Chapter Twelve: Cracks in the Glass

Chapter Twelve: Cracks in the Glass

Isabelle woke with a start.

The remnants of her dream still clung to her skin like cold mist. She could still feel the mirror—smooth, cold, and terrifyingly sentient. And Belle. The girl with her face and her eyes, but from another time, another life. The plea in Belle's voice echoed still: "Break the mirror, and set us free."

But how?

She sat in bed, trembling fingers curled around the edge of her comforter. Her phone screen lit up with a notification—an email from an address she didn't recognize.

Subject: You've seen her too, haven't you?Sender: The Archivist

Her pulse spiked.

She opened the message. It contained only an address and a line of text:"Truth resides in the things forgotten."

No signature. No explanation.

Despite the voice of reason in her head warning against it, Isabelle felt a strange pull. As though Belle herself was guiding her hand. She dressed quickly, laced her boots, and stepped into the fog-draped morning, heading toward the address listed: a derelict building tucked behind the city's old district library.

It looked abandoned, its windows boarded and doors chained. But as Isabelle approached, she saw a single key—rusted and ornate—hanging from a nail beside the doorway. No note, no explanation. She hesitated for only a second before taking it.

Inside, dust choked the air and the floorboards groaned with every step. But in the center of the room stood a strange structure: a circle of old standing mirrors, arranged like a ritual.

Each mirror reflected not just her face, but versions of her—some terrified, some angry, some dressed in clothes from eras long past. Some bleeding. One smiling wickedly.

A whisper rose, as if from beneath the floorboards:"The mirror is not glass. The mirror is memory."

She reached toward one mirror—cracks spidered from its center the moment her fingertips grazed it.

Suddenly, visions poured into her head: Belle burning at the stake, another self drowning in a well, yet another stabbed in a palace corridor. Life after life. Death after death. All trapped. All repeating.

The mirror shuddered. So did she.

Through the haze, one image called to her—a woman cloaked in red, standing in a circle of salt, hammer in hand. Isabelle recognized the ritual. It wasn't just about breaking glass. It was about severing spiritual reflection.

She whispered to herself, "I need to find the circle. The real one."

Then the mirror whispered back:"But are you ready to see what breaks when you break us?"