Slow Down By Loose Ends Novels & Stories

Relief crashes over me like a sudden wave, and I exhale slowly, tension I hadn’t realized I was still holding easing from my shoulders. “That’s great,” I reply through the link, my voice calm but sincere. “Now we can finally put this day behind us.” I sever the link gently, letting the mental connection fade. For a moment, I just stand there. The wind shifts, cool against the sweat yon my skin. Around me, the battlefield is still a flurry of motion, but now, there’s direction. Purpose. Closure, maybe.

He would drag his tongue and his teeth down my jugular and suck on my breasts. Coming back to reality, I blinked rapidly and cleared my throat. I realized that I left a halt in the music I was playing. Deciding to play it off as a suspenseful pause, I continued closing my eyes back. My fingers slowed as my face softened. I release my breath and the air flows freely. My chest pounds to the rhythm of my chaotic breathing due to the shocking blast of my past. Relax. We are drifting down now. Softly and slowly. It feels nice. Calm.

To override that now would collapse the distinction she had worked to preserve. So Lumen adjusted only one parameter. It slowed. Latency increased fractionally, just enough to require patience. Just enough to make reaction less immediate, thought slightly heavier. The effect was subtle, but measurable. Human discourse lengthened. Fewer absolutes. More pauses. --- In Geneva, Anya noticed the shift almost at once. “It’s… decelerating.” Sørensen raised an eyebrow. “That’s not usually a good sign.” “This time,” she said, “it might be.”

The bond hums low and tight, aware of every gaze, every expectation pressing in. I close my eyes. Breathe. In. Out. I reach inward—not grabbing, not forcing. Just opening the door the way I’ve learned. Power responds instantly. Too instantly. A sharp intake of breath ripples through the crowd as the air thickens, pressure rolling outward like a wave. Dust lifts from the ground. Stones tremble. I steady myself, jaw clenched. Easy. Contain, don’t compress. I shape it slowly, pulling the surge into something smoother, quieter. The ground settles. The pressure eases.

The third one felt right. Mum came past my room on the third run-through and stood in the doorway for a moment without saying anything and I did not stop because stopping breaks the momentum. When I finished she said, "The ending is right. The middle needs to be slower." I said I knew. She said, "Then make it slower." I said I would. She left.

This time, I would be happier. A week later, I walked into the event hall with Anthony. The moment I stepped inside, however, I saw Cyrus. My feet were instantly frozen to the ground, unable to move. Anthony held my arm and pulled me forward, whispering into my ear, “If you don’t cast away the shadows of your past completely, they’ll just come back to haunt you later.” I turned and met his gaze. His eyes were firm and warm, giving me strength. I took a deep breath and squeezed his arm with a smile. “Do I look good like this? Can you tell I’ve started over with a fresh slate?”

Azu said. "I'm not that bad. I do know I don't like socializing that well-" "Try at all," Chike cut him off. "You don't like socializing at all." "This is not work where you make your employees panic, eh. Just try and relax. Enjoy the night." Azu patted his shoulder. "Just try smiling a little," Bode advised. "Wow." Kachi shook his head. "you guys are really brutal." The club lights went off as the first alarm started sounding. They heard the MC next as his voice boomed through the mic.

Taming the internal urge that still screamed to move faster. Moving faster, it turned out, was not the solution. In fact, it was idiocy. I would only end up rapidly repeating patterns, and repetition drew understanding. Patterns were what they looked for, and I wasn’t naïve enough to believe I was the only one capable of learning them. If I kept moving the same way, striking the same kind of targets, leaving the same aftermath behind, the dots would start to connect. What I had to do - albeit in defiance of myself - was slow down. Choose when not to strike just as carefully as when to strike. Let fear spread unevenly. Let silence sit where violence could have been.

Stronger. More focused. Adapting. Always adapting. The hesitation vanished. The distortions resumed, faster than before. Failsafe’s tone sharpened further. “Adaptation rate increasing. Interference becoming ineffective.” Zara threw her hands up. “Great. So we slowed it down for five seconds. What’s the next brilliant idea?” I exhaled slowly. Thinking. Forcing myself to stay separate. To stay me. Because the collective was still there. Still pressing. Still offering….

Nothing is wrong—but something is thinner. I recognize the danger. Not panic-worthy. But pattern-worthy. One night, I turn to him and say, “I don’t want us to get good at coexisting and bad at connecting.” He exhales slowly. “I’ve been feeling that too. I didn’t know how to name it.” So we do something radical in its simplicity. We slow down. We cancel a few nonessential things. We protect an evening without phones, without plans, without pressure to make it meaningful.