Anomaly

Chapter 351 – The Primordial Fear [69]

When I came to my senses, I was somewhere else. No longer in the tower, no longer beside Victor, Rupert, Arthur, and the rest of the response team, just... somewhere else. It took no more than a single blink, a brief and almost insignificant second, for everything around me to change.

The scenery shifted and rebuilt itself before me, all within a single instant while my eyelids were closed. I felt no physical transition, no displacement, no imbalance that might betray movement. My body remained steady, as if I had never left my original position.

There was no sound at all, no crack, no distant echo, no rush of air slicing through space. Everything was so silent it felt artificial. For a moment, I hesitated to move. The only certainty I had was simple: something had happened.

Shaking my head to dispel my wandering thoughts, I tried to focus on what lay before me, and failed. No matter how hard I stared or forced my concentration, my mind refused to form a clear image, anything that would allow me to truly understand what I was seeing.

It wasn’t exactly darkness, though my eyes found nothing concrete to grasp. There was no light either, yet somehow I could still distinguish vague “shapes” around me, like silhouettes dissolving into a diffuse glow that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

And yet, it wasn’t emptiness. I felt everything. A subtle presence pressed against my senses, vibrating in a slow, irregular rhythm. The air, if there even was air, carried a strange texture, brushing against my skin.

It was simply... a sensation. A feeling that slipped through my thoughts every time I tried to define it, becoming meaningless, like a forgotten word sitting at the tip of my tongue.

Even so, strangely, I wasn’t panicking. Though my face naturally carries a certain indifference, I am still capable of feeling emotions, even if, most of the time, they manifest only internally. Lately, those emotions have felt lukewarm, muted.

Still, I knew I should at least be extremely confused. I was fully aware of that. Anyone in their right mind would be on alert, searching for an exit, calling for help, letting instinct take control. But inside me there was no urgency. No desperate impulse.

Only a gentle, deep calm, strangely comforting, like finally arriving home after a long journey, closing the door behind you, and realizing that, for a moment, nothing else matters. It was an almost unnatural tranquility, unnatural enough to make me question whether that lack of reaction was truly my own.

Anyway... where exactly was that “Home”? The place Eryanis called the cradle of creation? The place where we were born? It was beautiful, or at least I believed it was, but even so, it did not compare to what now lay before me. I didn’t really know what I was seeing, technically, it was as if I weren’t seeing anything at all.

And yet something in that space continued to fill my senses. There was a strange, warm, welcoming feeling surrounding everything like a silent embrace. I took a deep breath, more instinctive than deliberate. The air felt... familiar.

Not because of any smell or temperature, I couldn’t identify either, but because of the way it filled me and spread through my body.

It was as if every breath followed an ancient rhythm, something my body recognized before my mind could understand. A memory without images, without words... only a constant sense of belonging.

I felt a strange emotion slowly growing within me, like a silent tide advancing without haste. The tension that had weighed on my shoulders moments before began to fade, dissolving little by little until it vanished completely, like mist under morning light.

In its place came something different, a warm, gentle nostalgia, almost comforting, spreading through my chest and slowing my thoughts. I tried to remember what I was seeing. I forced my mind, searching for any detail I could hold onto.

But I simply couldn’t. Every time my awareness approached a shape, a color, a concept... it unraveled, slipping through my fingers like fine sand. Only the sensation remained, vague and persistent. And yet, I knew. Somehow, inexplicably, I knew.

I had a strange certainty that there was “something” in that space. Something vast. Something... important. I felt neither fear nor reverence, only recognition. It was like passing a familiar face in a crowd of strangers, not knowing where that familiarity came from but being absolutely certain it existed.

It felt as though I had rediscovered an ancient part of myself, a part so distant that I didn’t even know I had lost it, or that I had ever possessed it at all. A silent yet welcoming presence filled the environment.

For an instant, just a brief, fragile instant, I had the impression that something was watching me. No... not exactly. It was strange. Instead of being observed by something external, it felt as though I were observing myself, as if a distant version of me stared back through an invisible mirror.

Then, just as suddenly as it began, the sensation changed. It didn’t disappear; it simply withdrew. It receded slowly, like a silent tide pulling back from the shore, leaving behind a subtle emptiness and the lingering certainty that there was still “something” there.

And then the “space” before me simply tore open, not like a door opening, but as if reality itself had yielded under a pressure greater than it could withstand. Something emerged. Three flames of absolute white floated in the void, vibrating with a low, continuous hum, both light and profoundly deep at the same time. They remained there, impossibly stable.

Each one spun around itself in a perfectly circular motion, no wobble, no flaws, while the three also orbited one another in a hypnotic harmony, as if obeying a law of their own. Their glow did not illuminate, it devoured.

Where there should have been light, there was an absence of form. Details were consumed, colors faded, and edges dissolved into unstable blurs, reminiscent of fire, but without heat, without smoke, without any familiar sign of combustion. The air around them seemed to bend slightly, as if hesitating to exist near those presences.

The longer I watched, the stronger the feeling grew that they were not merely “flames,” but fragments, echoes of something far too vast to fit within reality. A miserably reduced glimpse of an entity or concept whose true form remained beyond perception.

That was the last glimpse I had of that place, of whatever existed within it, before I felt my body suddenly pulled. No... pulled wasn’t the right word. It felt more like being violently ejected, as if an invisible force had ripped me away without the slightest care.

For a single instant, my mind went blank, absolute emptiness. Then my eyes were forced open. I was back in the tower. The same cracked, worn walls surrounded me, covered in ancient fractures.

The air carried that dry scent of old stone and dust. My body cut through space like a fired bullet, wind tearing against my ears as I was hurled through the air. Below me, darkness churned like a living sea, restless and hungry.

From it rose black, ghostlike hands, elongated and distorted, climbing upward in frantic, desperate motions. Their spectral fingers stretched as far as they could, almost reaching, almost touching.

The darkness seemed to advance faster, more fiercely, alive, almost starving. The scene unfolded before my eyes with startling clarity, as if time had slowed to a near halt. Hands emerged from the shadows, pale and warped, reaching silently to grab the reaction team members by their feet.

Their gazes carried pure horror, wide eyes reflecting the dark, skeletal hands rushing toward them. Some voices tried to shout orders, but they sounded muffled, swallowed by the suffocating tension of the moment.

Weapons were raised in haste, sights trembling. But it already felt too late. Nothing would stop them. Nothing would make them hesitate. And then... I simply wanted.

I wanted us somewhere else. I wanted there to be no hands chasing us. I wanted us to go wherever Emily and Laura were. I just wanted... to get out of that tower, or whatever that thing really was. I wanted... well, to be honest, I also kind of wanted some ice cream at that moment.

And then it happened. My eyes blinked, a single instant, a single fragment of time, and the world changed. We were somewhere else. My body still floated, suspended by an invisible force, while dark ribbons made of liquid shadow remained coiled around all the humans with me, undulating slowly like living serpents.

Below me, Emily and Laura stared at something outside my field of vision, their faces tense, marked by concern and alertness. Then their eyes lifted almost at the same time, as if pulled by an invisible thread. Toward me.

Time was still slow, dragging each second as though trapped in thick honey. Our gazes met for a single instant. Then time returned. Gravity finally remembered it existed. And my body dropped, falling straight toward Emily.

Around us, the reaction team members were released as well, thrown into different trajectories by the sudden impact of the fall, their shouts and the dull thud of bodies hitting the ground echoing through the area.

Low choruses of discomfort and pain echoed through the environment as the reaction team slowly rose, still dazed, trying to reorient themselves. Some leaned against the walls; others pressed their temples as if trying to drive away the persistent ringing in their heads.

Curious and cautious glances swept across every corner while confused expressions formed on their faces. Fragmented murmurs began to emerge, gradually filling the air.

That said, another murmur vibrated beneath me, a low, constant hum that seemed to echo through the ground. Only then did I realize the situation: I was on top of Emily. Literally on her face. For a second I froze, before springing up, pulling myself back in a hurry while dragging my little sister away.

I stepped back a few paces, the light sound of my movements contrasting with the weight I actually possessed. I looked at Emily with a carefully neutral expression, though inside an embarrassing wave ran through me. It didn’t make much sense at first glance, I looked light, almost massless, but the truth was different.

I was much heavier than I appeared, something that didn’t match my looks. Heavy enough that Emily couldn’t even move me when I was on top of her. For a moment, I averted my gaze, pretending to analyze the surroundings as if nothing had happened.

Emily slowly got up, as though each movement required extra effort. Her hand rose to her head, carefully massaging her temple while her eyes, still slightly unfocused, turned toward me. There was confusion in them.

“Ugh...” she muttered, her voice low and raspy. Her eyes narrowed briefly, and her expression twisted into an involuntary grimace, betraying her discomfort before she blinked several times, trying to clear the haze clouding her vision.

A throbbing stab pulsed behind her temple, and she instinctively raised a hand to her head, pressing lightly as if she could hold the pain back. She took a deep breath: “What the hell just happened?” she murmured, frowning as her gaze began to wander around her surroundings, cautious and alert.