# 馃└ **CHAPTER 13 - BETRAYED BY BLOOD**
That night, Alice sat at the table for a long time, turning her mother's journal over in her hand. Finally, she gathered her courage and opened the next pages.
The text became increasingly chaotic. The letters were unstable, as if her mother's hands were shaking.
**"If you don't feed him, he'll choose.
If you don't take him away, he'll take him from you.
Every generation has its price."**
Alice felt an icy realization creep into her thoughts.
It sounded… like her mother was **sacrificing** people to keep something from passing through.
"No…" she whispered. "She couldn't…"
But the rest of the entry made her blood run cold.
**"Once, the choice fell on me.
Now it will fall on you."**
At that moment, she heard a quiet, very low murmur—like the tremor of strained glass.
The mirror above the table trembled.
A figure shimmered in its glass.
It wasn't Alice.
It was a **woman**, with a face similar to her mother's… but younger, more beautiful, with unnaturally smooth skin and black eyes.
Alice held her breath.
The woman in the reflection placed a finger to her lips, signaling silence.
And then she disappeared.
--
# 馃└ **CHAPTER 14 — THE MURDERER OF YEARS AGO**
She arrived at the station alone. The fisherman looked increasingly tired—dark circles under his eyes, shaking hands, a strained voice.
"You have to tell me **everything**," she said firmly.
The fisherman sat down heavily. He was silent for a moment, as if searching for courage.
"The murderer from years ago..." he began slowly. "We never caught him. Because there was no one to catch."
Alice's heart began to beat faster.
"I was twenty-two then. I was on my internship. It was my first case. We found bodies... always in the same condition. With a single cut. Not a drop of blood on the ground. As if the cut itself had drunk it all."
"He wasn't human, was he?" she whispered.
The fisherman nodded.
"One day I found the butcher, Stefan Wiewi贸r. He was sitting in a chair. He was dying, but he was repeating something..."
"I killed him, but not with my hands... I saw myself... **in the reflection**."
Alice felt herself grow faint.
"And your mother..." the fisherman continued, "was the only one who could stop the curse. She could... **feed** it something else." "What else?!" Alice shouted.
The Fisherman fixed her with a look of regret.
"Herself."
Alice drew in a sharp breath.
The world shook around her.
"Your mother returned to the circle every few years. She opened the door… just enough for something hungry for life to come out. And she let it… drink. But she took the entire burden upon herself. He returned to her. He didn't kill anyone."
Alice's eyes glazed over.
"She died… because she lost her strength?"
"Because she stopped being young," the Fisherman replied. "And she knew you would be next."
--
# 馃└ **CHAPTER 15 – A TRAIL OF BLOOD**
Alice returned home, but she felt as if someone was following her. The footsteps were too calm, too rhythmic. Almost like an echo.
She found something new in the bedroom.
On the pillow lay a **black knife**.
The same one she'd seen in her dream.
She touched it with her fingertip.
It was cold as ice—and immediately steamed up.
A single red mark, like a drop of blood, appeared on the blade.
Alice pulled away abruptly. The knife moved.
Gently.
As if it were breathing.
And then she heard a voice—no longer in reflection, but in the air, like a whisper penetrating shirts and skin.
**“This tool doesn't kill.
It opens.”**
Alice ran from the room but stopped in the hallway. A drop dripped from the ceiling. She looked up.
On the ceiling was a large, damp **red mark**—the same circle symbol: a circle crossed by a line.
The line was dripping with blood.
---
# 馃└ **CHAPTER 16 — HOUSE ON FIRE**
At midnight, she was awakened by the smell of smoke.
At first, she thought it was a dream. But when she heard the crackling of wood, she jumped out of bed. The house was filled with gray streaks. The fire burned downstairs.
She ran up the stairs—but stopped as if struck by lightning.
Reflections began to appear on the walls around her, not of her face, but of the same creature she had seen in the reflections—a young, unnaturally smooth woman with eyes without whites.
“What do you want?!” Alice shouted.
The woman in the reflection tilted her head.
Alice suddenly felt time speed up around her—the flames grew at an unnatural rate, as if someone were pouring invisible oil straight from thin air.
A voice echoed through the reflections, a hundred whispers at once:
**“I want to go back.”**
The stairs began to crack.
Alice ran through the fire, feeling her skin burn through her jacket. She managed to break the window and jump onto the grass.
The house burst into flames like a kerosene lamp.
As she watched the fire, she saw one last reflection in the living room window: the woman standing there, in the flames, looking straight at her.
And she smiled.
---
# 馃└ **CHAPTER 17 — THE TRUTH ABOUT FAMILY**
The fire department put out the fire, but most of the house burned down. The fisherman arrived late, his face even paler than before.
ly.
"I knew this would happen," he said. "That was the first sign that the pact had ended."
Alice looked at him sharply.
"My mother was... what? A Guardian? A sacrifice?"
"Both," the Fisherman replied. "Your family has been linked to this place for generations. To the circle. To the reflection. Only your blood can close the door."
"And if I don't close it...?"
"He will pass. Completely. And he will no longer choose individual victims. He will erase everything on this side."
Alice felt her knees weaken.
"So I must die?" she laughed darkly.
The Fisherman shook his head.
"Not die. Sacrifice. There's a difference."
--
# 馃└ **CHAPTER 18 - THE FISHERMAN'S BETRAYAL**
The next evening, the Fisherman came to her, too calm. "Come with me, please. There's a way to end this."
Alice didn't trust him—but she had nowhere else to go. They went into the forest. The fog was so thick she could only see his back.
Finally, they reached the circle.
"Why did you bring me here?" she asked.
The fisherman turned. Something in his eyes broke.
He smiled—for the first time since she'd known him.
"Because I don't want to die. And he promised he'd leave me if I gave you to him."
Alice stepped back, but it was too late.
**reflections** began to emerge from the fog behind her—a dozen figures resembling her, but utterly deformed. Elongated arms, featureless faces, figures like broken glass.
"The fisherman..." she whispered. "Please..."
"It's the only way I can survive," he replied coldly.
---
# 馃└ **CHAPTER 19 — BLOOD RITUAL**
Before she could escape, reflections surrounded her.
The fisherman pushed her into the center of the circle. The stones began to glow with a pale light.
Visions appeared in the glass panes inside the cracked boulders.
**Alice who never left town.**
**Alice who committed suicide as a teenager.**
**Alice who became a murderer.**
Each version looked at her as if to take her place.
From the darkness emerged She—the woman of the reflections.
Beautiful, inhuman, smiling.
In her hands she held a **black knife**.
“It's time, daughter.” Her voice was both young and old. “You must open the door.”
“I am not your daughter,” Alice hissed.
The woman lifted her chin.
"Did your mother tell you that? That she was just a vessel, and YOU are my true creation?"
Alice froze.
"You're lying."
"No. I create. I always have. Your mother didn't have the strength. You do."
The woman handed her the knife.
"Stab it. In the heart. In the reflection. And I will pass through."
--
# 馃└ **CHAPTER 20 - THE FINAL CUT**
Alice looked at the knife.
She felt something quiver inside her—two forces pulling her in opposite directions.
Behind her, she heard the Fisherman's cry.
"Do it!" he yelled. "Or he'll kill us all!"
But Alice saw the truth.
In the woman's reflection, there was no mother.
There was only hunger.
And emptiness.
Alice raised the knife.
The woman smiled triumphantly. "Yes... Open me..."
Alice stepped forward.
And plunged the knife into the **Fisherman's heart**.
The Commander cried out in terror. His body went limp, and the reflections around the circle shook—as if struck. The apparitions began to fade.
The woman screamed.
"NO!! IT'S NOT HIM!!"
Alice fell to her knees. Her reflection was still standing, staring at her.
Now she knew what she had to do.
She picked up the knife. She turned it so the blade faced the **glass**.
And plunged it into the heart of her reflection.
The mirror exploded with light. The circle trembled. The woman in the reflections screamed, shattering like a broken pane of glass, vanishing into thin air.
The world around her lit up with blinding white...
...and then silence fell.
---
# 馃└ **EPILOGUE — THE TWO ALICES**
A few days later, the town went on as if nothing had happened. No one spoke of the fire. No one spoke of the Fisherman. Everything went on as usual—as if reality had itself erased the horrors.
Alice sat on a bench, watching the people pass by.
She looked the same as always.
But…
In the shop window, the reflection didn't raise her hand when she did.
Alice smiled coldly.
Because she already knew which of them was left in this world.
And that the other one was left on the other side—**closed, twisted, waiting.**
And when she passed the window, her reflection smiled broadly at her.
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