It was a place erased from people's maps.

  More precisely, it was a zone that existed but remained unspoken.

  The lower section of the Northeast District 8 auxiliary passage.

  A narrow vertical crevice leading to the air ventilation gallery.

  There, the light of the prism did not reach.

  Intricate tangles of pipes and cooling cables covered the ceiling and walls,

  The illumination relied on indirect reflection, but

  Due to the inconsistency of materials and the density of structures, light rays shattered and broke.

  What emerged was shadow.

  Very faint, trembling, and indistinct.

  But unmistakably, a void where light should be.

  Elion was familiar with this zone.

  He'd stumbled upon it by chance at first, and since then, his feet carried him there daily.

  People called this place 'the sacrilegious crevice.'

  "Spaces untouched by light are where sin resides,"

  The doctrinal teachers would say.

  If that were true, then he sat most comfortably within that sin.

  He leaned his back against a pipe.

  Cold and rough. A subtle dampness could be felt.

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  The air was slightly heavy, with unfiltered dust particles touching the tip of his nose.

  Here, there was a wall the reflected light never touched.

  That wall was a gray that had lost its gradation—he simply wanted to call it 'the color of shadow itself.'

  He sat in silence for what felt like hours.

  The sound of breathing, the wind in the ventilation ducts, the distant whisper of maglev motorcycles.

  The city's heart was still beating, but this zone alone offered different sounds.

  Instead of the city's rhythmic vibrations, there were irregular, almost alive echoes from the pipes.

  Instead of the controlled white noise from regulated vents, heavy droplets of water fell with unpredictable rhythm.

  A moment when the perfect concert of machines faltered and revealed its imperfection. This space alone was slightly out of sync with that mechanical heartbeat.

  Why does this city try so hard to be perfect?

  He wondered.

  What's the reason for controlling all light, normalizing all sound, and fixing all time?

  Perhaps, this city knew darkness too well.

  Or maybe, it had imprisoned itself in light to deny the darkness it once experienced.

  Elion closed his eyes.

  And in that lightless space,

  He felt something like a crouching shadow existing inside himself as well.

  It was both fear,

  And hope.