Lahat ng Kabanata ng Between Breathe And Goodbye: Kabanata 31 - Kabanata 40

Eliana stood motionless as the darkness slowly reshaped itself around her. The strange presence ahead remained hidden beneath layers of shadow, but she could feel it there, breathing life into the empty space little by little. The air had changed again. It no longer carried the cold stillness of the void or the suffocating pressure of the earlier tests. This felt heavier. Older somehow. Like she had stepped into a place that existed long before her arrival and would continue existing long after she was gone.A faint sound echoed somewhere in the distance.The darkness around her thinned enough for her eyes to adjust, revealing a long corridor stretching ahead. The walls were made of stone, uneven and damp, with cracks running across them like old scars. Thin streams of water slid down the surface and pooled along the floor beneath her feet. The dim light came from lanterns hanging far apart along the hallway, though their flames flickered weakly, barely pushing back the shadows surrou

“Ashen!”The scream tore out of Eliana’s throat before she could stop it.One second he had been there, standing between her and that nightmare creature with those cold gray eyes fixed on the darkness like he feared nothing in existence. And the next second, the bridge beneath him shattered completely, swallowing him whole.Eliana’s heart stopped.The silver light ahead no longer mattered.The exit didn’t matter.Nothing did.Without thinking, she spun around and ran back toward the collapsing bridge.Wind roared violently around her, whipping her hair across her face as pieces of the bridge continued breaking apart beneath her feet. The darkness below surged upward hungrily, moving like living smoke, twisting and clawing at the air as though it wanted to drag everything down with it.“Ashen!” she shouted again.No response came back.Fear spread through her chest so quickly it hurt.The creature was gone too.Only darkness remained beneath the broken bridge.Eliana slowed near the ed

The sound of Mike’s voice did something terrifying to Eliana.It shattered her balance.One second, she was standing inside the cold black chamber trying to steady her breathing after surviving the illusion realm. The next, her heart was racing so violently she could barely hear anything else.“Eliana…”His voice came again from behind the door. Soft and weak.Almost frightened.The scratching stopped.Silence swallowed the chamber, thick and suffocating, until even the air felt too heavy to breathe properly.Eliana stared at the massive black door, her body frozen in place.No.This had to be another illusion. Or another trick.It had to be.Yet her chest tightened painfully anyway.Because it sounded exactly like him.Not the cold version of Mike from the night he left her. Not the distant man who ignored her calls and blocked her number after four years together.This voice sounded like the old Mike.The Mike who used to wait outside her lectures with snacks because she forgot to e

Cold, that was the first thing I felt when consciousness returned.Not the normal kind of cold that came with rain or harmattan mornings. This cold felt alive. It wrapped itself around my body like wet hands dragging me deeper into something endless. My chest tightened as I opened my eyes, only to be met with darkness stretching in every direction.For one horrible second, I thought I had gone blind.Then I realized I was underwater.Panic exploded inside me.My body jerked violently as instinct took over. I kicked my legs and flung my arms around, trying to swim upward, but there was no up. No down either. Just darkness and freezing water swallowing me whole. My lungs burned immediately, and fear clawed through my chest so fast it made my head spin.No.No, no, no.I tried to scream, but water rushed into my mouth instead.The pressure around me thickened.My heartbeat thundered loudly in my ears as memories flashed through my mind in broken pieces—the accident, the hospital, the str

The darkness swallowed everything.One second the hallway existed around us, filled with flickering lanterns and crawling shadows, and the next, it vanished beneath a heavy blackness so thick it felt alive. My chest tightened instantly as panic rose through me. I couldn’t see my own hands. Couldn’t see the floor. Couldn’t even tell if my eyes were open.Then fingers closed tightly around my wrist.“Move,” my spirit guide ordered.The sound of his voice grounded me enough to stumble forward. I nearly tripped immediately, my legs weak from fear and exhaustion, but his grip kept me upright as he dragged me through the darkness at a speed that made my lungs ache.Behind us, the Hollow Ones screamed.The sound echoed endlessly through the corridor, sharp and unnatural, like hundreds of broken voices crying at once. Every scream sent cold fear racing deeper into my body.“What are they?” I gasped as we ran. “What do they actually want from me?”“They feed on fear.” my spirit guide replied.