The moment I round the next corner, the hallway slams shut behind me.
Not slowly.
Not subtly.
The walls collapse inward, sealing the passage with a sound like concrete grinding against bone. Dust bursts into the air, choking my throat as I stumble backward.
I cough, covering my mouth, and when the dust settles I see it:
A dead end.
A flat, seamless wall where the hallway had been open seconds ago.
I press my palm against it. Cold. Hard. Solid.
No door.
No seam.
Like it was never a hallway at all.
Trapped.
"No…" I whisper. "No, no, no—"
I whirl around, searching for another route, a crack, anything. But the hallway stretches forward into darkness—deep, hollow, endlessly long. The flickering lights overhead cast trembling shadows that crawl up the walls like hands trying to escape.
My pulse pounds so hard my vision blurs at the edges.
I know this place.
I know its rules.
I know how it breathes.
And I know it's him.
Pulling everything tight around me, closing the doors, shaping the walls.
Caging me.
I take one step forward.
The hallway responds with a low groan.
Like the building is alive.
I freeze, every muscle trembling. The air thickens around me—heavy, damp, humid, as if I'm deep underground. The smell shifts again, no longer mold and rust, but something older. Dead air. Abandoned air. Like breathing inside a sealed coffin.
I swallow hard.
"My daughter…" I whisper into the dark. "I need to go back to her. Please—"
A soft wind brushes past me, cold as ice fingers grazing my cheek.
Not a natural wind.
Not from an open window.
This is the kind of cold that moves with intention.
I step back.
Another breath of cold sweeps across my face—slower this time, like someone exhaling directly beside my ear.
I close my eyes.
Just for a second.
"Jenny."
His voice.
Right behind me.
I spin so fast I lose my balance, my back hitting the peeling wall. My hands fly out to steady myself, and the wallpaper crumbles beneath my fingers like dead leaves.
I look down the hallway.
Nothing.
Silence.
Darkness.
But his voice…
It didn't echo.
It didn't come from the intercom.
It didn't come from far away.
It came from right next to me.
I grip the wall to keep myself upright.
"Why?" I whisper, my voice shaking. "I escaped. I left. I started over."
A soft scrape echoes behind me.
I whip around.
The wall isn't just a wall anymore.
A shadow is forming on it—slowly, like ink bleeding through paper. It stretches long, tall, wider than a man, yet bent in strange angles, large around the shoulders, narrower near the hips. The head shape is wrong, too—tilted, elongated, as if listening for me.
The shadow flickers once.
And then it moves.
Not away from the wall.
Out of it.
My legs nearly buckle. Air sticks in my throat. Every instinct screams to run, but the hallway is a single stretch into darkness, no side doors, no safety, no exit.
The shadow slowly begins to separate from the wall, peeling off like tar dripping upward.
I stagger backward, heart hammering, my breaths coming in broken gasps.
Then—
A whisper:
"You never escaped. You only wandered."
My chest tightens painfully.
His voice is closer.
Too close.
"Why are you doing this?" I choke. "What do you want from me?"
Silence.
Then the shadow stops moving… and slowly reshapes itself.
Into him.
The groom.
My ghost husband.
His outline forms in the dark—faded, fragmented, but unmistakably him. The suit, torn and stained. The bow tie hanging crooked. The face…
No.
No face.
Just hollowed-out darkness where eyes and mouth should be, as if his head is a mask stretched over emptiness.
He steps closer, feet not touching the ground, body gliding silently.
I press myself against the wall until my spine aches.
"Don't," I whisper. "Don't come near me."
But he does.
One slow glide at a time.
The hallway shrinks around us—not physically, but emotionally, like the air itself tightens. The lights flicker weakly as he passes beneath them, dimming with each of his silent steps.
"You left me," he murmurs, his voice slipping inside my ears like fog. "You left our home."
I shake my head violently. "It wasn't home. It was a prison."
"You married me," he says. "You became mine."
"I was trapped," I snap. "That wasn't a marriage!"
His head tilts, the empty face shifting.
"You ran from me… and took a child with you."
My blood freezes.
My daughter.
He knows.
He's known all along.
My chest tightens so sharply I can barely breathe.
"You don't get to touch her," I whisper fiercely, surprising myself with the strength in my voice.
The lights overhead buzz once—bright, furious.
He stops a few feet away.
The shadow of his hand rises—long fingers trailing in the air as though tracing invisible threads.
"You carry pieces of me," he says softly. "Pieces that keep my world tied to yours."
My stomach churns. My skin goes cold.
"That's why you always return."
I shake my head. "No—no, I'm done. I want my life back."
A deep rumble rolls through the building.
He takes another slow step, and the floor beneath him ripples like liquid.
"You cannot leave what you are."
"I am not yours," I spit.
The air snaps.
A rush of cold slams into me, pinning me against the wall. His unseen presence presses close—chest to chest, breath to breath, though I feel nothing but cold.
"You are," he murmurs.
"You always were."
My eyes burn. "I have a daughter—"
"And she is the key."
My throat closes.
"The key to what?" I rasp.
He lifts a hand to my face, and though I can't see fingers, something icy drags across my cheek.
"The key to closing the boundary… or opening it forever."
My body shakes uncontrollably.
He leans closer.
"You will return to me willingly, Jenny. Or I will bring you back again, and again, and again, until your world collapses."
Tears spill down my cheeks.
"I just want to go home," I whisper.
He tilts his head.
"This is home."
My stomach drops.
He steps back.
The hallway behind him begins to distort—stretching into impossible angles, bending like hot metal. The walls twist. The lights pop. The ceiling cracks open, raining dust.
And then—
The dragging sound returns.
Not from behind me.
From every direction.
Dozens of them.
Shapes moving inside the walls.
Hands pressed against the peeling paint.
Faces shifting behind broken windows of old patient rooms.
Watching me.
Waiting.
Surrounding me.
I spin around wildly—
But every exit is gone.
Every path is sealed.
This is the Boundary Land.
And I am trapped in it again.
The ghost husband's voice drifts through the hallway, soft and satisfied:
"Welcome home… my bride."
The walls shudder.
The lights die.
And the world goes black.
---