their bedroom. He had brushed it off at the time, too overwhelmed by grief to process what had really happened.

Now, sitting here in the silence, his heart pounding in his chest, he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was more than just his mind playing tricks on him.

"How?" he whispered to the empty room, his voice barely audible.

"How is this even possible?"

Harrison trapped his fingers against the outside of the camera, contemplating his next move.

Standing up, he walked over to the stairs that led up to their bedroom, the camera in his hand.

If he took a picture of the stairs right now, would he be taken back to the past, back to the moment when he had broken the picture frame?

The thought made him pause at the foot of the stairs.

Was he really going to use a camera to take him back in time? That sounded stupid, even to him. What were the chances it didn't work and he’d just end up standing there, looking like an idiot with a camera?

Harrison ran a hand through his hair, letting out a frustrated sigh.

This whole thing was insane. Time travel? With a Polaroid camera? It sounded like something straight out of a bad movie.

Though, the things he’d seen, the moments that felt so real, Avery alive, the flashes of the past. It couldn’t all be coincidence, could it?

He looked down at the camera in his hand, his thumb brushing over the shutter button.

If he was wrong, then that was it, no harm done. But if he was right, if this camera could actually take him back, he’d have another chance to change things. To save her.

His heart pounded in his chest, the camera suddenly feeling so heavy in his hand.

If this thing actually had the ability to take him back in time, he had to find out for sure.

Harrison raised the camera to eye-level, until he could see the stairs in the view finder.

His finger hovered over the shutter button as the memory of the broken picture frame, and Avery, flashed in his mind.

Closing his eyes, he pressed the button.

At first, nothing happened and Harrison thought he had been wrong, maybe it really was just a camera and all of this was just grief playing with his mind. 

He opened his eyes, his heart sinking, ready to curse himself for being so desperate to such belief in a piece of plastic.

Then, suddenly, the familiar flash of bright light filled the room. It was brighter than he remembered, like lightning had struck inside the house, and he quickly squeezed his eyes shut again.

He waited a moment, bracing himself before opening his eyes again. When he did, nothing had changed.

Harrison blinked, his heart racing as he looked around, taking in his surroundings.