I continue with **“Knife in the Heart II — Part 4”**.Now begins the most important, darkest part — **CHAPTERS 12–15**.--

# 🩸 **CHAPTER 12 — LEAVING THE MIRROR CIRCLE**

The mirrors around Alice began to pulsate like living organisms.

In each one, her reflection began to *peel* from the glass.

First her face.

Then her shoulders.

Then her entire body, emerging from the glass as if from water.

Each reflection was different:

One Alice had torn cheeks.

The second—black, splattering eyes.

The third—a bleeding heart on the outside, as if someone had ripped her chest out and put it back in.

The fourth—she smiled widely, too widely, completely inhumanly.

Each of them whispered the same thing:

— **Give it back. Give it back. Give it back.**

The girl—now a teenager, taller, stronger—stood in the center of the room, like a source of light.

Or rather, like a source of darkness.

“Time to be absorbed,” she said softly. “I don’t want to hurt you, Alice. I want to be you. Finally, whole.”

The Whisperer smiled at her, as if watching a long-awaited ceremony.

“It’s a natural cycle,” he said softly. “What has been separated… must return.”

Alice pressed her back against one of the mirrors, but immediately pulled it away—because her own reflection on the other side put its hand to the glass… and from the other side, a sharp, protruding bone began to pierce the surface.

The mirror shattered.

Alice fled to the center of the room.

“I won’t be absorbed!” she screamed.

The girl tilted her head.

"But you have no choice," she said calmly. "The agreement is older than you. Older than your body. Older than your mother."

The Whisperer sighed dramatically.

"Oh, family... How often is it to blame."

Alice felt the ground beneath her feet begin to tilt.

"What... what does my mother have to do with this?!" she shrieked.

The Whisperer grinned.

"**She's the one who accepted the agreement.

And you... are its price."

---

# 🩸 **CHAPTER 13 - MOTHER'S SECRET**

The room began to fade.

The mirrors grew silent.

The reflections vanished like empty silhouettes blown away by the wind.

Alice saw an image that couldn't have been a real scene—but it was.

Like a memory that didn't belong to her.

*A house in the middle of the forest.

Candles arranged in a circle.

A woman kneeling on the cold ground.*

Her mother.

Younger. Terrified. Shivering.

Before her stood the Whisperer—not as he was now, but more human, more understandable. Dressed in a simple black cloak, his face hidden in shadow.

“You want a child,” he said. “Fertile, healthy, alive.”

Alice’s mother nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“The doctors say I can’t… I can’t anymore…”

“Oh, the doctors,” the Whisperer interrupted. “So limited.”

“I can give you a child.”

The mother burst into tears.

“At what price…?”

The Whisperer leaned in, his voice both icy and tender.

“For half her soul.”

“After she’s born, you’ll give her to the SHELTER.”

“You can keep the other half and raise her.” "Will she... live?" her mother asked tremblingly.

"Oh, yes."

"And it will be a wonderful child," said the Whisperer. "But the day she returns to claim the rest... she must return to me."

The mother fell to her knees.

"I'll do anything... I beg you... give her to me..."

The Whisperer placed his hand on her head.

"Then... let's do it."

The air cracked like a shell.

Light and darkness merged.

Alice screamed.

The scene vanished.

She returned to the mirrored room.

The girl looked at her calmly.

"Now you know," she said.

Alice writhed in pain.

"That's... that's why I don't remember my childhood."

The Whisperer nodded.

"Half of you was gone."

"Half came here—to the Vault—right after birth." "That's why the girl is so… dead, and yet not."

"I am you," the girl said.

"NO!" Alice cried, swallowing back tears. "You are not me. You are… a fragment!"

The Whisperer raised his eyebrows.

"A fragment is also true."

--

# 🩸 **CHAPTER 14 – A SCULPTURE OF HEARTS**

All the mirrors began to shake simultaneously.

Alice turned her head—and on one of the walls appeared… a figure.

It was a sculpture made of… hearts.

Hearts upon hearts. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Each one twisted, as if preserved in ice or resin.

Pulsating.

Alive.

Alice felt a lump rise in her throat.

The girl walked up to the sculpture and placed her hand on it.

"It's ours," she said calmly. “All the hearts that were taken to keep me alive.”

“You… were the murderer?” Alice whispered, horrified.

The girl shook her head.

“I didn’t have a body.”

“But he did.”

She looked at the Whisperer.

Alice took a step back.

“It was YOU…” Her voice trembled. “You killed people?!

The Whisperer laughed melodiously.

“That’s such a… human word.”

“I didn’t kill.”

“I only took what was promised to me.”

Alice felt herself losing ground.

“I… am the reason they died…?”

“Yes,” the girl said. “But it wasn’t my fault.”

“Their hearts sustained ME.”

“Thanks to them, I exist.”

“And now… you must give me yours.”

The girl touched the sculpture, and all the hearts fluttered at the same time.Like wings.

Alice screamed.

"NO!"

The Whisperer spread his arms.

"The last heart," he whispered. "The heart of the key."

"Alice's heart."

The girl turned to her.

"I want it."

"I want to be alive."

--

# 🩸 **CHAPTER 15 - A STAB IN THE HEART**

The girl raised her hand, and a blade began to emerge from the air—the same one Alice's mother had once held in the circle of candles, the same one reflected in the mirror.

Thin.

Cold.

Perfect.

Made for only one thing.

"It won't hurt," the girl said.

"You're lying," Alice whispered.

The girl hesitated for a second.

"Yes. It will hurt."

"A lot."

The Whisperer clapped softly, as if watching a performance.

"Come on, my child."

"Take the final step."

The girl stepped forward with the knife.

The mirrors trembled.

Alice's heart pounded in her chest as if trying to escape.

Alice did the only thing she could.

She lunged forward.

Towards the girl.

Towards the blade.

Towards her own reflection.

The knife pierced the air.

All the hearts in the sculpture froze.

The Whisperer's eyes widened in delight.

Alice gritted her teeth and screamed with all her might:

"**IF YOU WANT MY HEART...

THEN TAKE IT WITH ME!"

And threw herself at the blade.

---

### If you'd like, we're moving on to **Part 5 (CHAPTERS 16–20 + the grand finale, "Knife in the Heart II")**.

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