Light didn't save me.
It burned me.
As soon as I crossed the threshold, the golden glow that promised safety turned violent, shredding through my skin like shards of glass made from sunlight. I screamed, clutching my chest as a tearing heat engulfed me.
This wasn't a doorway.
This was a payment.
A toll.
A sacrifice.
The Boundary Land was taking something from me—something it believed I owed.
My knees hit a floor I couldn't see. My vision swam in white, then red, then nothing but pulsating black. My body convulsed, my breath shattered, and an impossible pressure wrapped around my ribs like a vice.
I felt something slipping from me.
A memory?
A piece of myself?
The pain grew sharper.
My heartbeat turned uneven, staggering, then slowing—
"No… no… not this," I gasped, clawing at the invisible hands crushing me.
But the realm didn't care about my begging.
It wanted its price.
A voice rose up behind me, deep and hollow.
"You thought you could leave freely?"
My ghost husband's voice.
I tried to turn, but I couldn't move. I was pinned in a storm of blinding light and tearing shadow.
"You chose the living world," he said, stepping through the collapsing fog. His form flickered, as though he was being ripped apart by my choice. "And now the realm demands its balance."
His face was twisted—not with rage this time, but with grief. With fury at the universe, not at me.
"You can't take anything from me," I choked out, even though my body felt like it was being unstitched at the seams. "You already took—everything."
"No," he said softly. "Not everything."
His gaze lowered… toward my chest.
Toward my heart.
Toward what the light was pulling from me.
"No!" I screamed, realizing what he meant as it hit me with cold clarity. "Not my memories—NOT HER!"
But the light surged around me with terrible hunger.
Images flashed violently through my head:
My daughter's laugh.
Her tiny hands gripping mine.
Her little feet running toward me.
The way she called "Mama!" like it was a gift she offered the world.
Each memory flickered, dimming like candles in a storm.
I clawed at my head, screaming, fighting, begging.
"STOP! STOP! YOU CAN'T HAVE HER! YOU CAN'T TAKE HER!"
But the realm did not care about my terror.
Sacrifice.
Balance.
Price.
I had crossed worlds.
I had chosen love over doom.
And the realm wanted payment for that rebellion.
The light tightened around my chest.
Then it ripped.
I felt something tear out of me so violently I choked on my own breath.
The world spun.
I collapsed.
The light disappeared.
And suddenly I was lying on cold, real tiles.
Hospital tiles.
The Boundary Land was gone.
The darkness was gone.
The ghost husband… gone too.
For a moment, just one fragile, trembling breath of a moment, I thought I had made it back.
I thought I had actually won.
But then—
I tried to say my daughter's name.
And nothing came out.
My lips moved, but the word wasn't there.
The name wasn't there.
A numb, echoing cold spread through me.
"No…" I whispered. "No… no… NO."
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to remember her face.
Her smile.
Her laugh.
Her hair.
Anything.
All I saw was static.
Like snow on a dead television screen.
"No," I said again, my voice hysterical. "No, please—PLEASE—"
I slammed my hands into the floor, shaking, sobbing.
"She's mine—she's mine—I CHOSE HER—YOU CAN'T TAKE HER FROM ME—"
But the Boundary Land had.
I could feel the absence like a hole in my chest.
It hadn't taken her body, her existence, her life—
It took my memory of her.
I remembered I had a daughter.
But I couldn't recall her face.
Her age.
Her voice.
Her laugh.
Her favorite toy.
Her birthday.
I knew I loved someone.
But I couldn't summon the image of who.
The price.
This was the price.
I curled into myself on the cold floor, choking on sobs I couldn't hold in. My ribs hurt so badly I thought one had cracked. My heart felt like it was trying to escape my chest.
"I did this for her…" I whispered brokenly. "I did this for her—why would you take her from me?"
A soft sound drifted down the hall.
Footsteps.
Tiny ones.
I froze.
I lifted my head slowly, breath caught in my throat.
The hallway lights flickered, but only once—like a real hospital, not a haunted one. A little shadow appeared at the end of the corridor.
A small silhouette.
My breath hitched.
"Mama?"
My entire body jolted.
Her voice.
Faint.
Fragile.
But real.
I scrambled to my knees.
A little girl ran toward me.
I knew she was mine.
My body knew.
My heart knew.
But my memories didn't.
She flung herself into my arms, and I caught her instinctively, holding her tightly, arms shaking.
But the second her face pressed against my chest—
I felt nothing.
No recollection.
No image dredged from the past.
Just… emptiness.
She pulled back, smiling.
Familiar.
Radiant.
Home.
I stared at her, horror curling through me like poison, because my mind was blank.
"Mama, I was scared," she whispered.
I opened my mouth to speak.
Nothing came out.
I didn't know her name.
I didn't know my own child.
My heart cracked with a soundless scream.
She tugged my shirt, confused.
"Mama?"
I forced a smile—broken, trembling, stitched together with desperation.
"I'm here," I whispered. "I'm right here."
She wrapped her arms around my neck again.
And I held her.
Even though I didn't remember her.
Even though the realm had stolen the most precious thing I had.
This was the price.
Not my life.
Not my body.
Not my freedom.
It stole my motherhood.
It stole the memories that made her real to me.
But she was still alive.
She still had me.
Even if I no longer had all of her.
I buried my face in her hair, trying to force a memory, even a flicker, but nothing came.
Just static.
The choice was made.
And the price was paid.
But my ghost husband's voice still echoed faintly in the back of my mind:
"Love destroys you."
Maybe he was right.
But I would destroy myself a thousand times over if that meant she stayed alive.
I held her tighter.
She held me tighter.
And somewhere deep inside my shattered chest…
Something whispered:
"This is only the first price."
The tiles vibrated beneath my knees.
The lights flickered.
And for one short second—
A shadow passed behind us in the glass.
Tall.
Watching.
Smiling.
The Boundary Land was not done.
Not even close.
---