The air inside Blackthorn Manor had changed.
Not colder. Not darker.
Just… wrong.
Aarav and Maya sat in the study, surrounded by flickering candles and five glowing pendants — each linked to the mirror spirits they had released. The fifth one still pulsed faintly.
Maya tapped the map.
"There should be seven mirrors. But there are only six rooms marked. I've rechecked everything."
Aarav frowned. "What if… the seventh mirror was never placed in a room?"
She paused. Then her eyes widened.
"You think it's… inside the walls?"
That night, Aarav was awakened by a sound.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Scratch.
It came from behind the headboard.
He pressed his ear to the wall.
A voice whispered:
"He's listening…"
He leapt back. His hands shook as he lit a candle and called Maya.
Within minutes, they were tracing the walls with chalk, looking for hollow spots. In the north wing — a place neither of them had entered yet — they found it.
Behind a crumbling bookshelf, they discovered a narrow passageway. The air inside was still and suffocating, filled with a thick, moldy scent.
The walls pulsed.
And somewhere ahead — a mirror whispered.
The passage led to a narrow crawlspace, where the brick turned to rotting wood.
There, mounted sideways between beams, was a broken shard of a mirror — small, blackened, but humming with cold energy.
"This isn't a full mirror," Maya whispered. "It's a fragment. A cursed one."
Aarav stared into it.
In the reflection, he saw himself… smiling.
But he wasn't smiling in real life.
The reflection leaned closer.
"Let me in," it said.
"You're tired. I can carry the burden."
Aarav staggered back.
The mirror pulsed — and shattered.
But the laughter didn't stop.
Aarav fell to his knees. His head throbbed. His mind felt… crowded.
"I think something's inside me," he gasped.
Maya placed her hand on his forehead. His skin was cold. The pendant burned bright red.
"You absorbed it," she whispered. "The sixth spirit didn't pass — it merged."
Aarav looked up, eyes darkening for a second.
"Then that means I'm next."
Golden words appeared on the wooden beam near the mirror's place:
Thorn Blackthorn
"The Possessed"
Maya backed away, eyes wide.
"Thorn was Ambrose's brother. He was the first to go mad… the first to become part of the house."
That night, Aarav couldn't sleep. Every time he blinked, he heard voices.
Memories that weren't his. Screams. Laughter. Prayers. Rituals.
When he looked in the mirror again, his reflection blinked before he did.
Maya kept a chalk circle around him, whispering protective verses.
"There's only one mirror left," she said. "The one Ambrose used himself."
Aarav whispered without realizing it:
"It's beneath the altar…
…where I have to bleed."
Maya turned sharply. "What did you just say?"
But Aarav didn't answer.