Great! Here's the **bonus Chapter Zero for "Knife in the Heart III"**, which introduces new threat and tension for the next volume:---

# 🩸 **CHAPTER 0 — THE SHADOW THAT STAYED**

The city slept, but Alice didn't.

She couldn't sleep, though her heart beat steadily after everything she'd been through.

The forest mist had long since receded, and the night was clear and starry.

But something still quivered in the air.

Not a sound. Not a smell.

Something you could feel in your bones.

Something that knew… that she was alive.

Alice walked through the park where she'd once met the Whisperer.

The benches were empty, the grass wet with dew.

But the puddles reflected not stars, but **unfamiliar shapes**.

They weren't reflections of people.

They were shadows. Blurry, pulsating, as if alive.

"Who's there?" she whispered.

There was no answer.

Only a sudden, cold draft that slid down her spine.

She looked into the puddle.

And saw something she couldn't explain: **her own reflection... not all**.

Half the face was hers, the other half—alien, inhuman.

Black eyes that weren't hers stared blankly.

"Is that you?" she whispered.

But the reflection didn't respond.

Instead, it smiled coldly.

Alice jumped back, but the puddle pulsated.

The reflection leaned out of the water—and though it had no body, she felt its presence.

She couldn't breathe, as if a shadow were penetrating her heart.

"So this is how peace ends..." she whispered to herself.

"No, this is only the beginning."

The shadow from the puddle straightened, spreading a darkness across the ground that Alice had never seen before.

It wasn't fog. It wasn't the shadow of a tree.

It was something alive.

Something that remembered her first, second, and third halves.

Something that waited…

For the moment when Alice wasn't ready.

--

This zero chapter introduces a **new reflection/shadow body** that will become the antagonist in "Knife in the Heart III."

The door is open to new dark themes: reflections from the past, lost parts of the soul, and even more terrifying "mirrors of life and death."

I can now write a **complete preview and plot outline for Knife in the Heart III**, so you have a plan for the next installment of the horror story.

Would you like me to do that?