When the hospital lights snapped off, the darkness came with a weight that pressed into my skin. I stood frozen in the center of the corridor, my breath caught in my throat, the last echo of that familiar whisper still vibrating against my ear.
My daughter was gone.
And the Boundary was waking up again.
A hum—low, deep, almost gut-born—rippled along the floor beneath my shoes. The tiles felt warm, then cold, then warm again, pulsing like a heartbeat out of rhythm.
I swallowed hard and steadied my breathing.
"Stay calm, Jenny," I whispered. "You've been here before. You survived it once."
But that was a lie. I didn't survive it.
I escaped it.
Barely.
My eyes adjusted slowly to the faint glow of emergency lights flickering somewhere in the distance. A reddish hue washed over the corridor, as if diluted blood were seeping across the ceiling.
I took a step.
The floor beneath me… softened.
Not like carpet.
Not like sand.
More like stepping on memory foam that resisted my weight by sinking and rising in slow motion.
My pulse thundered. "No," I breathed. "Not again."
I tried to reach the wall, to steady myself, but the wall wasn't where it should've been. I blinked hard. The corridor was… skewed. Slightly bent, like a photograph printed on warped paper. The right wall bowed outward, stretching long like taffy, while the left wall narrowed.
It made the hallway look like it was breathing.
The hum grew louder.
I forced myself forward, one hand brushing against the wall—even though touching it made my skin crawl. The surface didn't feel like painted plaster anymore. It felt damp. Warm. Fleshy.
I snatched my hand away, my stomach twisting.
"No no no—stay real, stay real—"
But reality was already slipping.
Ahead of me, the emergency exit door—the same one where I saw my daughter—flickered like an image in a glitching video. Sometimes it was open. Sometimes it was closed. Sometimes it was gone entirely.
I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again.
The door was closed now.
Solid.
Real-ish.
"Sweetheart?" My voice trembled. "Baby, answer me!"
Silence.
A faint shift in the air made me turn. Behind me, the corridor I had just walked through stretched impossibly far—so much longer than before, doubling in distance like a rubber band pulled taut. I took a few steps toward it and watched the far end stretch farther and farther away.
A distortion.
A warping.
A place no longer obeying the rules of the living world.
The Boundary was merging into the hospital.
I felt the familiar panic rise in my throat—the same panic from years ago. The Boundary was not just a place. It was a hunger. A presence that could twist the physical world to its will.
And now it had reached into the hospital again.
I forced myself back toward the emergency exit. When I touched the metal door, it vibrated, almost like a purr. A dark vibration, as if something behind it was breathing.
I jerked my hand away.
Where did she go?
I needed light. I fumbled for the flashlight on my badge. The beam flickered to life—a thin, trembling cone. I aimed it down the hall.
The walls shifted again.
This time, I watched it happening.
The sterile white paint peeled away in slow strips, revealing murky stains beneath—rust, mold, old water damage. The floor tiles buckled, each one twitching upward like teeth. The overhead ceiling panels sagged, then cracked, then split open with a soft tearing sound, as if the building itself were shedding skin.
"What do you want from me?" I whispered.
The reply didn't come from behind me.
It didn't come from ahead.
It came from everywhere.
A low whisper threaded through the corridor, impossible to pin down.
"You left."
My blood turned cold.
I backed away from the emergency door. My flashlight flickered again. The beam caught something at the corner of my vision—movement.
Not my daughter.
Taller.
Broader.
A shape half-hidden by the warped hallway.
"Who's there?" My voice cracked sharply.
The shape stepped a little closer, the outline becoming barely visible. It was a silhouette of a man—shoulders too wide, posture too familiar. My throat tightened until I could barely breathe.
Not him. Not now. Not like this.
I blinked.
The figure disappeared.
A crack snapped on my right. I twisted toward it, raising the dim flashlight. The framed fire escape map had slid halfway down the wall, melting almost. Ink ran down its glass surface like tears, distorting the floor plan until it showed nothing recognizable.
Another whisper.
This time close.
Near my shoulder.
"You came back."
"No," I whispered. "I didn't come back. You pulled me."
A rumble traveled through the floor in reply.
Anger.
I stepped backward, but something warm brushed my ankle.
I screamed.
My flashlight swung downward.
Nothing.
The hallway was empty. The floor was still buckling. The walls were still breathing.
But something had touched me.
I darted into the cross-corridor to my left, my heart hammering so loudly I could barely hear anything else. I had to find people. Staff. Patients. Anyone human.
I turned the corner—and froze.
The corridor was gone.
In its place was a long, narrow tunnel of concrete. Pipes ran along the ceiling, dripping with dark liquid. The fluorescent lights hung loosely, swinging gently even though there was no breeze.
"This isn't real," I whispered. "This isn't real…"
But the Boundary made you question what real even meant.
I forced myself to walk forward. Every step echoed back at me with a half second delay, as if there were two versions of me walking the corridor—one slightly behind.
Somewhere deep in the building, something metal clanged.
Once.
Twice.
Then in a steady rhythm—clang… clang… clang…
Footsteps?
A heartbeat?
A signal?
My hands trembled. "Baby? Please call out if you hear me!"
Silence. Then—
A faint voice.
A child's voice.
"Mommy…"
My breath hitched. "Baby?!"
I turned in a circle, flashlight shaking in my hand. "Where are you?"
"Mommy…"
Fainter this time.
Almost swallowed by the humming walls.
I ran forward.
The tunnel stretched. Lengthened.
I ran harder.
The floor bent downward like a curved throat swallowing me whole. My feet stumbled over uneven concrete. The emergency lights behind me snapped off, plunging the world into deeper red shadows.
"Mommy…"
It wasn't ahead of me anymore.
It was above me.
I tilted the flashlight up—and screamed.
A vent grille near the ceiling—small, square—stared back at me like a dark, watching eye. Something moved behind it. Something pale.
Tiny fingers.
My daughter's fingers.
"Baby!" I cried. "Hold on! I'm coming!"
I jumped, grabbing the rusted edges of the vent. The metal groaned, bending slightly beneath my grip. I tugged harder, trying to pry it loose.
A shape moved in the shadows behind it. Small. Trembling.
"Sweetheart, reach for me!" I begged.
But the shape shrank back.
"Mommy…" she whimpered. "He's coming."
Fear sliced through me so sharply I nearly lost my grip.
"Who? Who's coming? Tell me!"
Before she could answer, the vent grille snapped shut like jaws. The fingers vanished. The darkness swallowed her whole.
"No!" I screamed, banging my fists against the metal. "Give her back!"
A thundering vibration slammed through the corridor, nearly knocking me off my feet. The lights above flickered off, then on, then off again. The world lurched sideways, and I stumbled, catching myself on a pipe that burned my palm.
The concrete walls began to shift again—twisting, narrowing, swallowing parts of themselves.
The tunnel was morphing into something else.
Something I recognized.
A memory.
The hallway of the abandoned hospital in the Boundary Land.
"No," I whispered. "I'm not there. I'm not—"
But the tile beneath my feet cracked. The walls dimmed. The faint smell of mold and rot seeped into my lungs.
I was going back.
Or… the Boundary was coming here.
I backed away, hugging the wall as the corridor shuddered violently. A deep groan resonated through the concrete—like the entire building was twisting into a new shape.
"Why are you doing this?" I yelled into the darkness.
A whisper wrapped around me like cold fingers.
"You promised."
My breath caught. "I never—"
"You were mine."
The lights exploded overhead, showering sparks. I shielded my face with my arm and stumbled.
The corridor split open.
Right in front of me.
A jagged tear widened in the air—a wound in reality. On the other side of it, I saw something impossible.
A room I'd seen before.
Years ago.
In the Boundary.
Peeling wallpaper.
Broken crib.
Dark footprints.
The veil shifting like smoke.
"No," I breathed. "Not again. I won't go back."
But the tear pulled at me like gravity. My hair whipped forward. The air roared as if the world were inhaling.
And then—
A shadow stepped through the tear.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Head tilted slightly the way he always used to when looking at me.
My ghost husband.
He didn't speak.
He didn't need to.
The walls screamed. The floor split. The tunnel twisted into a sickening spiral.
And the Boundary kept spreading.
The last thing I heard before the world folded inward was his voice, soft, cold, intimate:
"Welcome home."
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