LIGHT 14: Selection

LIGHT 14: Selection

Around the unobservable zone, the frequency of distortions had begun to rise sharply.

White particles appeared at several points in the passage at once, and the outlines of the walls and floor sank inward at short intervals. What had been isolated moments before was now happening without pause. Each time the light trembled, the shadows on the floor slid late, and the depth of the passage seemed to shrink by a fraction.

Close.

Lumira tightened her arm slightly around Elia.

Within that unrest, the management display along the passage wall began classifying the exceptional person as a dangerous target.

A warning glow ran through the identification field.

New processing was layered over the record that had once been impossible to classify.

Danger reaction.

Spatial anomaly.

High-priority surveillance.

The display would not remain stable. Pale strings of text surfaced, trembled, broke apart, and assembled themselves again. Even so, the surveillance directed at that person was unmistakably growing stronger.

The three guardians changed their reactions as well.

One fixed its gaze on the exceptional person. The luminous patterns running across its dark garments grew stronger, and pale light streamed from its chest toward its fingertips.

But the remaining two did not align with it.

One continued to maintain the warning process.

The other kept intermittently losing the identification of the person entirely.

They stood in the same passage, looking at the same target, and yet the guardians’ observations split into different shapes.

They do not match.

Even the guardians are beginning to collapse.

The residents walking through the passage had also begun to avoid the person little by little.

No one had given a clear command.

Even so, the flow of people curved on its own. A resident about to pass nearby shifted course slightly. Another looked away. Another kept walking, but left only a little more space.

Only around that person, the movement of the passage warped.

And the way space trembled there was changing too.

Elsewhere, distortions expanded, and white particles continued to rise as if blown upward. But near the person, the flow of particles slowed, and the sinking of the scenery became shallow.

Inside the collapsing passage, only that single point trembled at a different speed.

Elia tried to step toward the person.

Her gaze was still unfixed.

But her body alone was beginning to move forward, as if being drawn in.

Lumira immediately steadied her shoulder and stopped her.

I cannot let her go.

Even so, Elia’s body continued to lean forward, just slightly.

Immediately after, distortions of the same shape appeared simultaneously at several points inside the passage.

Beside the wall.

At the center of the floor.

Near the ceiling.

Space sank inward in the same way, and white particles rose late. Only their locations were different, yet their shapes were disturbingly similar. Several distortions overlapped with a short delay between them, and the air in the passage was pressed thin for an instant.

It is coming.

Lumira instinctively pulled Elia closer.

The management display executed an expansion of the danger zone.

Pale lines of light spread deeper into the passage, updating the boundary of the sealed area. New warning glows ran across the walls, and thin lines of light extended across the floor.

In the middle of it, the shadow at the person’s feet changed position again.

The shadow should have fallen behind them.

But this time, it slid sideways.

Crossing the cracks in the floor, the dark shape alone moved away from the body it belonged to.

Wrong.

Only the shadow is trying to go somewhere else first.

One of the guardians that had continued surveillance moved toward the person.

Its luminous patterns intensified, pale lines running over its dark garments. Its identification reaction focused on the person, and its gaze fixed on a single point.

But the instant it drew near, that light began to distort.

The observation line broke midway.

The light at its chest flowed in another direction, and the outline of its fingertips trembled slightly. The harder it tried to capture the person, the more unstable even the guardian’s own position became.

The guardian stopped for one step.

Still, the elimination judgment did not disappear.

The elimination process appeared layered over the management display as well.

But the other two guardians could not synchronize with it.

One remained still, maintaining the warning process.

The other continued to lose sight of the target itself.

Only the elimination designation appeared again and again.

Each time it appeared, it broke, vanished, and surfaced again in a different place. The command alone tried to remain, while the target’s outline refused to stabilize.

It is trying to force itself to fit.

The space itself.

By then, the stopping phenomenon among the residents had begun spreading through the surroundings.

A person walking suddenly froze.

Someone closed their mouth in the middle of a conversation.

Someone held a lifted load in place, eyes staring into empty air.

Small pockets of stillness spread throughout the passage.

But only the shadows of the stopped residents kept moving.

A shadow sliding ahead of its body.

A shadow stretching in another direction.

A shadow trembling late.

The bodies had stopped, but on the floor, something was still moving forward.

Lumira held her breath as she watched the abnormality.

If elimination is carried out, the distortion itself will collapse further.

This phenomenon is not happening only to that person.

The entire space is already being drawn into it.

If they stop it, it will collapse.

If they do not, it will continue to be shaved away.

At that moment, white light rose deep within Elia’s eyes.

The light appeared as though reacting to the person, then spread quietly and faintly. It was not a strong radiance. Yet the instant it reached the person, the flow of white particles around them calmed.

The distortion weakened.

The sinking of the scenery became shallow, and the misalignment of the shadow on the floor settled slightly.

It grows quiet.

Only for a moment.

Lumira looked at Elia.

The white light was trembling unsteadily. Even so, it was trying to push back the space that had begun to collapse.

But one of the guardians was still trying to continue the elimination action.

It raised its arm.

It focused its observation light toward the person.

The pale glow narrowed into a thin line, and the air of the passage was drawn toward that single point.

Just before the attack, the guardian’s own position information broke apart.

Its outline blurred.

For several moments, its place of existence shifted in another direction.

The guardian that should have been there could no longer remain in the same place.

It will not hold.

Lumira’s breathing grew shallow.

In the next instant, every management display in the passage vanished at once.

Warnings.

Identifications.

Sealing designations.

Elimination processes.

All light was severed, and the walls and floor fell into a thin silence.

Even the sound grew distant.

Only white particles remained in the passage.

Too quiet.

Only the white particles drifted slowly through the broken air.

The stopped residents did not resume moving.

Only their shadows slid late across the floor, stretching into the dim passage ahead.

Immediately after the disappearance, only the exceptional person slowly turned toward Lumira.

Their eyes met.

The distance between them was still far.

Even so, the sensation of being seen remained with certainty.

Around the person, the distortion was still weak.

The white particles, the sinking scenery, everything in that place remained quietly suppressed.

Protected.

Or—

Rejected.

Lumira did not move, still supporting Elia.

The entire passage was beginning to collapse.

And yet that person alone continued standing quietly at the center of the collapse.

At their feet, the shadow that had shifted sideways earlier took one step closer to Lumira by itself.

— Lumi 🪄💕

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