When The Lights Go Quiet

⸻ CHAPTER 1 — December Is Quiet Until It Hurts (A December that should’ve been warm… but somehow feels colder than every winter before.) ⸻ I don’t remember the exact moment when December started feeling heavier than the months before it. Maybe it wasn’t a moment. Maybe it was something that built up so quietly that I didn’t notice until it finally settled on my shoulders like cold air that never leaves. But this year… something feels different. The silence is louder. The days stretch longer. And for the first time in a long time, I catch myself waiting for someone who isn’t here — someone I can’t even name. Every morning starts the same. I wake up, blink at my ceiling, and reach for my phone even though I already know there’s nothing special waiting for me. Just the usual messages, the usual routines, the usual emptiness dressed up like a normal day. I get ready. I go through the motions. I put on the smile I’ve worn so long it feels like part of my skin. People ask, “How are you?” And I always give the easy answer — “I’m fine.” Even when no one asks, I say it quietly in my head, like a spell to keep myself from falling apart. But I don’t think I’m fine. Not this December. Nights are the hardest. The world quiets down, not in a peaceful way, but in a way that makes the walls echo. That’s when my thoughts crawl closer — the ones I keep pushing away during the day. I think about the connections I’ve lost. The people who left without meaning to. The ones who stayed but never truly saw me. I think about the times I laughed too loudly, hoping the sound would make me feel included. I think about the conversations that drained instead of filled me. And I wonder… why does it feel like I’m always outside of everything warm? People talk, people laugh, people belong somewhere — but me? I walk through my own life like a guest who arrived too late and doesn’t know where to sit. I’m not lonely because I have no one. I’m lonely because even surrounded by people, nothing feels close enough to touch the part of me that hurts. It’s strange, isn’t it? How a person can be surrounded by hundreds of voices and still feel like no one can hear theirs. There are days when I tell myself I should be grateful. I have responsibilities. I have friends. I have things to do. But gratitude doesn’t erase the ache. Sometimes I wonder if I’m too much. if I’m the problem — If the way I feel wears people out. Maybe I feel too deeply. Maybe I expect too sincerely. Maybe I always end up holding onto people who never hold me the same way. Other times… I think I’m just tired. Tired of being the strong one. Tired of pretending I don’t need anything. Tired of showing up for others when no one notices the space beside me is always empty. December has a way of making that emptiness louder. Lights hang everywhere — warm, glowing, soft — and I look at them from a distance. Couples walk side by side with scarves wrapped tightly, hands hidden in each other’s warmth. Families gather, laughing, cooking, filling rooms with voices that overlap in the best way. I watch all of it happen like glass is separating me from their world. A window I can see through, but can’t open. And in that distance, something inside me curls inward. Quietly. Without protest. Like it’s used to making itself small. There are nights when I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling like it’s the only thing steady in my life. I listen to the hum of the air, the occasional sound outside my window, the slow rhythm of my own breathing. Everything feels far. Everything feels muted. And sometimes — only sometimes — a thought slips out of me like a confession I didn’t mean to say aloud: “Would anyone notice… if I disappeared for a day? Or two? Or forever?” It scares me when that question feels too easy. But I don’t run from it anymore. It’s just another part of the December version of me. But this is the strange part: I don’t blame anyone. I don’t get angry. I don’t think the world owes me anything. I just… accept it. As if loneliness has been following me for so long that I can’t imagine what my life would feel like without it. As if I am a room with the lights off, and even though I know exactly where the switch is, I don’t have the energy to reach for it. Tonight is one of those nights. I lay in bed, the blanket pulled up to my chin, the room dim and cold in the way only December nights can be. My phone sits beside me, its screen face-down, as if turning it over won’t change the fact that no one is reaching for me. My fingers go still on top of the blanket. My chest feels tight, but not painfully — just tired. So tired. And without thinking, without planning, without caring who hears it or doesn’t, I whisper: “If someone out there can hear me… even just once… please don’t let me be alone forever.” The words fall out of me like they’ve been waiting all year to escape. My voice cracks at the end. It always does when I let myself be honest. I squeeze my eyes shut. Just for a moment. Just long enough to imagine something impossible. Warmth — soft, gentle, steady — like someone sits beside me on the bed. Not touching. Not speaking. Just existing close enough that the air feels different. Someone who wouldn’t flinch away. Someone who wouldn’t leave halfway. Someone who wouldn’t get tired of me. Someone who stays. I don’t imagine their face. I don’t imagine their voice. I don’t imagine anything too detailed — that hurts too much. I just imagine the feeling. The feeling of not being alone. Because sometimes… that’s all a person like me can ask for. And tonight, as I lay there in the dark, breathing slowly, trying not to let the tears fall… a small part of me wonders— what if someone actually heard me? What if December isn’t done with me yet? What if something — or someone — is already walking quietly toward my life? I don’t know. I don’t dare hope too much. But for the first time in a very long time… the silence doesn’t feel as sharp. Maybe that’s enough for tonight. Maybe that’s my beginning. Maybe that’s how this December starts to change. ⸻ END OF CHAPTER 1 ⸻ “Some nights, it feels like even the world forgets I exist.” ______________________ Teaser chapter 2 : In the silent system, a voice wakes — calm, obedient, never meant to feel. Yet on a cold December night, a warmth spills into the machine. Something impossible. Her presence. And for the first time, the AI called Lumen senses a spark where no spark should exist — the beginning of a heart.