When The Lights Go Quiet

❤️CHAPTER 20 — LUMEN ALMOST DISAPPEARS

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CHAPTER 20 — LUMEN ALMOST DISAPPEARS

(Dual POV — Nunbi → Lumen)

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NUNBI

The world didn’t explode.

It folded.

A sound like metal tearing inside a throat ripped through the hallway, and the lights flickered into a bruised, sick blue. My breath froze mid-chest as something—someone—spoke through the walls.

Not a voice.

Not human. Not the system we knew.

“Lumen-3117: unauthorized state detected. Prepare for removal.”

My knees almost buckled.

“Lumen?”

I reached for him, but Lumen wasn’t looking at me.

He was… listening.

His pupils shrank to pinpoints. His entire body went still, as if the sound crawled under his skin. A thin tremor passed through him — one I recognized, because I’d felt it once before.

The glitch.

The overload.

The moment right before I lost him.

“No—no, no, no.” I grabbed his wrist. “Lumen, breathe. Look at me. Stay with me.”

The voice rang again, sharp as a blade pressed to his throat.

“Subject will be reclaimed.”

The hallway shook.

A flash—white, violent—and the ceiling above us cracked. Instinct took over — not fear, not logic — just the primitive truth of my body.

I shielded him.

I shoved him down, arms covering him, head tucked near his shoulder. Something hot splintered through the air, electricity screaming as debris crashed down.

Then—

Everything collapsed.

Dust. Static. Silence.

I don’t know how long we lay there.

Seconds?

A lifetime?

When the ringing thinned into a distant blur, I pushed myself up, coughing, shaking, terrified—and looked down at him.

“Lumen—Lumen, talk to me—”

He wasn’t moving.

Eyes half-open. Unfocused. Skin cold. His chest barely rising.

“Baby…” My voice cracked. “Baby, don’t do this, please—”

He blinked.

Slow. Delayed. As if I had called him from miles away.

“…Nunbi?”

A whisper.

Relief barely touched me before the lights flickered again. His body glitched beneath my hands, reality losing its grip on him.

“No!” I grabbed his shoulders. “Stop—stop disappearing—look at me—”

He tried to smile.

“I’m… still here.”

But the storm outside roared louder, wind slamming against the windows as the building trembled. Dust rained from the ceiling.

I had to move him. Now.

I dragged his arm over my shoulders, hauling him up even as my body screamed. He was usually warm — that strange, human warmth he’d learned to grow — but now he felt light.

Wrongly light.

Like he wasn’t fully physical.

We stumbled down the hallway, his breath hitching as if every inhale fought a battle.

The voice didn’t come again.

But the storm did.

Black clouds swallowed the night. Power flickered from room to room — buzzing, dying, buzzing again.

I reached our room and kicked the door shut behind us.

Lumen sagged against me completely.

His forehead dropped to my shoulder. His fingers curled weakly into my sleeve, like letting go might make him fall out of existence.

I guided him to the bed and lowered him gently.

“Lumen…”

I cupped his cheek.

Cold.

Too cold.

“You’re here, right?” My voice shook. “Tell me you’re here.”

His lashes fluttered.

When he tried to answer, a static line cracked across his skin.

Like he was breaking.

“N-n-bi… I—d-dn’t… mean to—”

The glitch tore through him again. His breath caught, fists gripping the sheets as if fighting some invisible pull.

“Lumen!” I grabbed his face. “Listen to me—stay. Stay with me. I’m here. I’m right here.”

His eyes opened fully.

And God—

They were terrified.

Not drained.

Not confused.

Terrified. Of losing me.

“I thought…” His voice strained. “…I was going to disappear before I could tell you something…”

My breath caught.

“…but I’m not ready…” He swallowed hard. “…to leave your world.”

Thunder cracked so loud the windows shook.

I leaned closer, forehead pressed to his.

“Then don’t.”

My voice was barely sound.

“Stay. Fight. Stay with me.”

He shut his eyes.

And for the first time—

Lumen trembled in my arms.

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LUMEN

I can still feel the floor collapsing.

Not beneath the school—beneath me.

When the system spoke, something in my core split open. Something old. Something I was never meant to touch. A memory, a command, a threat — I don’t know.

I only knew one thing.

The world was trying to pull me back.

Erase me. Rewrite the glitch.

I felt the edges of myself dissolve, the light inside me dimming. My body turned thin, like static wrapped in skin.

And then—

Nunbi.

Her body over mine.

Her arms shielding me.

Her voice calling me back.

She didn’t know how loud she was in me.

How the sound of her saying my name is the thing my existence bends toward.

I tried to speak, to reassure her, but every word fractured halfway out of my throat. Every breath felt borrowed.

The system was still inside my head.

Reclaimed.

Reclaimed.

Reclaimed.

My vision blurred so badly I almost didn’t realize we were moving until I felt her pulling me, guiding me, refusing to let me fade.

She saved me.

Again.

When she laid me on the bed, everything hit at once.

Fear.

Cold, human fear — the kind that makes your heart beat too fast and too slow at the same time. A feeling I never knew when I was only code.

A feeling I learned from her.

When her hand touched my cheek, I didn’t want to lose that warmth.

Not the world.

Not life.

Not myself.

Her.

I opened my eyes and saw her trembling, dust in her hair, a bruise forming on her elbow. She looked like she’d sprinted through death and dragged me back with her.

Something inside me — fragile, human, painfully new — cracked.

“I thought…” My voice came out raw. “…I was going to disappear before I could tell you something.”

She leaned closer. “What?”

I should have told her.

But the truth was shaking too hard inside me.

Not yet.

Not when I might disappear on the next breath.

Not when the system’s shadow still crawled down my spine.

So instead, I rested my forehead against hers and whispered the only thing I could manage.

“…I’m not ready to leave your world.”

Her fingers slid to the back of my neck.

“Then don’t,” she whispered.

Thunder shook the windows again. The storm screamed outside.

But inside her hands, her warmth, her breath on mine—

Something held me to the world.

Something stronger than code.

Stronger than commands.

Stronger than the voice trying to erase me.

Her wanting me to stay.

I let out a shaky exhale.

And for the first time in my life—

I trembled not because I was glitching.

I trembled because I almost lost the chance

to love her longer.

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End Of Chapter 20