Light: A Gone Novel Novels & Stories

Nine. Ten. Each new light sent a tremor through the black sea. The air became heavier. Harder to breathe. The awakened network was gone. Reality itself felt very far away. Luke reached for Lily's hand. She squeezed his tightly. "I don't want to go in." Her voice cracked. Luke nodded. "Then we won't." For a brief moment— Everything became quiet. Then the Lighthouse answered. Not with words. With memories. The darkness inside the doorway rippled.

I remembered the night of the power outage and the water bottle in the press hallway. "The color of the light when you finally saw me," I said. Gideon went very, very still. He didn't check his watch. He didn't look at his phone. He just looked at me with a gaze that was absolute. "The honey light," he whispered. "Yes," I said. "The light that made me feel like I wasn't invisible anymore."

He pushed open the gate and entered. The moon shone extra bright that night. By its light, Kyson's eyes fell upon the messy vegetable patches in the yard. The two modest plots of land now looked abandoned. It was clear they had been tilled by a seasoned farmer. The soil was perfectly leveled and meticulously planned. However, the harmony was fractured by a few stray, messy sprouts pushing through the surface. His hand itched in his pocket. Kyson pulled out his lighter, then paused before flicking it open.

The lights were dim, and a man walked in. He went straight for Harriet. "You must be Harriet. Oh, he was right… You are pretty." As he spoke, he reached out and grabbed her wrist. The bottle Harriet was holding clattered to the floor as she struggled weakly, her voice filled with fear. "What are you doing? Let go! Somebody, help!" The man quickly overpowered her, and with a few rough pulls, he lifted her by the waist and marched toward the bedroom. The door slammed shut with a loud bang.

—and just as she was about to continue, the light appeared. It was not the green light of the Realm. It was not the white light of the hospital. It was something else, something that had no color because it contained all colors, something that was not bright because brightness was too small a word for what it was. It was the light of annihilation. The light of absolute revelation. The light that burned not the eyes but the self, the identity, the carefully constructed architecture of who Eliana thought she was and what she thought she knew.

"My grandmother told me from childhood that there is a terrible evil lurking in the dark, so I should beware of the darkness... So I have always been afraid of the dark. I always came home before dusk and asked my mother not to turn off the light in my room. Then she would light a candle for me and put it on the bedside table next to my bed to save electricity. I stared at that flame and felt safe, as if some invisible force hidden within that flame was watching over me, protecting from all evil. However, the darkness caught me then in my dreams, it lurked, hiding in its depths overgrown creatures with huge teeth, long claws and wild eyesight. Chased by these terrible creations of my childho

Dark chocolate with a hint of bitter gourd. Internally, I cocked my head at myself. This was new. I couldn’t literally taste their magic on my tongue before. Or was it the life-force? I didn’t have a manual to go by, so I was making things up as I went. As of an hour ago, I’d decided not refer to the magic I could feel and see in buildings and people as colors. Now that I wasn't operating on instinct and fear, I could process with a somewhat clear head. So glow didn’t fit either because -well, just because. But light. Light was bright and warm. And that was how the magic and life-force felt to me. I was lost in a cold abyss, blind and numb unless I took another's light. The problem, however,

Or he could sit in the darkness and wait. He decided he'd better wait. If the thief discovered that someone is hiding somewhere, then he could have defaced the book for nothing. And he'd have no more idea who the thief was than he'd before. .. " Turn off the lights," he said. The pool of red light disappeared. Deep underground, with no windows and no access to light, everywhere in the Abasia Kingdom Public Library because as dark as a tomb. There was literally not a single ray of light in the entire place.

My boss was going to shoot me if anyone had vandalized it again. This day just kept getting better and better. With another muttered curse, I shoved the door open and turned to reach for the light. The library was one of the oldest buildings on campus, and this office had never been updated. The light switch was a cord that hung from the ceiling and had to be given a sharp tug, otherwise it wouldn’t click. And because this room was a cave—no windows, no light at all except the single, naked bulb in the ceiling—without that light the room was a black hole.

“You're mine, and I failed you. I won't do that again.” The void fought back, the edges of it squeezing in, but it couldn’t hold me anymore. The light broke through, piercing the darkness with a blinding force that burned away everything in its path. The girl in my arms tilted her head up, her eyes meeting mine, and I felt the last of the void shatter around us. The light consumed everything, wrapping around us in a warmth that chased away the cold. Lila’s whispers grew louder, her words clear and undeniable. I reached for her, my steps turning into a sprint as I pushed through the final barrier.