Alika's POV
Time stopped.
I didn't mean that metaphorically. For the first time in my life, I felt the world actually pause, like some ancient deity had pressed its finger down on the gears of fate.
The cursed mirror before me cracked. Just once. A thin jagged line shot across the glass like a bolt of lightning cutting the sky. The air around me became unbearably heavy, thick like syrup, charged with something I couldn't name—part magic, part dread.
"Keep reading!" Ethan's voice, though hoarse and broken, pierced through the eerie silence.
My fingers clutched the burning parchment. The ancient words trembled on my tongue. It felt like my voice wasn't mine anymore—like something older, something from deep within my bloodline, was speaking through me.
The brides inside the mirror—those damned, beautiful, broken souls—had changed. They were no longer weeping. No longer clawing at the glass. They looked at me... and they smiled.
"Return to the light," I chanted, my voice shaking. "Break the blood bond. Let the soul find its final night."
The mirror screamed.
Not a shattering sound. A scream—sharp, feminine, mournful. Glass exploded outward in slow motion, floating in the air like suspended stars. The shards didn't fall. They danced in a spiral, forming a vortex of glimmering fragments.
From inside that swirl, the brides stepped forward. One by one. Ghosts no more.
A blonde woman in an 18th-century gown locked eyes with me. She raised her translucent hand in farewell. "Thank you," she whispered, her voice like falling snow.
And then they vanished—into light, into peace, into something far beyond my comprehension.
My knees buckled. And then—
"ETHAN!"
He collapsed. No warning, no sound—he just fell. His tall figure crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut. I rushed to him, heart racing.
"No, no, no—don't you dare!"
His skin was cold. Half of his body was there, solid and warm. The other half... was fading. Flickering. Like smoke in the wind. Like he belonged to both worlds now—and was being claimed by the wrong one.
He looked up at me with one eye—the only one that hadn't turned glassy.
"I didn't... think it would work," he whispered.
My tears spilled freely. "Why didn't you tell me you were part of it too?"
A slow, bittersweet smile formed on his lips. "Because... I didn't want you to stop."
He coughed. Blood and shadow spilled from his mouth. "You saved them... that's all that matters."
"No!" I pressed my hands against his chest. "You matter! Ethan, I'm not losing you too!"
He raised one fading hand and brushed my cheek. "You're stronger than this curse ever was…"
And then—clack.
The sound was so unexpected, so out of place, that for a second I forgot the world was ending.
I turned toward the hallway behind me—and nearly choked.
A rooster.
Yes. A literal, proud-as-sin rooster was strutting into the broken ceremonial chamber of the Blackwell Mansion like he owned the damn place.
"Is that—" I blinked twice. "Is that a chicken?!"
"No," came a dry, wheezing voice from the corner.
I spun around to see Madam Rowena entering the chamber with her cane. Her presence somehow made the room feel colder.
"That," she said solemnly, "is Charles."
"Charles," I echoed, dumbfounded.
"He used to be a sacrificial bird," she muttered, adjusting her shawl. "Escaped his fate. Lives in the kitchen now. Likes biscuits."
I stared at the rooster, who now pecked curiously at Ethan's shoe.
"You're telling me—while my husband is disappearing—a runaway chicken named Charles is just out for a stroll?"
"I never joke about poultry, dear," Rowena replied flatly.
Despite everything—my tears, my panic, my dread—I let out a laugh. A small, broken laugh that turned into a hiccup.
Charles flapped his wings indignantly and strutted past me, totally unimpressed by the supernatural chaos.
But my moment of levity vanished when Ethan groaned again—and something darker began to rise.
Outside, the clouds thickened into pitch-black masses. The windows dimmed as if a giant curtain had been drawn over the sun.
And then it came.
From the ruins of the mirror—something emerged.
Something ancient. Wrong.
It wasn't one of the brides. It wasn't a ghost. It wasn't even human.
It was tall. Slender. Wrapped in layers of shadow that moved like living smoke. Its face had no features—only two glowing white orbs where eyes should be. And hands like talons, dragging across the broken floor.
"Oh no," Rowena breathed. Her voice cracked, and for the first time, she looked afraid.
"What is it?" I whispered, holding Ethan tighter.
"That's the Watcher." Her lips trembled. "The gatekeeper between worlds. The one bound to the mirror. It should never have been freed."
The Watcher didn't walk—it glided. Its eyes locked on Ethan. Its head tilted, studying him like prey.
"Why is it looking at him?" I asked.
Rowena turned to me with horror. "Because the curse was holding it back. Now that it's broken... it needs something else. Another offering."
I stood, putting myself between Ethan and the creature.
"Take me instead," I shouted.
The creature paused.
And then—just behind it—I saw something glinting.
A smaller mirror. Pristine. Untouched.
And inside it... was me.
Not my reflection. Another me.
She was smiling. Her lips were bloody. Her eyes were empty. She reached out toward me from inside the glass.
"What the hell is that?" I murmured.
Rowena moved beside me. "It's the residue. The remnant of the curse still clinging to you. It's offering you a trade."
The other me began to speak, her voice distorted.
"Come in... if you want to save him."
The small mirror shimmered and rippled like water.
A doorway.
Ethan stirred weakly behind me. "Don't... don't do it."
But I couldn't look away. My hands trembled at my sides.
Save him… or lose him.
The mirror waited. Open. Beckoning.
And as I took one uncertain step toward it—
Charles squawked again, this time louder, more insistent. He flapped his wings and ran toward the creature.
"No—Charles!" I gasped.
The rooster launched himself at the Watcher.
The shadowy figure recoiled. Just a little. As if the tiny chicken had startled it.
Rowena blinked. "Oh my God. The chicken… it's warded."
"What?!"
She limped over, fast as her legs allowed. "He was a sacrificial bird! That means he carries protective energy."
Charles pecked and flailed. The Watcher hissed, smoke rippling from its form.
I couldn't believe it. A cursed chicken was fighting a death god.
But the moment of distraction gave me just enough time.
I looked back at Ethan. Then at the mirror.
If I went in, I might never come back.
But if I didn't… I might lose him forever.
I closed my eyes.
And I stepped through.