Epilogue
The mirror didn't just reflect Azeeza; it drank her in...
She stood in a corridor that defied geometry, a throat of shadows so long the far end dissolved into a hazy, infinite black. The only reprieve came from a row of monolithic windows, their heavy frames yawning open just enough to let the moonlight spill across the floor like spilled milk.
She leaned closer to the glass. She admired the new sharpness of her jaw, the aristocratic bridge of her nose, and the way her skin seemed to glow with a pale, porcelain luster. She was becoming the woman she had always envisioned—refined, poised, untouchable.
"Azeeza ..."
The whisper was a dry friction against the silence. She spun around, her breath hitching, but the corridor was a vacuum. Empty.
Driven by a morbid curiosity, she moved toward the sound. The hallway didn't end; it morphed. The air grew thick with the smell of old dust and cold grease as she stepped into a room frozen in the nineteenth century. Victorian lamps cast a jaundiced, flickering glow over the walls. Ancient rifles hung as skeletal remains above a collection of dolls huddled in the corner.
Azeeza knelt, her fingers ghosting over the painted face of a doll. Its eyes were too glassy, too aware.
"Do you like them, Azeeza ?"
The voice was closer now—a low, gravelly rasp that felt like a physical touch on the nape of her neck. Azeeza froze. The heat drained from her limbs, leaving her blood like slush.
"The doll looks exactly like you," the man continued, his presence a heavy weight behind her. "Beautiful. Pink cheeks. The kind of cheeks I'd like to kiss."
She didn't want to turn, but the gravity of his malice forced her. She rose slowly, the doll slipping from her numb fingers and thudding onto the rug. He was a pillar of shadow and corded muscle. He wore a low-slung fedora cap and a black italian suite—the kind of mottled camouflage designed to vanish in the darkness of the night.
"Who are you?" she whispered, her voice trembling despite her effort to remain calm.
"Who do you think?" He stepped into her personal space, towering over her until the brim of his cap obscured his eyes. "Just someone who wants to trace his fingers along your jaw... exactly the way you touched her."
As he reached out, his hand calloused and smelling of earth, Azeeza felt the predatory heat radiating from him. "You don't realize what you do to me," he murmured, his fingers grazing her chin, "just by breathing."
The spell snapped. She shoved his chest—hard—and bolted.
She ran until her lungs burned and her feet screamed against the floorboards, but the house had become a labyrinth of his making. Behind her, the rhythmic thud-thud-thud of his heavy boots gained ground. He wasn't running; he was stalking, punctuated by a low, terrifying chuckle that echoed off the high ceilings.
Just as her legs gave out, a massive hand clamped onto her shoulder, jerking her backward into the dark. She opened her mouth to scream—
