Reality is a thin thing.
A fragile skin stretched over chaos, pretending to be solid.
That's what I learn in the first few seconds after I run from the stalker—after his shadow crawls across the walls and his presence fills the halls like smoke.
Because the moment I sprint around the corner, the world doesn't just distort.
It ruptures.
The floor cracks open like glass under too much pressure, splitting beneath my feet. The lights throb overhead, flickering so violently that every few seconds I see three versions of the world stacked on top of each other like misaligned film frames.
My hospital.
The ruined Boundary hospital.
A third version—completely black, with silhouettes standing still inside it like mannequins.
All three shift, overlap, and break apart as the boundary thins.
I grab a handrail—except it isn't a handrail anymore.
It's a bundle of cold, wet roots pulsing like veins.
I jerk my hand back with a shriek.
"No—NO—stop—please stop this—"
But this world doesn't listen to begging.
It listens to him.
His voice rolls through the vents, smooth and deliberate, the voice of a man who once whispered vows into my neck and now whispers death into my spine.
"You left me. You tore the threads between us."
My lungs seize.
He's everywhere.
"So now the threads are tearing back."
The floor splits further, sending a shock through my legs. I stumble, grabbing the wall for balance—except the wall ripples like water beneath my palms.
My hand sinks into it.
Into the wall.
A scream claws out of my throat as I wrench my arm back, stumbling into the middle of the hallway. The plaster ripples like disturbed pond water before slowly settling again.
I'm losing control.
Of the building.
Of the reality beneath it.
Of myself.
"I won't stay here!" I shout, voice cracking. "I have a real life—my daughter is in the real world—"
The air drops several degrees.
My breath fogs.
His voice softens into something almost tender.
"You still haven't understood, have you?"
A long silence.
"Your daughter isn't only in the real world anymore."
My heart stops.
"What?" My voice barely escapes.
He laughs softly—a quiet, broken laugh that sounds like someone dragging glass across stone.
"The worlds have merged. She is between them."
A pause.
"Just like you."
I clamp a hand over my mouth to stop myself from crying out. The hallway grows narrower, walls closing in, lights flickering faster.
"I'm not staying here," I whisper fiercely. "I am DONE being trapped. I am DONE being your bride. I am DONE with this world—"
But the world cuts me off.
A violent shudder races through the building.
Ceiling tiles snap and drop.
Metal screeches.
A distant alarm shrieks, glitching in and out of static.
The entire Boundary hospital begins bending.
Literally bending—like the hallway is folding itself in half.
I clutch the wall, but the wall isn't stable—it's alive, pulsing, breathing, shifting under my touch like muscle. I stumble back, tripping over a fallen IV pole.
"I have to get out—I have to get OUT—"
The lights go black.
Total darkness.
But only for a heartbeat.
Then another layer of reality tears open, like someone slicing through fabric, and the real hospital appears again—translucent, draped over the ruined world.
I see nurses running in panic, alarms blaring, my own reflection passing by a window—but none of them see me.
I reach toward one—a nurse I've known for years, someone who hugged me when I cried on shift, someone who fed me biscuits during long nights.
"Sarah!" I shout. "SARAH!!"
My hand goes right through her.
I can feel her warmth.
Her heartbeat.
Her movement.
But she can't feel me.
Can't hear me.
Can't see me.
It's like touching a ghost.
"No," I whisper, voice trembling. "No—no—no—this isn't how this ends. I won't be a reflection. I won't be a shadow in a world that forgot me."
I press both palms against the air—against the thin membrane separating the worlds.
It resists.
Pushes back.
Hard.
My ghost husband's voice vibrates through the walls.
"You can't break reality, Jenny."
The hallway distorts again. The real world flickers like a candle. I push harder, screaming through my teeth, trying to force myself into the real world.
"STOP."
His command slams into me like a physical blow.
The membrane ripples outward. My hands fly off, and I hit the floor, sliding across broken tiles until my back slams into a rusted gurney.
Pain rockets up my spine. My vision whites out.
I gasp for air.
His footsteps appear at the end of the hall—heavy, slow, deliberate. When they echo, they echo twice: once in the ruin, once in the real.
He is in both worlds now.
"I am not yours!" I choke out. "You don't own me!"
He sighs, sounding genuinely disappointed.
"I married you. I buried you. I bound you."
My blood runs cold.
"What did you say?"
He steps into view.
A silhouette carved from darkness, tall and straight, wearing that ruined wedding suit stitched with thorns and shadows. His eyes burn like dim coals in a dying fire.
He looks more solid than before.
More real.
More alive.
"You died," he says simply. "That night you fell into my world."
"That's not true—"
"You DIED."
The walls tremble with the force of his voice.
"You walked into the dark. You crossed the veil. You ate my food. You drank my water. You married me. You were buried in my soil."
The hallway spins.
No.
No.
NO.
"I lived," I whisper, but it sounds weak even to me. "I went home. I had a child—"
"That life is a thread torn loose from death," he says softly. "A stolen thread. A mistake."
"No," I repeat, shaking my head violently. "No—she's real. My daughter is REAL—"
He nods.
"She is real. Because you made her real. You breathed life into the dead. You gave birth across two realms."
My chest collapses inward. I can't breathe.
He continues, voice low and final:
"You broke the boundary the day she was born."
I sink to the floor.
My daughter.
Half from the world of the living.
Half from the world of the dead.
"I won't let you take her," I whisper.
He smiles slowly.
"Then break reality, if you can."
My head lifts.
His smile fades.
He can see the shift in me.
He can see the decision.
Because if my daughter is trapped between worlds, then she doesn't belong to him.
She belongs to ME.
And I will rip through the fabric of existence to get her back.
I force myself to stand.
The membrane between the worlds flickers again beside us, glowing faintly like a curtain of static.
I face it.
Place my palm against it.
Feel it resist.
My ghost husband watches, amused.
"You're only human, Jenny."
I grit my teeth.
"No."
My hand pushes deeper, the membrane sizzling under my skin.
"I'm a mother."
The world convulses.
A deafening crack explodes through the hallway as the membrane finally—FINALLY—splits sharp and fast like tearing metal.
Light pours out, blinding.
The real world surges forward.
The Boundary world screams in protest.
The two realities collide again in a storm of sound and color and collapsing structure—
And I step into the tear.
I don't know which world it leads to.
I don't know if I'll survive the crossing.
But I know one thing:
I am done being trapped.
I am done being hunted.
And I will break every law of life, death, and reality itself to reach my daughter.
And when I leap into the rupture…
The entire world shatters behind me.
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