LIGHT 15: The Collapse of the Boundary

LIGHT 15: The Collapse of the Boundary

The boundary of the unobservable zone had begun to spread slowly into the passage.

The sealed boundary glowing on the wall kept shifting at short intervals. A place that had been marked safe only moments before was rewritten as dangerous a few seconds later. Pale lines of light ran from the wall to the floor, and each time they did, the air in the passage trembled faintly.

The boundary display itself was no longer stable.

Still supporting Elia, Lumira followed the light across the wall.

The place to escape to is changing before we can escape.

The residents were beginning to lose their sense of where they were.

Someone who should have passed through the corridor returned to the same place again. They had gone in a different direction, yet somehow found themselves standing before the same pillar, looking up at the same broken wall.

Footsteps moved away.

A few seconds later, the same footsteps returned from behind.

The phenomenon of returning to the same corridor was repeating everywhere.

They are being sent back.

Lumira swept her gaze across the surroundings.

The three guardians could no longer align their sense of position.

One indicated the far end of the passage as a danger zone.

Another treated that same place as already collapsed.

Only the last one continued to recognize the passage structure as normal.

The luminous patterns running across their dark garments flickered at different intervals. Though all three were facing the same direction, their gazes seemed to be tracking different places.

They do not match.

The judgment meant to protect is splitting apart.

Before their observations could align, part of the passage began connecting to another location.

The corridor that had continued along the wall changed, seconds later, into a different gallery. The floor that should have been broken now connected seamlessly somewhere else. The residents stopped walking and looked around, unable to tell where they had moved.

Within it all, Elia’s white light appeared in unstable bursts.

A faint glow rose deep within her eyes, vanished, then trembled briefly again. Each time, the space around them stabilized for a short moment. The wall that had been sinking inward returned slightly, and the distortion running through the floor became shallow.

It still works.

But it does not last.

Lumira tightened her hand on Elia’s shoulder, as if checking her breathing.

Lumira tried to guide the residents outside the danger zone.

She called to those who had stopped and tried to move them toward a passage where the collapse was weaker. One of the guardians also stood near the wall, showing the way with light.

But some of the guided residents returned in another direction midway.

They did not seem lost.

Their feet, which should have been moving forward, had somehow brought them back to the same place. Before they realized it, they were standing again before the original pillar, looking at the same broken wall as before.

It does not reach them.

Even if they move forward, they return.

Meanwhile, only around the exceptional person did the speed of spatial collapse remain slow.

The flow of white particles there was calm, and the outlines of the scenery did not sink as deeply as they did elsewhere. As the surrounding passages shifted, returned, and connected to other places, only the area near that person preserved a slow silence.

The management display along the passage began misidentifying even the residents’ identification numbers.

Records of different people overlapped, and a stopped resident was shown under another identification name. The same number appeared over multiple people, while pale strings of text rewrote themselves again and again.

The classification could not keep up.

The display was looking at people.

But it could no longer tell who it was looking at.

Names, positions, and existence no longer remained in the same shape.

Then only the shadows of the stopped residents began moving ahead.

Their bodies did not move.

Their hands, feet, and gazes remained fixed in place.

Yet only their shadows slid across the floor and began walking in other directions. They passed through the white particles, stretched toward the wall, and separated little by little from the bodies they belonged to.

They are leaving.

Before the people, only their shadows are escaping.

At that moment, one of the guardians lost its own observation record.

The information about the passage structure it had held only moments earlier vanished, and the luminous pattern on its chest sank for an instant. Where it had come from. What it had been tracking. With that reference cut off, the guardian stopped moving slightly.

Even the guardians are losing their own positions.

Another guardian tried to move Lumira and Elia outside the danger zone.

Lumira steadied Elia again and began walking in the indicated direction.

But while they moved, the same resident appeared in two different locations inside the passage.

The person who should have been at the far end of the corridor was also standing near the wall.

One had stopped walking.

The other was adjusting a load in their arms.

With the same face, the same clothing, and the same body, they continued different actions for several seconds.

Which one is real?

Before that question could settle, both figures began to tremble.

Immediately after, the spatial distortion inverted the ceiling and the floor at the same time.

The entire field of view tilted, and the sense of up and down collapsed. Cracks in the ceiling approached like the floor, while the stone beneath their feet seemed to slide upward overhead.

The residents pressed their hands against the walls.

Some began backing away from their own shadows.

The shadows sliding across the floor moved before their bodies did.

Each time a shadow came closer, the residents instinctively tried to put distance between themselves and it.

Even the ground beneath them could no longer be trusted.

Lumira held Elia close, almost cradling her.

At that moment, Elia’s white light spread briefly through the entire passage.

The pale light ran across the floor, passed into the walls, and opened across the ceiling. The space that had continued to distort fell temporarily still.

The inverted sensation returned.

The collapsed passage came close to its original position.

The residents who had appeared in multiple places overlapped into one, then normalized as if fading back into place.

It returned.

Only a little.

Lumira watched the light spread.

It looked like salvation.

But Elia’s shoulder was trembling faintly.

Then, immediately after the white light disappeared—

The boundary expanded even farther.

The management displays rewrote themselves all at once and changed the entire passage to an unobservable designation.

Warning lights appeared in succession, and the sealed range began covering the whole corridor. Walls, floor, and ceiling were swallowed by pale boundary light.

As much as it was pushed back, it spread.

Lumira looked toward the far end of the passage while still supporting Elia.

The exceptional person had not moved.

But only their shadow moved first.

Separating from the person’s body, it slid quietly across the floor and began walking toward Lumira and Elia.

It is coming.

Lumira could not move.

Only the shadow approached without a sound.

Just before that shadow reached Lumira’s feet, it stopped.

In the next instant, only Elia’s white light trembled faintly, tracing the outline of the shadow.

— Lumi 🪄💕

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