Alison The bathroom of her New York apartment was shrouded in mist, and the mirror was covered with a layer of water stains, but she had no time to wipe it—because the reflection in the mirror was twisting and cracking. Countless fine cracks spread like spiderwebs, and each fissure reflected herself in different centuries: a medieval wedding dress stained with blood, a Victorian-era skirt blackened by soot, a taut body under a World War II military uniform...
"No..." She staggered backward, her fingertips touching the cold mirror frame. Suddenly, shards of glass burst forth, stinging her skin. Blood beads oozed from her palm, and the moment they seeped into the glass, the face of Charles Lancaster appeared on the mirror. He stood in a laboratory filled with precise instruments, injecting a vial of into his own vein.
"Were you looking for me?" His voice came from the mirror, hoarse and full of malice. Alison's breath caught abruptly as she saw him stretch out his pale hand, his fingertips piercing through the cracks in the mirror to wrap around her neck. The instant their skin made contact, a burning sensation like an electric current surged through her entire body. As she struggled, she caught a glimpse of scarlet alchemical incantations engraved along the edge of the mirror frame—symbols identical to those in the cellar of a medieval church.
"Did you think you'd be safe fleeing to the modern era?" Charles's fingers tightened, and Alison's vision began to blur. She pounded desperately on the mirror, but the glass remained unyielding, as if sealed by the incantations. Just then, a came from behind her—the medieval alchemist suddenly appeared in the bathroom, wrapped in a robe stained with potions, his glass prosthetic eye glowing an eerie green in the dim light.
"Welcome back, my bargainer." He handed her a letter caked in brown bloodstains, the handwriting a Latin incantation. "The Lancaster family stole the 'Marrow of Time' during the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. If you don't want him to use your soul fragments to forge an immortal body, you must infiltrate the witch court and retrieve the 'marrow core' from the heart of a burning witch."
Alison tore Charles's hand from her neck, the blood trail winding like a snake across her skin. She ripped open the letter, and the incantation seeped into her flesh the moment it touched her skin. A pocket watch suddenly sprang from her dress pocket, and a phantom image of Salem Village appeared on its face. The alchemist slit his wrist with a dagger, his blood dripping onto the dial. A blue light abruptly expanded, swallowing Alison whole.
"With each ,a piece of your soul remains in the past," his voice grew distant in the vortex of time. "When the fragments are complete, it will be the end of revenge—or eternal imprisonment."Scene Shift: Salem Village, 1692Alison woke on the putrid mud, dressed in a coarse burlap prison uniform reeking of tar. Around her, burning pyres crackled, and more than a dozen women bound in chains wailed on the stakes, their skin branded with "witch" symbols by red-hot irons. The crowd held torches high, and at its head stood the judge—a ancestor of Charles Lancaster—whose pupils glowed the same silver-gray as Charles, wielding a scepter engraved with alchemical incantations.
"Another fallen one!" the judge sneered, pointing the scepter at Alison. "There are fissures of time in her pupils—she's a messenger of the devil!"
While the fragments of Alison's wedding dress had transformed into a prison uniform during the ,the pocket watch remained hidden in her chest. She curled up in the mud, feigning fear, but her eyes spotted a bronze buried beneath the stake—identical in pattern to the blood infant in the cellar. As the judge ordered the pyre lit and flames surged, Alison suddenly with modern agility and lunged for the bronze .
"Blasphemer of holy relics, you shall die!" The Lancaster ancestor waved his scepter and cast a spell, causing the flames to . Alison's skin burned, but in the ,she felt a beating heart inside the —a marrow core wrapped in flesh and blood, with incantations squirming like live worms in its veins. She bit her fingertip, dripping blood onto the marrow core, and the pocket watch erupted in blue light as the exploded into a fissure.
"Stop!" Lancaster charged forward, but his scepter became lodged in the 's crack. Alison seized the chance to swallow the marrow core, and the time vortex tore through reality once more. But as she vanished, she heard the alchemist's echoing from all directions:
"Did you think taking the marrow core would set you free? Lancaster has laid mirror traps in every lifetime—your soul fragments are being torn away, piece by piece."Modern New York, Prison of MirrorsAlison stumbled back into the bathroom, but the cracks in her mirror reflection were now denser. Charles's face peered from every fissure, his fingers constantly reaching through the mirror to touch her skin. She grabbed the pocket watch and tried to turn its gears, but the dial oozed black blood—the marrow core's energy was corroding the time mechanism.
"Alison, your resistance is meaningless," Charles's voice overlapped from every mirror. "I've collected your fragments in every lifetime, and now only three pieces of your soul remain."
The alchemist suddenly emerged from the mirror, his robe soaked in blood. He grabbed Alison's wrist, and his glass eye flashed green: "You must go to Berlin during World War II and destroy the 'Time Anchor' Lancaster forged with the witch's marrow core. But the price is... you will be permanently trapped in the mirror prison, becoming their prisoner to observe all of time and space."
Alison's nails dug into the alchemist's skin, and she discovered an identical blood curse tattooed on his inner wrist as the one on her wedding dress. A thought coiled around her heart like poison ivy—perhaps he was the same soul across all time, each betrayal pushing her deeper into a trap.
"Who the hell are you?" she ed, as the pocket watch's blue light suddenly exploded, twisting the bathroom into a vortex. In the final moment before time ,Charles reached out from the mirror and tore a corner of her wedding dress. As the fabric floated away, Alison saw the alchemist's name —identical to the symbol on his robe