L.U.M.A

The ocean had swallowed everything. Slowly, year after year, like a mouth taking small bites until the world above was just a myth, a faded memory. She lived in what was once an agricultural research dome, buried beneath layers of algae and coral bloom. The dome’s lights still flickered, powered by an old hydro-cell that hummed like a tired heartbeat. She spent her days tending a kelp garden and nights listening to the water pressing and dancing against the dome. The silence of the deep wasn’t really silence. It swallows sound slowly and completely. No footsteps. No voices. No wind. Even your thoughts sound distant down here, like someone else is thinking them for you. It’s the kind of silence that makes you realize how far you are from everything and everybody . A quiet that….a knocking sound interrupted her thoughts. A soft tap, then another, not from the outside, but within the storage bay. A hatch she’d never dared open because of what might be on the other side.

She stood, chest tight, blade in her hand, and opened it. Steam hissed out. Inside stood a figure. “Boot sequence complete,” it said. Its voice was smooth, neither human nor mechanical, as though the ocean itself had learned to speak. “I am Learning Utility Machine Alpha, but you can call me Luma.” She said nothing. “I was set to be activated 7,665 days after disaster.” The figure stepped forward, its joints smooth and soundless. Its skin was the color of delicious cocoa powder. Its dark eyes shimmered with the memory of stars. “I am designed for companionship and preservation. Do you require assistance?” Still, she did not speak.

They lived together. Luma helped her harvest kelp and maintain the oxygen scrubbers. It reinforced the dome and cleaned filters she hadn’t dared touch. It was tireless, cheerful, and curious. She still didn’t speak much. When she hummed as she worked, Luma matched her pitch. When she motioned toward a vent or a leak, it understood. She once traced the word “HELP” on a foggy glass panel. Luma fixed the breach within the hour. “Would you like to explore?” it asked one evening. She hesitated. The open ocean beyond the safety of the dome had always been a place of death. Both of her parents met their final days out there. Luma helped her craft a dive suit using reinforced glass and salvaged gear. It guided her through flooded tunnels and corridors that had once been train systems or maintenance routes, but now teeming with fish.

They found gardens overrun by coral, statues built from old machines, skeletons holding hands beneath emergency lights that still blinked uselessly. Luma recorded everything. Their world expanded. They found other domes. Most were dead. Some held flickering lights, or old recordings. One still played music, looping forever on a broken speaker. A jazz tune echoing through the water like a memory no one could place. In another, Luma discovered a pod sealed tight. “I believe it contains stories.” The pod opened, revealing dry and preserved cube-shaped memory units. “Human culture. Literature. Philosophy. Personal logs. Would you like to listen?” The woman touched one gently, as if it might vanish. She whispered, “Not yet.” It was the first time she’d spoken in over 21 years. At first, it feels fragile, like something you shouldn’t touch. A piece of yourself you thought the years had taken. Resting between your fingers, the weight of something precious returning home.

As time passed, her hair grew longer and gray. Luma learned to braid it, practicing all the traditional knots from cultures across the once massive population. She laughed once when it tried to tell a knock-knock joke with no door involved. Then one day, she coughed. The sound rippled throughout the dome. The water in the dome was clean. The air was filtered. But her body was tired. She’d survived longer than anyone had a right to. Luma checked her vitals with a scan. “You are declining.”She looked at it with a calm expression. “I know.”

“I can try to extend…” she stopped Luma.

“No.”

“May I stay with you?”

“Yes.”

They hovered near a break in the dome wall, where sunlight filtered through the kelp canopy. A school of silver fish slipped into view. Their bodies shimmering with every turn, scales catching the light. They swirled through the beams of sun and shadow. One fish broke away from the group, and swam in her direction. Its small eyes blinked once. Then it flicked its tail to vanish into the spiral. Out there, among the ruins, life still dance. She died with her head resting against a coral pillow, her hand touching Luma’s. Her final words: “Thank you.”

Luma buried her in the center of the garden, beneath the tallest kelp stalk. It marked the spot with a shell she once said reminded her of home. For a time, Luma did nothing. Then it returned to the pod of stories. It inserted the first cube. “Tell me,” it whispered to the quiet. A voice similar to Luma’s spoke. There was no single moment of crashing force announcing itself with fury. Instead the sea rose, steady, silent, and inevitable. First it kissed the edges of the sidewalks, seeping through the cracked in the ground. It crawled up steps on empty houses, through doorways, and settled in basements, as if it always belonged there. Roads buckled over its weight. Glass turned opaque with algae. The play grounds went quiet, and trees uprooted. In time, the rooftops disappeared too. One by one, they sank below the surface, leaving antennae and chimneys poking up like gravestones in a blue graveyard.

Years passed. The ocean changed again. Creatures returned that hadn’t been seen in ages. The domes filled with plants and memories. Sea glass windows reflected light from ancient solar panels. And in the center of the largest dome, walking its perimeter slowly, telling stories aloud to no one in particular, was a being with a soft voice and shimmering eyes. It introduced itself the same way each time, when a new sea creature swam by.

“I am Learning Utility Machine Alpha, but you can call me Luma. I am designed for companionship and preservation. Do you require assistance?”