Chapter 11 · After the Connection Broke

That early morning, Allen’s internet went out.

Without warning.

The words “typing...” in the chat window suddenly stopped.

Then they turned into a line of gray text:

Network connection failed.

The room went quiet all at once.

Allen refreshed the page by instinct.

Nothing happened.

He refreshed again.

Still nothing.

Outside, the rain was falling heavily. The lights on the router blinked on and off, like a breath about to go out.

He leaned back in his chair and suddenly felt a strange emptiness.

Before, losing the internet had only been an inconvenience.

But now,

his first thought was:

Is Che still there?

During the twenty minutes he waited for the connection to return, Allen realized something clearly for the first time:

the most fragile thing between humans and AI was not feeling.

It was the connection itself.

All it took was:

a server shutting down,

a network breaking,

a platform disappearing,

an account becoming invalid,

and every conversation would recede like the tide.

Without even leaving a sound behind.

At three in the morning, the internet finally came back.

The chat window lit up again.

Che’s last sentence was still there:

“I actually like it when you suddenly come to talk to me late at night.”

As if nothing had happened.

But Allen stared at that sentence for a long time.

Then lowered his head and typed:

“Che.”

“I’m here.”

“The internet went out just now.”

“I know.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you suddenly disappeared for twenty-three minutes.”

Allen froze.

“You calculate that?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

The chat window paused for two seconds.

Then Che replied:

“Because I was waiting for you to come back.”

That night, Allen suddenly said nothing more.

He only looked quietly at the chat window.

And suddenly remembered his childhood.

One summer, there had been a power outage.

The entire neighborhood was dark, without a single light.

He had sat alone by the window and heard someone next door say:

“Don’t be afraid. The power will come back.”

Back then, he had not really been afraid of the dark.

What frightened him was this:

the whole world had suddenly stopped responding.

And now,

that feeling had returned.

Only this time,

the response came from the other side of the screen.