Anomaly

Chapter 349 – The Primordial Fear [67]

“What the hell is that thing?” Victor asked, his voice thick with disbelief as his eyes remained fixed on the abyss below.

The dark mass rose toward us in a chaotic surge, charging forward like an enraged bull smashing through everything in its path. No one answered his question, only a heavy silence followed, oppressive enough to suffocate any attempt at rational thought.

Even so, one look at the reaction team members’ faces was enough to understand that no one had a better explanation. Clenched jaws, short breaths, and tense gazes revealed the same collective thought: that thing shouldn’t exist. The shadow twisted as it climbed, pulsing in an almost living rhythm, as if watching us just as much as we watched it.

Rupert spoke next. He ran a hand through his hair in a nervous, nearly desperate gesture, messing up the already disheveled strands even more. His lips trembled slightly as he tried to organize his thoughts, and like Victor, disbelief remained etched across his face, unable to accept what he was seeing.

His eyes never left the approaching threat, as if expecting to wake up from a nightmare at any moment: “Shit! What do we do now? That thing started climbing way faster than we can get away from it!”

Rupert was right. Our previous climbing speed had been enough to keep us only a few steps ahead of the mass of darkness rising from the tower’s interior, but not anymore. Now it moved fast... too fast.

It rose like a living tide, swallowing steps and corridors with silent voracity, far beyond what we could keep up with just by running. Everyone seemed fully aware of that.

The rhythm of breathing, the tense glances thrown over shoulders, the uneven sound of footsteps echoing through the spiral staircase, all of it pointed to the same certainty: we were falling behind.

Naturally, I had no intention of letting them be... swallowed? Devoured? Consumed? Whatever the intention of that pulsing darkness was, I wouldn’t allow it to reach anyone. Following my thoughts, new ribbons made of smoking darkness emerged from my back.

One by one, they unfurled with a harsh whisper, like shadows gaining a will of their own. The ribbons slithered through the air, tracing the curve of the staircase and advancing toward the team members gathered at the foot of the steps, ready to grab them.

I noticed the exact moment their surprised looks began to change. First shock, then slow understanding appearing on each of their faces. My shadow ribbons moved with a life of their own, sliding over their bodies before wrapping tightly around their waists.

No one resisted, or maybe they simply didn’t have the courage to. And honestly, I doubted they would. Not with that pulsing amalgam of darkness advancing right behind us, a shapeless mass that seemed to breathe... to bubble... as if it were alive.

I caught specific looks from Rupert, Victor, and Arthur. There was understanding in them, trust even. Or at least there had been... until a moment of distraction made them notice my little sister, still safely held in my arms. Their expressions faltered.

The tension returned like a sudden crack in perfect glass, and they looked away, unable to hold what they were seeing. I sighed inwardly. Apparently, they still hadn’t gotten used to it... but would they ever?

I lost myself in my thoughts for a moment, letting the world dissolve into distant noise, until Rupert’s voice dragged me back to reality as he shouted at the top of his lungs, filled with desperation: “Not trying to interrupt... but actually, yeah, I am...”

He hesitated briefly, as if trying to gather his words. I felt his gaze pressing on me insistently and blinked a few times before meeting his eyes again, still readjusting to the present.

“I think it’d be a lot smarter if we got out of this godforsaken hole before that thing catches up to us!” He waved his hand through the air as he spoke, pointing directly at the amalgam of darkness raging up the tower’s interior.

I ignored Rupert’s complaint with a mental eye roll, pushing his voice to the back of my mind. My ribbons were already coiling around everyone, sliding like small living creatures and tightening at strategic points as I prepared for the next step. Still, something was wrong.

It was... strange. The way the darkness rose through the tower didn’t seem natural. It wasn’t just the absence of light, it felt like someone, a presence trying to climb, advancing slowly through the shadows like a silent predator.

For a brief instant, I had the clear impression of seeing skeletal fingers, long and dark, emerging from the black mass. They dragged along the side of the staircase, gripping the steps with slow, hesitant movements.

I blinked, unsure whether it was real or just my mind trying to give shape to the unknown. Even so, they were dangerously close to the reaction team members, who didn’t seem to notice at all.

That was my cue. I launched myself into the air with a quick leap, lifting my body away from the darkness opening beneath us.

At the same time, I pulled the humans with me, their incredulous and startled screams echoing through the tower walls, reverberating like a chaotic chorus as they were dragged closer to my body.

My fingers found the rough surface of the wall again, digging firmly into the cracks of the ancient stone. Small fragments broke loose under the pressure, falling into the void as I stabilized our weight.

The humans remained suspended, holding on however they could, their uneven breathing revealing the panic that still gripped them. I allowed my gaze to fall once more toward the darkness below, a deep and silent abyss.

We were at a considerable distance, and for a brief moment I imagined we would be safe... at least for a while. Ironically, my thought couldn’t have been more wrong.

The tower trembled again, as if something colossal were gripping its insides and shaking its very foundation. For a moment, I felt my fingers nearly slip from the surface as the structure rattled violently, vibrating down to the bone.

Around me, the humans covered their ears, faces twisted and teeth clenched in a futile attempt to endure the sound, a deep roar that seemed to rise from the depths.

Down below, the darkness began to bubble with increasing intensity, rippling and pulsing like lava about to break through a volcano’s crust seconds before an eruption. I cursed inwardly as I realized my worst thoughts were about to become reality, and soon after, they did.

From the relentless bubbling rising from the darkness below, skeletal hands began to emerge, first one, then another, until there were dozens. Bony, cracked fingers clutched desperately at the ladder, the damp walls, and any ledge that could offer support.

Joints snapped and popped as they dragged themselves upward, scraping against metal and stone like nails on glass. A reverberating boom echoed through the tower when those hands pushed in unison, making the entire structure tremble slightly beneath our feet.

Dust fell from the ceiling in thin gray veils. The darkness advanced like a living tide, climbing faster and faster toward our position, swallowing steps and silhouettes behind it.

Although countless thoughts clashed inside my mind at the sight, one rose above the rest. It was simple, almost brutally honest, and precisely because of that, it captured the chaos I felt in that moment with perfect clarity. In the end, I managed only a single word, dry and inevitable: (Shit!)

***

(POV — Emily Parker)

Emily felt her eyes twitch in irregular spasms as she stared at the flickering images on the monitor. The cold glow of the screen reflected across her pale face, highlighting the shock etched into her expression.

She wasn’t the only one reacting so strongly. Laura, the same person who had called her back into the room claiming an “urgent” situation, looked just as shaken, shoulders tense, fingers gripping the edge of the desk as if anchoring herself to reality.

Emily moved her lips in a failed attempt to produce any sound. Nothing came out. She swallowed hard, the metallic taste of nerves spreading across her mouth.

She tried again, once, twice, three times, until finally her voice emerged, weak and trembling, shattering the silence like breaking glass: “What the hell is that thing?”

Naturally, there was no immediate response. Like Emily, everyone seemed trapped by the same silent question, searching for explanations of their own, quick, fragile hypotheses that fell apart before they could fully form. No one seemed willing to take the first step until someone finally gathered the courage.

“This...” The voice hesitated, low, as if afraid to confirm what he was seeing. Emily didn’t turn right away, her eyes remained fixed on the screens, absorbing every detail: “It looks like a living amalgam of darkness, but...” the man continued.

Only then did Emily turn toward the voice. A man in his early thirties, wearing a lab coat similar to hers, stared at the monitors with his head slightly tilted, eyebrows drawn together in obvious confusion. The bluish light from the screens reflected off his glasses, partially hiding his eyes.

“It wasn’t like this before... not this bad. It looks... agitated” The sentence came out fragmented, almost lost in the air, more an uneasy murmur than a real explanation.

Just as he had said, the monitors displayed the darkness, something that, in theory, should have been harmless, now writhing in impossible ways. From it emerged ghostly arms made of dense, pulsing shadow, materializing and stretching upward in desperate movements, as if trying to reach beyond the screen... or escape from somewhere unseen.

They rose and unraveled at the same time, stretching unnaturally, no bones, no muscles, just a fluid mass of living darkness. The sensation it conveyed was deeply unsettling, almost wrong to human eyes, as though reality itself were being distorted.

Devouring... maybe that was the closest word, Emily thought, though it wasn’t entirely accurate. The shadow had no “body” at least not in the human sense. There were no clear boundaries, no defined shape, only an amorphous presence that seemed to expand, absorb, and reclaim the space around it like a silent hunger that could never be satisfied.

Sharing the claustrophobic space with that thing, which Emily didn’t even know how to name, was the [Angel of Death]. Clinging to the wall with agile precision, black ribbons sprouted from her back and extended like living tentacles, wrapping around each member of the response team sent on the mission.

The ribbons pulsed with silent energy, pulling them along as the anomaly desperately tried to distance itself from the amalgam of darkness pursuing them without rest. The shadowy mass advanced like a living tide, rippling and compressing through the narrow corridors.

Naturally, Emily found the entire situation absurd, something between a nightmare and a poorly explained hallucination, but there wasn’t much she could do besides follow the group’s movement.

She had no idea why they had entered that colossal tower, though she assumed it was some kind of exit or temporary refuge. The angelic anomaly offered no explanations, leaving her trapped in assumptions and conjecture.

Either way, Emily hoped they would leave whatever place this was soon. Maybe, outside, the signals would return to normal and communication with the rest of the team would be restored.