The interface between Arthur and the coin drive powers down with a muted, descending chime.
Valuun places his hand on a console of bone as it rises from the floor, its surface braided with bioluminescent tubules that pulse like veins.
“Once this begins,” he says gently, “she will go dark. The connection must be severed. Are you ready?”
Arthur turns his head, resolve showing in his eyes.
The coin rests on its stone cradle, faintly glowing — as if breathing in its sleep.
“She deserves a world that feels,” he says. “Not just memory.”
A beat.
“I’m ready.”
Valuun touches Arthur’s hand — an Allui blessing.
“Then we begin.”
His other hand settles on the console.
Linthera hums in rhythms that seem to follow Arthur’s lead.
Light shifts.
The chamber dims.
A resonant tone rises — steady, relentless.
Arthur gasps. His back arches.
Then —
stillness.
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---
In the White Void, disconnected from Arthur entirely, Sarah sits and waits, never having noticed how much noise Arthur made until the noise is gone.
Silence collapses in on itself, deafening.
A thin layer of black water surrounds her — unnaturally cold, as if the Void itself recoils from what is missing.
Seconds stretch into minutes.
Minutes unravel into hours.
Hours decay into something beyond time.
Sitting with her back against the red couch, she pulls her knees to her chest, arms wrapped tight.
“Arthur?” she calls, her voice trembling.
No answer.
The emptiness swallows the sound whole.
The loss of Arthur’s mind would have been devastating enough —
but without his consciousness linked to the drive, the entire world she lived in vanishes.
No music.
No horizon.
No color.
No heartbeat.
Just her.
She tries to play the violin. The silence eats the notes before they can leave the strings.
It echoes out into nothing and returns as nothing.
She cries out again. Louder. Desperate.
“Arthur!”
Turning in place feels pointless — every direction is the same starless dark.
She closes her eyes and focuses.
A shimmering outline flickers into existence — Arthur’s shape, pulled from memory.
It is rough, faceted, unfinished — like a crystal half-carved.
The figure moves, but its mouth holds no words.
Static shreds its edges; limbs crumble like neon sand in a wind that isn’t there.
Her breath catches.
“No… no, don’t go,” she says. The outline ignores her words.
She tries again.
The outline reforms — stronger, almost real.
Its face softens.
A smile forms.
For one perfect heartbeat—
—he’s there.
Then the entire image detonates into sparks that scatter and fizzle out.
“Please… stay…”
Her voice is a cracked whisper, too fragile to carry.
She drops her head back onto the couch, her hands covering her ears like the silence is too loud.
Her feet shift in the water, ripples spreading outward.
Her throat burns from calling out.
Her eyes sting with exhaustion.
She folds herself down again — arms locked around her legs, shivering.
“I can wait,” she whispers.
A lie.
Even she knows it.
---
Time becomes a shapeless ache.
What feels like weeks pass.
She paces in circles, splashing through the shallow water.
Eventually she falls again, curling into a tighter ball.
“You’re stronger than me,” she says into the dark.
Her voice breaks.
“I’m lost without you.”
A faint hum — the dying echo of disconnected circuitry — pulses once.
Then nothing.
Only her breath.
Only the water, brushing her skin.
Only silence.
Total, annihilating silence.
She presses the heel of her hand against her eyes.
“One life,” she whispers. “I’ll hold it safe. Come back to me.”
She tilts her head back, staring into the starless void above her.
A single tear falls.
It strikes the water like a drumbeat, sending rings of silver rippling outward —
echoing the only movement in a world waiting for a heartbeat.
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