All Chapters of Between Breathe And Goodbye: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

97 Chapters

The Man Behind the Door

The darkness inside the house felt alive.Eliana stood frozen in the middle of the living room, her breath trapped somewhere between her lungs and throat as the heavy footsteps drew closer. Every instinct inside her screamed to run, yet her body refused to move. The air had changed completely. Just moments ago, the house had felt warm, almost comforting, filled with the scent of home and memories she had spent years missing. Now it felt rotten. Heavy. Like the walls themselves remembered things she had desperately tried to forget.The footsteps stopped and silence swallowed the room again. Then came the sound of something dragging across the floor. Her stomach twisted painfully. No, she screamed.No, no, no. She screamed louder again this time because she knew that sound too. It was a sound of a bottle.Glass scraping slowly against the tiles and her chest tightened so hard it hurt.“Eliana.” The voice came again, lower this time.It was dangerously calm.Every hair on her body stood upS

The Souls Who Failed

The world shattered around Eliana like glass.The sound was deafening.One second she was standing inside her mother’s bedroom, surrounded by collapsing memories and the remains of a life she had spent years trying to survive. The next, darkness swallowed everything whole. The floor beneath her feet disappeared completely, and she felt herself falling again.Only this time, there was no ground waiting below.Wind tore past her ears as her body dropped endlessly through blackness. Her stomach twisted violently, panic clawing at her chest while broken pieces of the house floated around her like drifting fragments of a nightmare. She saw flashes as she fell—her mother crying in the kitchen, young Eliana hiding behind the couch, Marcus shouting loud enough to shake the walls. The memories spun around her until she couldn’t tell which way was up anymore.“Eliana.”The voice cut through the chaos.Her spirit guide. Strong hands grabbed her wrist suddenly, stopping her fall so sharply that it

The Thing Wearing My Face

Eliana’s scream tore through the collapsing hallway as the creature tightened its grip around her ankle. Its fingers were ice-cold, unnaturally long, and strong enough to drag her backward across the floor no matter how hard she fought. The thing looked exactly like her, but wrong in every possible way. Its limbs bent strangely, its skin was pale and cracked like broken porcelain, and its smile stretched far too wide across its face. Dark liquid leaked from its empty eyes as it crawled toward her with twisted excitement.For one horrifying second, Eliana forgot how to breathe. The monster grinned wider. “You left us behind,” it whispered in her voice. Her stomach twisted violently.The sound wasn’t human. It sounded layered, like several voices were speaking through the same mouth at once. “Eliana!” her spirit guide shouted again, and this time there was unmistakable urgency in his tone. “Move!” That finally snapped her out of her terror.She kicked wildly with her free leg, striking

The Door Back Home

The darkness swallowed everything.For a moment, Eliana existed in pure nothing—no floor beneath her feet, no walls, no screaming creature, no crying mother. Just the suffocating black and the echo of that final, terrible beep burning through her skull."No," she breathed into the void. "No, no, no—"She started running. She didn't know where, didn't care. Her legs pumped against an invisible surface, her hands clawed at empty air. "Take me back! Let me see her!"No one answered.Somewhere in the dark, she could hear her own heartbeat—or maybe it was the phantom memory of the hospital monitor, slowing, fading, stopping. She couldn't tell anymore. The boundary between her body and this place had dissolved completely, and she was dissolving with it."Please," she whispered. Tears burned her eyes, then froze against her skin. "Please, I can't leave her like that. I can't—"A hand caught her wrist.She whirled, expecting the creature, expecting those cracked porcelain fingers and that too

Love Is the Truth

Eliana forced herself to stop. She squinted at the distant mirror. The image was hazy, but he was right—the Eliana in the hospital bed wasn't just stable. She was sitting up. Laughing. Her mother hugged her, and there were balloons by the window, and sunlight streaming in, and everything was perfect.Too perfect."It never happened," Eliana realized, her throat tight."No," her guide agreed. "But you want it to. The labyrinth knows."The mirror with the false healing began to hum. The glass rippled like water, and suddenly Eliana felt an irresistible pull toward it, a magnetic longing that ached in her bones. Step through, the hum seemed to whisper. Step through and stay. Stay where it's safe. Where she's happy. Where you're whole.Her foot moved forward without her permission."No." The boy grabbed her hand, anchoring her. "Psalm said the wanting is the trap. The wanting is always the trap."Eliana closed her eyes. The humming grew louder, drilling into her skull, promising peace, pr

The Things We Bury

Eliana forgot how to breathe.The sight of her father standing in that kitchen doorway shattered every thought in her head at once. For a moment, the realm around her disappeared completely. The dark water, the floating doors, the trapped souls beneath the surface—none of it mattered anymore.Only him.Only the man she had buried six years ago.Warm light spilled from the kitchen behind him, wrapping around his figure like sunlight through glass. The smell of fried plantains and pepper soup drifted through the air, rich and familiar enough to make her chest ache. Even the sound of the old ceiling fan creaking above the dining table hit her like a punch to the ribs.It was real, too real.“Eliana?” her father called again, smiling softly. “Are you just going to stand there?”Her throat tightened painfully.The voice was perfect.A trembling breath escaped her lips. “Dad…”Behind her, the spirit guide remained silent.For once, he did not interrupt her thoughts or throw one of his cold

The Door She Buried

The scratching grew louder.Eliana couldn't tear her eyes away from the black door drifting across the dark water.It was unlike every other door in the Realm of Memory.The others had looked old but familiar, shaped by nostalgia and grief. Some were painted in bright colors. Some carried the warmth of childhood. Even the painful ones had felt human.This one didn't.The wood was swollen and rotten, dark as charcoal, its surface covered in deep claw marks that looked as though something had tried desperately to escape from the other side. Rust bled from the hinges. Black water dripped steadily from beneath it, vanishing into the sea below.Scratch.Scratch.Scratch.The sound crawled beneath Eliana's skin. Her stomach twisted violently.Every instinct screamed at her to run.Beside her, the spirit guide remained unnaturally still.That frightened her more than the door itself.In all the time she had known him, he had faced monsters, nightmares, collapsing worlds, and soul-eating crea

The Girl in the Bloodstained Jacket

The moment the black door swung open, Eliana felt the world tear apart around her.The endless sea vanished. The floating doors disappeared. The trapped souls beneath the water dissolved into darkness. For one terrifying second, she felt herself falling through nothing at all.Then her feet hit solid ground.Cold rain slapped against her face.A sharp gasp escaped her lips as she stumbled forward, nearly losing her balance. Water splashed beneath her sneakers. Wind howled through the street, carrying the smell of wet asphalt, car exhaust, and distant cooking fires.Everything felt real. Too real.Eliana slowly lifted her head.A city street stretched before her beneath a storm-dark sky. Cars crawled through traffic with headlights glowing against the rain. Neon signs flickered from nearby shops. People hurried along the sidewalks carrying umbrellas, completely unaware of the storm raging inside her chest.Her pulse hammered, she knew this place. Not from a dream, not from a memory, bu

The Blood on Her Hands

The world shattered the moment Lily's voice faded.Eliana hit the ground hard.The impact knocked the breath from her lungs, and for several seconds she could do nothing except lie there, gasping. The darkness around her spun violently. Fragments of memory flashed through her mind like broken glass—Lily's smile, the bloodstained jacket, the rain-covered street, and those final words.You promised you'd come back for me, Ellie.The words echoed inside her skull again and again and again. When she finally forced herself upright, she found herself standing somewhere new.The Realm of Memory was gone, the black sea had disappeared and the floating doors were nowhere to be seen.Instead, she stood in the middle of a narrow hallway illuminated by a weak yellow light.A familiar hallway.The wallpaper was peeling in places. Family photographs lined the walls. The wooden floor creaked beneath her feet.Her stomach tightened instantly.She knew this place.This was her childhood home.Not the

The Weight of Forgiveness

The darkness swallowed the road.One moment Eliana was standing beneath the storm, staring at Maya's tear-streaked face. The next, the memory shattered like glass struck by a hammer. Rain vanished, thunder disappeared and the cold highway dissolved into black mist.Eliana fell.She hit the surface of the Realm hard, landing on her hands and knees as pain shot through her palms. For several seconds she remained there, breathing hard.Her body trembled violently. Not from fear, not anymore, but from exhaustion. The kind that settled deep inside a person's bones. The kind that came from carrying something far too heavy for far too long.Around her stretched the endless black sea, floating doors drifted across the darkness, far below the glasslike surface, trapped souls moved slowly through the water watching.The Realm was quiet, too quiet. Eliana lowered her head.Maya's final words echoed inside her skull.You were never the monster, Ellie.A broken laugh escaped her throat.The sound

...

3 4 5 6 7

...

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP