Page 9

MOON

The door shut. The lock clicked into place.

Silence.

The golden warmth that had wrapped around the apartment fractured, leaving behind a chilling void.

She was gone.

For the first time since we had been freed from that lifeless stasis, she was truly out of reach.

I could feel the shift. The balance between Sun and me wavered, his presence unstable, flickering.

“She left us.”

Sun’s voice was too quiet, too sharp. There was none of the usual excitement, none of the golden laughter that used to fill every space we existed in. He stood stiffly by the window, staring at the street below like she might appear at any second, as if sheer will alone would bring her back.

“She’s coming back,” I murmured, though the words felt hollow. “She has to.”

Sun turned his head, his movements slow, deliberate. His eyes—brilliant gold, once filled with an endless, suffocating warmth—were darkened. Dimming.

“She didn’t even say goodbye.”

His words carried something unfamiliar.

Betrayal.

A sudden crack splintered the silence as Sun's hand jerked, knocking a picture frame off the shelf. The glass shattered across the floor, the sharp scent of dust and old wood filling the air. He didn’t react, didn’t even look at it. He was still staring out the window, his fingers twitching, his glow flickering erratically.

“She thinks she needs space,” I offered, though my own jaw was tight. “She’s human. They do things like this.”

Sun inhaled sharply. “Then humans are foolish.”

I didn’t disagree.

He turned away from the window, finally looking at me. The contrast between us had never felt so stark. Light and shadow. Fire and ice. Warmth and silence.

“She’ll be back,” I said again, slower this time. “She belongs here.”

A beat of silence passed before Sun’s shoulders dropped slightly, but the tension remained. He exhaled a breath that shimmered with faint, dying embers.

“I don’t like this feeling.” His voice had lost some of its edge, but it was raw. Strained. “It’s…empty.”

I understood.

It was the first time we had felt it too.

“She made it full. She was the one who awakened us, the one who spoke our nicknames, touched us with hands that carried both curiosity and longing. Her voice, her presence—it breathed life into what had been dormant for too long. We had been trapped in silence, unseen, forgotten. And then, she came. And now she thought she could leave?” I admitted though the words felt foreign. I had never needed anything before. But the moment she walked out that door, the moment her presence vanished from our space?—

The apartment wasn’t home anymore.

Sun swallowed hard. “I want her back.”

Not a demand. Not a threat. Just a truth. A desperate, aching truth.

I nodded. “Then we’ll bring her back.”

Sun’s fingers curled against the windowsill, his glow flickering erratically. “How?”

I turned, scanning the apartment. The space she had touched—the folded blankets, the lingering scent of her, the faint indent in the couch where she often sat—these were fragments of her, echoes. They weren’t enough. We needed more.

She had just awaken us. She bound herself to us. Unknowingly, yes, but intent wasn’t necessary. The moment she had whispered to us, handled us, let her breath stir the dust that had settled over us for so long?—

It had been done.

Maybe it was her touch, the warmth of living skin against cold porcelain. Maybe it was the way she traced the edges of our forms, unknowing, her voice wrapping around our names like a spell. Or maybe it was her loneliness, a frequency that called out and met ours, binding us together in something neither of us could name, but felt in the marrow of our being.

Sun let out a rough exhale, stepping back from the window. “We were asleep for so long,” he murmured, as if trying to piece together something that still eluded him. “I barely remember what it felt like before her.”

Neither did I. And I didn’t want to.

“She won’t come back willingly,” I said. “Not yet.”

Sun’s breath hitched. “Then we make her need to.”

I stepped toward him, watching the way his golden glow pulsed, erratic and unsettled. “She believes she left us behind,” I murmured. “We need to remind her that she didn’t.”

Sun’s lips parted slightly, realization dawning in his ember-lit eyes. “We reach out.”

I smiled—slow, dark, deliberate. “We haunt her.”

His golden light flickered brighter. “You mean…?”

“She thinks she’s free. But she called to us first, unknowingly offering herself in ways she still didn’t understand. She was the thread that bound us to this world, and threads could not simply be cut without consequence.” I said, voice smooth, steady. “Let’s show her that she never was.”

The air in the apartment shifted.

The light from Sun began to glow brighter, then dim, like a heartbeat struggling to regulate itself. His fingers tapped against the windowsill, restless, eager. “Dreams?” he murmured, a thoughtful hum lacing his tone.

I nodded. “Dreams.”

She still slept. That was our opening. That was where we would take hold of her again, remind her why she felt safest in our warmth, why she sank into our shadows so easily. We would be there waiting, just beneath the surface.

Sun exhaled slowly, his glow stabilizing, as if the very idea soothed the aching absence within him. His golden light pulsed through the apartment once more, filling the cracks of silence with something potent, something unhinged.

“She’ll come back,” he whispered, more to himself than to me. “She’ll have no choice.”

I reached out, brushing my fingers over the windowsill where hers had rested before she left. Soon, she’d remember why she belonged here. Why she was ours. Why the moment she touched us, the moment she breathed our names, something ancient and irreversible had been set into motion.

The apartment settled. The night stretched long and quiet, but we were patient.

Because no matter how far she ran, how much she tried to convince herself that she was alone?—

She would never be alone again.

We would make sure of it.