Alika's POV
Something wasn't right.
The air felt heavier as I walked down the west corridor, each step echoing off the cold stone floor. I wasn't supposed to be here—this part of the mansion was always locked, always avoided. But tonight, the door had been left ajar.
Almost like someone was waiting for me.
I hesitated in front of the half-open door. A sliver of darkness stared back at me, quiet and unmoving. My fingers hovered over the knob when I heard it.
A voice.
Soft. Male. Familiar.
"Alika..."
I froze.
Ethan?
I turned, but no one was there. Just empty shadows and the hum of an old chandelier swaying above me. My breath caught. I knew Ethan was in the east wing tonight, handling guests from Boston. He couldn't be here.
Still, I stepped inside.
The room was small—dusty and untouched. Cobwebs clung to the corners, and the musty scent of old wood and forgotten things filled my lungs. In the corner sat a table, draped with a torn lace cloth. On it lay a book, thick and dark, like it had been waiting centuries for me.
I approached slowly. The moment I touched it, a cold jolt ran through my fingers.
"Anindya Eleanor Blackwell – 1893."
The name was etched into the leather cover.
Anindya.
The first bride.
The one who vanished.
I opened the book with trembling hands.
> "Today I marry. But no one told me marriage can be worse than death."
Her handwriting was precise but frantic. The ink was smeared in places, like her hands had shaken as she wrote.
> "Last night I dreamt of a red mirror, dripping blood. A child whispered from the fireplace. I can't sleep anymore."
My heartbeat quickened. These weren't just ramblings. They were signs. Signs that sounded too much like my own dreams. Too much like what I had seen in that cursed mirror.
I flipped the pages, scanning passage after passage. Whispers in the night. Cold hands touching her in sleep. A mark—beneath her collarbone.
> "A drop of blood encircled by a ring. The same on all of us."
I touched my own skin. My mark.
The same shape. The same place.
My hand trembled as I turned the next page. A crude sketch of the mark stared back at me, drawn in deep brown—blood, perhaps. Underneath, a message:
> "When the final bride bears the mark, the curse awakens."
I didn't know I was crying until a tear hit the page.
Then suddenly—
CRASH!
I jumped.
Somewhere outside the room, glass shattered.
I clutched the book to my chest and darted toward the door, cracking it slightly to peek outside.
Footsteps.
Heavy. Getting closer.
I backed away, heart pounding so loud I feared whoever was coming could hear it too. I looked for a place to hide, but the room was bare. No closet. No curtains.
Then the footsteps stopped. Right outside the door.
I held my breath.
"Ethan?" a voice called. A maid's voice—Mary, maybe.
Silence.
Then retreating steps, fading into the distance.
I exhaled shakily and leaned back against the wall.
But something had changed. The room felt... different.
I turned—and gasped.
The mirror.
It hadn't been there before.
Now, it stood tall in the corner, antique and dust-covered. But what chilled me wasn't its sudden appearance.
It was the reflection.
I wasn't alone.
My reflection was smiling at me. But I wasn't smiling.
I took a slow step forward. The mirror shimmered.
And then, words appeared, written in something red and wet across the glass:
> "We are of the same blood, Alika."
I staggered back, almost dropping the book.
The pages fluttered open, as if by unseen wind, to the final entry.
And there it was.
My name.
Alika Morgan.
Below it: July 4th, 2025.
My wedding day.
But that wasn't the worst part.
At the bottom of the page, faint and crossed out, another name:
"Anindya Eleanor..."
Then—
darkness.
The light snapped off with a hiss.
I stood frozen in the pitch black, listening to my own breathing. Then, a drip.
Something warm slid down my cheek.
Blood.
I looked up.
And from the cracked ceiling, in the darkness above—
a pair of eyes stared down at me.
Wide. Familiar. Empty.
Mine.
I couldn't move.
I couldn't scream.
Those eyes—my eyes—stared back from the ceiling crack like they didn't belong in a human face. They were unblinking, wide, hollow. And somehow… smiling.
Then, slowly, they began to blink.
Once.
Twice.
Each movement felt like thunder inside my skull.
I stumbled back, colliding into the edge of the old table. The journal fell to the floor with a thud, pages flipping violently as if caught in a storm no one else could see. The room trembled—not physically, but spiritually. Like something was crawling beneath the walls, rattling through the bones of this house.
And then—whispers.
Soft at first. Indistinct. But growing louder. Layered. Female. Countless voices weaving over one another in an eerie harmony of sorrow.
> "We are the brides... We are the broken... We are the blood..."
I pressed my hands over my ears. "Stop," I whispered. "Please... stop."
But they didn't stop. If anything, they multiplied. A low growl joined them—inhuman, guttural, like breath rasping through wet lungs.
I backed toward the door again, but it slammed shut on its own.
Locked.
Trapped.
The mirror flickered.
A flash—images seared my vision.
A woman screaming in a blood-stained veil. A burning chapel. A child sobbing in a crib as flames devoured the walls. A man in a black suit holding a knife—his eyes wet, but his hand steady.
Then, another flash.
Me.
Lying in a bed soaked in crimson, eyes wide open, lips parted in silence.
Dead.
I cried out and shut my eyes.
No. No, this isn't real. This is just fear—hallucination. My mind playing tricks.
But when I opened them again, the room was quiet.
The mirror stood still. The whispers gone.
No more eyes on the ceiling.
Just me.
And the journal on the ground, open to a new page.
A page I hadn't seen before.
It was written in a darker ink—no, not ink. Blood.
> "Alika. Break the vow or bury the blood."
I didn't understand.
"What vow?" I whispered. "What blood?"
The journal snapped shut on its own.
Behind me, the mirror cracked—one clean fracture running straight down the middle, splitting my reflection in two.
Half light.
Half shadow.
And in the shadowed half… stood Anindya.
Or whatever remained of her.
Her face twisted, bruised by centuries of silence. Her eyes pleading.
> "Free us… before he takes you too."
Then everything went still.
The door creaked open behind me.
I turned slowly, expecting the hallway.
But it wasn't the hallway.
It was the chapel.
Lit in ghostly candlelight, the same place I'd seen in the mirror moments ago.
And at the end of the aisle…
stood Ethan.
Waiting.
Wearing black.
Holding something behind his back.
And smiling.