# 🩸 **A KNIFE IN THE HEART

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## 🔪 **CHAPTER 1 — RETURN**

The fog was so thick that the streetlights looked as if they were dipped in milk. The bus drove off, leaving Alice with her bag and the feeling that the city had breathed a sigh of relief when it saw her.

The road leading to her mother's house creaked under her boots. The house emerged from the fog like something that shouldn't be there—alone, leaning, with dark windows.

She noticed something in the upper window. A silhouette.

She blinked. It was gone.

The interior felt unnaturally cold. She turned on the light—the bulb flickered like a dying man's eyelid. On the floor lay a white envelope.

Her mother's letter.

And at the end of the house, something clattered.

Alice glanced toward the kitchen. She saw her reflection in the glass.

Except her reflection stood still while she raised her hand.

And then… her reflection smiled.

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## 🔪 **CHAPTER 2 — THE FUNERAL THEY DON'T TALK ABOUT**

The next day, Alice went to the cemetery. She wanted to fix a candle that had been knocked over by the wind.

An old neighbor, Mrs. Wierzbicka, stood there as if waiting.

—*You shouldn't come back, child.*

—Why?

The woman glanced away, as if someone were watching her.

—*Your mother… she didn't leave whole. Something of her remains. In the house. In you.*

Alice felt a strange chill.

— *And if it has already started coming back… it won't stop until it has taken what was taken from it.*

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## 🔪 **CHAPTER 3 — THE FIRST NIGHT**

The wind carried the sound of footsteps. Or so Alice thought—until she realized Hearing footsteps coming from upstairs.

The cold water in the tap was like glass. Despite this, the mirror had fogged up.

Letters slowly emerged on it.

**REMEMBER**

Alice took a step back.

The steam disappeared.

The letters remained.

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## 🔪 **CHAPTER 4 - COMMANDER RYBAK**

Commander Rybak looked like a man who had slept little and thought too much. His eyes were unpleasant, as if he was constantly analyzing something.

"Your mother was... exceptional," he said quietly.

"I know."

"No, you don't. And it's better to keep it that way."

Alice felt anger rising.

"Why does everyone speak in half?"

The fisherman looked into her eyes, and fear flickered in his gaze.

"Because if we tell everything, he'll start killing again."

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## 🔪 **CHAPTER 5 — OLD FILES**

That night, Alice couldn't sleep. She searched her mother's house.

Behind a false partition in the closet, she discovered a file. Yellowing newspapers, police photos, autopsy descriptions.

All the victims had the same thing: **one perfect slash to the heart**.

And under the photos, her mother wrote something with a trembling hand:

**"It will come back. And I won't be enough anymore."**

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