The world didn't return to normal after the blast of light.
Nothing snapped back into place.
Nothing reset.
Instead, everything hung in a trembling, unstable silence—like the realm itself was unsure how to keep standing after what I had just done.
My chest burned where the light had erupted, a glowing ache pulsing beneath my ribs. The shadows recoiled from me as if burned. The shredded remnants of the black wedding gown melted into smoke at my feet.
My ghost husband stood a few feet away, stunned.
He looked… smaller somehow. Like the blast had peeled away layers of darkness from him, exposing something raw and shaking beneath.
But he wasn't defeated.
Not yet.
The chapel flickered.
Walls dissolved into mist.
The pews cracked apart.
The ghost guests crumbled into dust.
And then the world shifted.
I stumbled as the floor beneath me dissolved into a long, fractured plain of black stone. The chapel ceiling peeled open like paper, revealing a sky that was not a sky at all—just swirling gray fog, streaked with something red and sickly, like dried blood smeared across glass.
My ghost husband's voice echoed around me.
"You've damaged the bond."
His silhouette shimmered, splitting and rejoining, as if reality had trouble holding him together.
"You used something you should not have," he whispered. "Something from the world you cling to so desperately."
"My daughter," I breathed. "My love for her—she's stronger than anything here."
"That love will destroy you," he said. "It will tear you apart."
"Maybe," I said. "But it's mine."
A deep rumble shook the ground.
The black stone cracked open beneath us, glowing red in the fractures. A wind howled from below—hot, dry, ancient. A dozen whispers filled the air, none of them human.
The realm was unraveling.
Not just the chapel.
Not just the corridor.
The entire Boundary Land was splitting open.
And somehow, I was the cause.
My ghost husband's expression darkened.
"You've forced the moment forward," he said. "I hoped to give you time. To help you accept your place here. But you've left me no choice."
"No," I said, stepping back. "No more choices where you decide everything."
He raised his hand.
The ground behind me opened, stretching into a long path of obsidian stone, carved through the shifting fog. On the other side, beyond the mist, a faint light pulsed—soft, warm, almost golden.
My heart lurched.
I knew that light.
It was real.
It was home.
It was the world where my daughter existed.
But before I could take a step toward it, the fog parted on the opposite side.
Another path appeared.
Twisted.
Dark.
Bleeding shadows.
Screaming with memories that didn't belong to me.
At the end of that path, beyond broken stone archways, stood the ghost husband.
But he wasn't alone.
Figures appeared behind him—vague white silhouettes at first, but quickly sharpening into familiar shapes.
Shapes that turned my blood to ice.
The ghost family.
The mother with her melted, blurred smile.
The father with eyes like empty bowls.
The little girl clutching her faceless doll.
Their shadows dripping.
Their mouths whispering without sound.
They were watching me.
Waiting.
The whole realm seemed to inhale.
My ghost husband lowered his hand.
And the choice appeared in front of me—real, physical, impossible to ignore.
Two paths.
Two worlds.
Only one I could walk.
---
"The living world," he said, gesturing to the golden light, "where you will always suffer. Where pain will follow you like a shadow. Where trauma will rot inside you."
I swallowed hard.
"And where your child waits," he added softly.
My knees almost buckled.
Because I could see something now—through the warm haze.
A small silhouette.
A little girl.
Her hands pressed against something invisible, as though she was searching for a way through.
"Mommy?"
The faint sound drifted to me, fragile as a dying heartbeat.
My throat tightened until I could barely breathe.
I reached a hand out instinctively.
But the ghost husband stepped between me and the path.
"Not yet," he said.
His voice was steady. But his eyes… they were trembling.
"You must know the cost."
I forced myself to look away from the golden light, toward the other path. The dark one. The one dripping shadow like blood from an old wound.
"And that one?" I whispered.
His gaze didn't leave mine.
"That is the world where you will never hurt again," he said. "Where no one can take anything from you. Where you are safe."
"Safe," I repeated, the word sour in my mouth. "Safe, or caged?"
He didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
I already knew.
He stepped closer.
"You think the world of the living loves you," he murmured. "But what has it ever given you but loss? What joy did it allow you? What protection? What mercy?"
The memories hit hard and fast.
The gender reveal.
The blood.
The silence in my womb.
My ex-husband's voice breaking me piece by piece.
The hospital nights when I cried so quietly I felt ashamed even of breathing.
He saw the flicker in my eyes.
He knew he had touched the deepest nerve.
"You could stay," he whispered. "You could let go. Rest. Be mine. You would never be alone again. Never feel that crushing emptiness again."
He reached his hand out.
I stared at it.
White.
Cold.
Beautiful in a way that terrified me.
Then he said the words that almost broke me.
"I have waited for you. Loved you. Even when you hated me… I loved you."
His voice was not a monster's voice.
It was a lover's.
A husband's.
A man who believed his obsession was devotion.
I closed my eyes.
My heart felt torn in half.
Behind him, the ghost family stared. Their faces shimmering, their forms trembling as if caught between being real or dissolving.
They wanted me.
Needed me to complete something in their empty world.
My ghost husband stepped closer.
"Choose me," he whispered. "Choose peace."
A sound slipped from me—part sob, part exhale.
I thought of everything he said.
I thought of everything I lived through.
And I thought of her.
My daughter.
Her smile.
Her laugh.
The way her little arms wrapped around my neck.
The way she called "Mama!" like the word was made of sunlight.
My daughter…
I looked toward the golden light again.
Her silhouette glowed faintly now.
Moving.
Searching.
Calling for me.
"Mommy… where are you…?"
My knees hit the black stone.
Because the truth cut through everything like a blade.
Maybe he was right.
Maybe the living world had broken me.
Maybe I would never truly heal.
Maybe trauma would chase me forever.
But she was in that world.
She was waiting.
She was mine.
And I would walk through fire for her.
My voice trembled as I spoke.
"I choose my daughter."
The realm went silent.
The fog froze.
The ground cracked.
The sky split like thin ice.
My ghost husband stared at me as if I had stabbed him.
"No," he breathed. "You… you don't understand—"
"I do," I whispered. "And that's why I choose her."
He shook his head slowly, his form flickering violently.
"She cannot protect you," he said. "She cannot save you from what is coming."
"No," I whispered. "But I can protect her."
The ground trembled under us, harder this time.
The golden path brightened.
The dark path shrieked like an animal.
The ghost family's silhouettes wavered, cracking at the edges, their forms breaking like glass.
"Jenny…" he said, stepping toward me. "Do not do this."
"I have to."
"If you walk that path," he whispered, voice shattering, "I cannot follow."
"Good."
His expression fractured.
A raw, ancient grief twisted across his face.
"You were meant for this world," he hissed. "You belonged with me."
"I belong where she is," I whispered. "Even if it kills me."
Then the world moved.
A violent wind slammed into me, pushing me toward the golden path.
The ghost husband lunged—reaching for my arm.
For a heartbeat, I felt his fingers graze my skin—cold, desperate, pleading.
"Jenny—PLEASE—"
I tore my arm away.
He screamed.
The whole Boundary Land screamed with him.
And the two paths began to collapse.
I sprinted toward the golden light.
My lungs burned.
My legs shook.
The ground crumbled behind me.
Shadows shot upward like claws, trying to drag me back.
My ghost husband's voice roared through the realm—
"You made your choice—NOW PAY THE PRICE!"
But I didn't look back.
I couldn't.
The golden light grew brighter, swallowing my vision as I ran.
My daughter's voice echoed—
"Mama! Mama, hurry!"
I pushed forward.
My chest ached.
My breath cracked.
My eyes burned.
I reached out—
The light touched my fingers—
And everything exploded.
---