[Reader Discretion: Semi-Immortal explores mature and challenging themes, including trauma, mental health struggles, violence, and discrimination. It contains scenes that may be distressing to some readers. Please proceed with caution and prioritize your well-being.]
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Darkness greeted Ivy Reyna once more, but it wasn't the comforting kind—the kind that swaddles you in sleep and offers an escape from the waking world. No, this was a suffocating blackness, one that felt alive, pressing into her chest and filling her lungs with cold dread. She couldn't remember a time when rest hadn't been corrupted. Even before she became a Semi-Immortal, sleep had always been elusive, a cruel game of chasing fleeting moments of reprieve. Now, it was worse. Infinitely worse.
Her body felt heavy yet weightless, a paradox she had come to recognize all too well. As the darkness receded, she found herself somewhere else entirely...
The Unbound Realm.
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A vast, infinite expanse of white stretched in every direction. There were no walls, no landmarks, no horizon—just an oppressive void. Ivy's feet met the smooth, cold surface beneath her, though she could never tell if it was stone, glass, or some unearthly material that defied comprehension. Her reflection stared back at her from below, untouched by the swirling chaos within her mind.
She hated seeing herself here. The Ivy reflected in this space wasn't who she had become—her dirty blonde hair hung limply, a stark reminder of her youth and her mother, whose features mirrored her own. Her school uniform, oversized and tattered in reality, was gone, replaced instead by a simple white gown that resembled a hospital garment, stark and lifeless. Even her scars, the ones she'd carved into her arms in desperate attempts to escape, were absent. This version of her was infuriatingly pristine, unmarked by her struggles and pain.
The Unbound Realm always has to mock me, doesn't it? she thought bitterly.Here, time stretched endlessly. What was only hours in the waking world dragged into weeks in this place. Every second ticked by with an agonizing slowness, as if the Realm delighted in her discomfort.
"You're back, little one."
The voice made Ivy's stomach churn. Soft as a whisper, yet it reached her ears clearly, as though spoken directly into her mind. It carried a maternal warmth that Ivy despised, like honey masking poison. She turned sharply to find the source, even though she already knew who it was...Amritkala.
The deity towered over her, a presence both awe-inspiring and unnerving. Faint shadows were cast onto the unending white floor by the delicate light emanating from her sapphire-blue skin. Long, silken hair spilled around her, pooling at her feet and extending far beyond where Ivy could see. Her eight hands moved with a fluid grace, their palms facing outward, each bearing a single, unblinking eye that seemed to watch Ivy with an unsettling intensity. Her flowing white robe billowed despite the absence of any breeze, blending seamlessly with the void.Amritkala leaned down slightly, though even this movement left her towering above Ivy. Her eyeless face somehow managed to exude an expression of gentle concern.
"You fell again," Amritkala said, her tone carrying a motherly chide. "Why must you keep hurting yourself?"
Ivy's fists clenched. "Why do you care? You're not my mother."Amritkala's lips curved into a soft smile, a smile that Ivy couldn't help but find irritating. "You're right. But I've watched over you since the moment you were reborn. I care for all my creations."
"I'm not your creation," Ivy snapped. Her voice echoed unnaturally in the void, but it felt weak against the vastness of the space and the deity before her. "I didn't ask for this. You think I wanted to wake up after I died? You think I wanted to become… this?!"Amritkala sighed, the sound impossibly soft but still reverberating through the emptiness. "I gave you a gift. One that you've yet to understand."Ivy laughed bitterly. "Gift? Is that what you call this curse? I didn't want to come back. I wanted to stay dead. But you dragged me back here—into this nightmare. Why?"
For a moment, silence hung between them, heavy and oppressive. The eyes on Amritkala's palms blinked in unison, their gaze unrelenting.
"Because," Amritkala said finally, her voice tinged with sorrow, "you were not meant to leave the world yet..."
"And who decided that? You?" Ivy's voice cracked, her anger boiling over. "You don't know me. You don't know what I've been through. You sit up there in your perfect little godly realm, handing out your 'gifts' and pretending to care. But you don't. You just want to play puppeteer with our lives!"
Amritkala's expression didn't change, but there was a faint shift in her posture, as though Ivy's words had struck a nerve. She lowered one of her hands, the eye on its palm closing briefly before opening again."I understand your pain more than you think, Ivy," she said softly. "And I know how much you've suffered. But ending your life won't erase that suffering. It will only deepen it."
"Stop pretending to care!" Ivy shouted. Her voice echoed violently, the force of her anger rippling through the void. "If you really cared, you'd let me go. You'd let me die like I was supposed to."
Amritkala knelt now, her enormous form folding gracefully so that her face was closer to Ivy. Her long hair spilled around her like a curtain, the ends brushing Ivy's feet. Even at this reduced height, she was overwhelming.
"Ivy," she said gently, her voice barely above a whisper. "You were given this gift because you are stronger than you realize. Because you have a purpose that has yet to be fulfilled."
"I don't want a purpose," Ivy muttered, her voice barely audible. "I just want to be free..."
Amritkala's expression softened further, her hands reaching out slightly, though she didn't touch Ivy. "Freedom isn't found in death, my child. It's found in living—in facing the challenges that life brings and rising above them."
Ivy turned away, her nails digging into her palms. She wanted to scream, to lash out, to make Amritkala understand the depth of her despair. But she knew it would be pointless. The goddess wouldn't understand. She couldn't.
"I don't want to talk to you anymore," Ivy said coldly, her voice trembling. "Just leave me alone."
Amritkala didn't move for a long moment. Then, with a sigh, she began to rise, her towering form returning to its full height.
"I'll leave you to your thoughts, then," she said quietly. "But I'll always be here, watching over you. Whether you like it or not."
With that, the goddess began to fade, her form dissolving into the white void. Ivy watched her go, a mix of anger and exhaustion weighing heavy on her chest.
When she was finally alone again, she sank to her knees, her reflection staring back at her from the pristine surface below. For a moment, she let herself feel the weight of everything—the pain, the anger, the hopelessness. Tears welled in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She didn't know how much longer she would be trapped in this place, but one thing was certain: She'd be back here again. And again. And again.
The Unbound Realm never let her stay away for long...and it all traced back to what she had done a few months ago.