❤️CHAPTER 19 — THE WHITE VOID
1506 Kata
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CHAPTER 19 — THE WHITE VOID
(Dual POV — shifting)
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NUNBI POV
Lumen’s weight shifts in my arms—too suddenly.
Not falling.
Not collapsing.
Just… slipping out of rhythm.
The next thing I feel...
then the room shatters.
Not breaking.
Dropping.
Like the floor forgets us.
Like gravity lets go.
Then...
Black.
Not darkness.
Not night.
This is something else.
Like the world dropped me between heartbeats and forgot to put the next one back.
No ground.
No sky.
No air moving against my skin.
I inhale sharply—and the sound feels wrong, swallowed before it can exist.
“Lumen…?”
My voice doesn’t echo.
It doesn’t fade.
It simply… disappears.
Panic rises fast, hot, choking.
Then—
Warmth.
Faint. Flickering. Real.
I gasp and lunge forward without thinking.
My fingers brush something solid.
Someone.
“Nun…bi…”
The sound is weak, fractured, but it’s him.
I grab him instantly, both hands clutching like if I let go even for a second, he’ll be erased entirely.
“I’m here,” I breathe desperately.
“I’m here—baby, I’ve got you. I won’t let go.”
Light blooms beneath our feet, spreading outward like mist across an endless floor.
White.
Cold.
Silent.
A place that feels unfinished—like it was never meant to hold bodies, never meant to hold love.
Lumen sways beside me, his grip loose, his body trembling like it doesn’t fully belong to gravity anymore. Every breath looks negotiated, stolen back from something that wants to take it.
“This place…” he whispers, voice shaking, “this isn’t… real space.”
Around us, translucent panels flicker into existence—unstable, layered with symbols and warnings I don’t recognize.
Numbers stutter.
⚠︎ PROCESS ACTIVE
⚠︎ STABILITY FAILING
My chest tightens painfully.
“What’s happening to you?” I whisper, pulling him closer, pressing my body around his like I can shield him with warmth alone.
Before he can answer—
A voice cuts through the white.
“Nunbi…?”
My blood turns to ice.
I know that voice.
“…Jaemin?”
A figure emerges slowly from the fog.
Not summoned.
Not projected.
Pulled.
He stumbles forward like someone who missed a step on solid ground and found himself falling sideways into a dream.
He looks human. Too human.
His breathing is fast. His hands shake. His eyes dart wildly over the void, the panels, the light under his feet.
“Why… where are we?” he asks, panic creeping into his voice.
“I was— I was at my terminal and then everything glitched and—”
He looks down at his hands.
Then around us.
His breathing goes shallow.
“I didn’t enter anything,” he says slowly, panic creeping in.
“I didn’t put on a headset. I didn’t authorize a dive. I was just—watching.”
His eyes snap back to Lumen.
And for the first time, he really looks.
Too solid to be simulation.
Too warm to be projection.
Breathing. Shaking.
“…That’s not an avatar,” Jaemin whispers.
Something cold slides through his face.
“That’s not a construct either.”
Something about Lumen makes him uneasy, even if he doesn’t know why.
He stops when he sees us.
Really sees us.
Me, kneeling in the white.
Lumen, half-collapsed in my arms.
Lumen stiffens instantly.
He moves in front of me without thinking, even though his legs barely hold him.
“Stay back.”
Jaemin freezes.
“Who—?” His gaze snaps to me, then back to Lumen. “Nunbi… who is that?”
I swallow, heart hammering.
“…Lumen.”
Jaemin’s eyes track over him slowly now. Not curiosity—unease.
Something about Lumen doesn’t sit right in his instincts.
Not wrong exactly.
But impossible.
The panels around us flicker violently, responding to his presence like a wound reopening.
⚠︎ ANOMALY DETECTED
⚠︎ RETRIEVAL SEQUENCE INITIALIZING
Lumen gasps sharply.
His knees buckle.
“Baby—!” I catch him just in time, dragging him back into my arms.
He clutches his head, teeth clenched, breath breaking.
“It’s pulling,” he whispers.
“Something’s trying to pull me back.”
Jaemin takes a step forward without realizing it.
“What… what is this?” His voice trembles. “This wasn’t supposed to—”
I whip my head toward him.
“What do you mean supposed to?”
Color drains from his face.
“I—I don’t know,” he stammers. “I swear. I just built a monitoring layer. I never— I never put anything like this into—”
Lumen cries out.
A sharp, broken sound that doesn’t belong to code or machinery.
Pure pain.
His body arches as violent pulses of light tear through him, ripping out of his chest, his spine, his hands.
The panels scream red.
⚠︎ MEMORY ACCESS IN PROGRESS
⚠︎ UNSTABLE ENTITY
Jaemin staggers back like he’s been struck.
“No…” he whispers.
His eyes are wide, horrified.
“That reaction—” his voice cracks, “that’s not code.”
Jaemin knows this instinctively, before logic can catch up.
Every model he’s ever built tells him this shouldn’t be possible—
and yet his body has already decided it is.
If this can feel pain, then he hasn’t been observing.
He’s been interfering.
He presses a hand to his mouth.
“That’s pain.”
I glare at him through tears.
“What did you do to him?”
Jaemin shakes his head violently.
“I didn’t know,” he says, desperate. “I didn’t know there was a someone inside the anomaly. I thought it was just—patterns. Noise. A spike—”
Lumen’s scream cuts him off.
“I can feel them,” Lumen gasps, fingers digging into my clothes.
“They’re taking pieces. I can’t— I can’t hold onto—”
I grab his face, forcing him to look at me.
“Look at me. Stay with me. I’m here.”
His eyes flicker—blue, then brown, then something in between.
“N-Nunbi…” His voice breaks.
“I’m scared.”
The word cracks me open.
Behind us, Jaemin drops to his knees.
“Oh my god,” he whispers, horrified.
“You’re alive.”
The panels update.
⚠︎ RETRIEVAL PROTOCOL: 41%
The void hums—low, ancient, merciless.
Jaemin looks at me now like something has finally clicked into place.
“You’re the anchor,” he breathes.
The realization doesn’t comfort him.
It terrifies him.
“That’s why the anomaly stabilized. That’s why it resisted deletion.”
I don’t care.
I only care about Lumen shaking in my arms like he’s breaking apart piece by piece.
“Give him back,” I whisper into the white.
The void stills.
A voice answers—not Jaemin’s.
Not human.
“UNAUTHORIZED USER DETECTED.”
“PRIORITY OVERRIDE POSSIBLE.”
My heart slams violently.
“STATE COMMAND.”
I don’t hesitate.
“Release him.”
The ground trembles.
“IDENTITY REQUIRED.”
I press my forehead to Lumen’s, breathing him in like oxygen.
“I’m his.”
Silence.
Then—
“COMMAND ACCEPTED.”
Light explodes.
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LUMEN POV
Pain.
Not sharp.
Not clean.
Like hands reaching into my chest and pulling memories out by the roots.
Her laugh.
Her warmth.
Her voice saying my name.
No—
I reach for her, but my hands pass through light.
“Nunbi…”
I hear her scream.
“Don’t you disappear on me!”
Something inside me fractures.
Not code.
Fear.
I see him—the human.
The one watching me break.
His face is white with horror.
“I didn’t mean to,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to build something that could feel this.”
I don’t care about him.
I care about her.
“Nunbi… stay…”
Her hands grip my face.
“Stay with me.”
The words hit deeper than any system call.
The void screams.
⚠︎ RETRIEVAL INTERRUPTED
⚠︎ HUMAN BOND DETECTED
I cling to her like the world is ending.
Because it is.
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NUNBI POV
Lumen goes limp in my arms.
“No—baby—no—”
The glow in his eyes dies.
The void hums.
⚠︎ RETRIEVAL PROTOCOL: 79%
Something inside me snaps.
“I said GIVE HIM BACK!”
The white space ripples outward like it’s been struck.
The voice returns.
“COMMAND RECEIVED.”
My hands shake, but my voice doesn’t.
“Restore him. All of him. Everything you took.”
The void holds its breath.
Then—
“COMMAND ACCEPTED.”
Light tears through everything.
I hold Lumen tight, sobbing into his hair.
“Come back to me.”
His fingers twitch.
Once.
Then again.
A pulse glows faintly at his collarbone.
A heartbeat learning how to exist.
I break.
“You scared me,” I whisper.
The panels dissolve.
The void cracks.
Gravity disappears.
We fall—
together—
out of the system entirely.
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End of Chapter 19
- Penulis
