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LIGHT 19: Limit

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LUMIRA LIGHT19 — Limit Lumira’s shadow, left inside the sealing line, began slowly separating from her body. Pale sealing light ran across the floor, illuminating Lumira’s feet where she had been pushed outside. But beyond that light, the shadow left behind did not follow her movements. The shadow slid across the floor and moved deeper into the sealing line. On its outline, luminous markings unlike those on Lumira’s body began to appear. Thin white lines ran along the shadow’s arm, branched, and connected into other lines. They resembled the guardians’ markings, but their shape was more irregular, unstable. No. That is no longer my shadow. From outside the sealing line, Lumira followed the shadow’s movement. It should have been something cast from the same body, yet it no longer moved with her. As if it carried a will of its own, the shadow continued silently into the depths beyond the sealing line. Immediately afterward, the boundary light through...

LIGHT 18: The Collapse of Standards

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LIGHT 18: The Collapse of Standards In the passage that had become an unobservable zone, the very standard of collapse had begun to waver. The boundary light running across the walls stretched thin, broke apart, and cast an unstable glow over the corridor’s outline. White particles rose from the floor, changed direction before reaching the ceiling, then merged into another current. Lumira continued guiding the residents to safety. But the routes indicated by the three guardians were beginning to contradict one another. One guardian extended a pale line of light toward the left passage. Another marked the half-collapsed gallery as a safe zone. The remaining guardian gave no clear decision, its luminous markings flickering in broken intervals. No. They should be seeing the same place. The residents stopped. Some turned left. Some looked toward the gallery. Some tried to follow another person’s back, only to halt partway through. Inside the corridor...

LIGHT17: The Delay in Judgment

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LIGHT 17: The Delay in Judgment In the passage that had become an unobservable zone, the collapse was beginning to grow even more unstable. The boundary light running across the walls continued to tremble faintly, and the sealing displays flickered in broken intervals. White particles drifted against the flow of the air, while the outline of the entire corridor kept warping by small degrees. Lumira continued guiding the residents to safety while hiding the abnormality within herself. The white luminous markings on her arm flickered faintly, but they never remained for long. She gripped the edge of her sleeve and kept her movements restrained so the residents would not see. I cannot show them. Not now. I cannot stop. At the same time, a slight delay had begun to appear in her ability to sense the warning signs of spatial distortion. Until now, she had been able to feel the air sink just before a collapse faster than anyone around her. But now, by the time...

LIGHT 16: Invasion

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LIGHT 16: Invasion In the passage that had been rewritten as unobservable, the collapse had begun advancing in even more irregular patterns. The boundary light running along the walls continued to tremble faintly, and the sealing displays flickered on and off. White particles drifted against the current of the air, while the outline of the entire passage kept warping by small degrees. Lumira stood unable to move, still supporting Elia. The shadow of the exceptional person remained still at the center of the passage. But its outline was still swaying slowly. Immediately after that— Fine white luminous markings appeared on Lumira’s arm. Pale lines surfaced as if flowing beneath her skin, flickering thinly for only a few seconds. They resembled the markings of the guardians. But they were not quite the same shape. Different. And yet similar. Then, for a brief moment, those markings swayed in the same direction as the exceptional person’s sha...

LIGHT 15: The Collapse of the Boundary

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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...

LIGHT 14: Selection

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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. Eve...

LIGHT 13: The Growing Shift

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LIGHT 13: The Growing Shift Lumira and the others had stopped near the boundary of the unobservable zone. Deep in the passage, pale white particles drifted without end. The outlines of the crumbling walls would not hold steady, and the scenery continued to sway quietly at short intervals. Delayed shadows remained on the floor, and the light that should have vanished still seemed to bleed faintly into the stone. Only the exceptional person kept looking deeper into the passage. They did not turn back. They did not move. Their gaze stayed fixed, as though waiting for the place where something would happen next. Waiting again. Lumira watched their back while keeping one hand on Elia’s shoulder. Along the passage wall, the management display kept trying to restore the missing records. Faded strings of text surfaced, and after a brief silence, were replaced by different content. Lines of light formed again and again, broke apart, then connected once more...