Anomaly

Chapter 360 – Worship of the true gods [6]

(POV — Emily Parker)

Emily and Laura had spent a considerable amount of time diving into research on the recent wave of cults that had been popping up one after another.

At first, the pattern was simple: small groups, discreet meetings held in rented warehouses or makeshift halls, fiery speeches promising spiritual enlightenment, and whatever other nonsense might convince the unsuspecting to join their “faith” Most of them were harmless.

They had no significant following, let alone any real organizational structure. The self-proclaimed “priests” leading these gatherings were, truth be told, nothing more than opportunistic grifters capitalizing on public fear and curiosity surrounding the anomalies.

There was, however, one exception. Amid the tide of short-lived sects, a single cult not only survived the passage of time and preliminary investigations, it thrived. It grew in numbers, solidified internal hierarchies, and established permanent temples.

Its influence crossed national borders, drawing followers from different countries and social backgrounds. There was consistent funding, refined communication strategies, and above all, a carefully constructed narrative.

Emily couldn’t make sense of it. To her, it was completely illogical that a church would choose to worship anomalies, phenomena that, in previous cases, had been responsible for tragedies claiming hundreds of lives. How could anyone look at that and see a deity?

Her fingers tapped lightly against the desk in a low, uneven rhythm, an involuntary motion. The polished wood answered with a dry sound at each touch, marking the seconds. Emily wasn’t sure why she was doing it, or even where the habit had come from. She was a scientist. She believed in data. In replicable evidence. In hypotheses tested under strict conditions. Not in gut feelings. Not in faith.

And yet... what was that subtle weight in her chest? That unsettling sensation, as though the air around her were on the verge of tearing open? As if something were about to happen at any moment? She frowned slightly, irritated with herself.

Across the desk, the bluish glow of the screen reflected off Laura’s face as she continued scrolling through research on her tablet. Oblivious to her colleague’s inner turmoil, she leaned forward slightly and whispered, almost in awe: “The number of followers is impressive...”

Genuine curiosity colored her expression as she flipped between news reports, online forums, and recorded broadcasts, gathering fragments of articles, statements from believers, theories and criticisms, anything that mentioned that “Church” It was like assembling a puzzle whose pieces were scattered everywhere: “A lot of them... even from other countries... come just to hear this priest speak”

“Yeah... that’s how it is” Emily replied, shifting in her swivel chair, which let out a faint creak under the sudden movement.

The cold monitor light illuminated her face, highlighting the subtle tension in her jaw as she stared at the article open on the news website. The bluish glow reflected off her glasses, and off the bold headline about the new “religion” that had emerged in recent months.

She read aloud, her tone thick with disbelief: “We have found nothing unusual in this priest’s activities”

Her gaze faltered for a moment. A muscle in her cheek twitched: “At least nothing unusual...” she murmured, correcting herself almost immediately, her lips curling into a crooked, skeptical smile: “... aside from worshiping anomalies”

Laura nodded slowly. A quiet sigh slipped past her lips, dissolving into the heavy air of the room. Emily didn’t react much differently. She let her body sink back into the chair, which creaked softly beneath her weight.

One of her hands rose to her face, covering her eyes completely, as if she were trying to block not just her vision, but the thoughts piling up inside her head. Her fingers pressed briefly against her forehead before she allowed all the air to leave her lungs in a long, controlled exhale.

Her head tilted back, fully facing upward. The ceiling light cast a faint yellowish glow directly over her chair. Emily rarely kept the bulb very bright.

After a few seconds of silence, she lowered her hand. She blinked slowly, allowing the soft light to once again trace her tired features.

Emily had been through far too much to be easily shaken. Ever since she became a scientist, the strange had stopped being the exception and had become routine, almost an unofficial workplace protocol. Her job was, essentially, to investigate the inexplicable: phenomena with no apparent logic, occurrences that defied known laws, anomalies that fluctuated between fascinating and disturbing.

Many were bizarre. Some were genuinely frightening. Others possessed a strangely inviting beauty. Emily had learned to observe before reacting, to record before judging. So she didn’t scream. She didn’t thrash. She didn’t allow a single muscle to betray surprise. She remained still in the office.

There was a head in the ceiling. It wasn’t resting there. It wasn’t hanging. It was... emerging. As though the ceiling itself had produced it. And the head was staring directly at her.

Golden eyes, intense and luminous, regarded her as if they could see into the deepest parts of her soul. Relatively long hair cascaded downward, hanging from the ceiling in gentle waves.

Even so, Emily said nothing. The first thought that came to her in the face of that scene was something absurdly mundane, an automatic response:

“I was wondering when you’d show up” Or something along those lines. As if she were speaking to an inconvenient neighbor, not to a head protruding from the ceiling and watching her without blinking.

Emily couldn’t tell whether the discomfort she felt stemmed from the strangeness of the situation itself... or from the far more bizarre fact that she couldn’t, in any way, truly consider the scene strange.

Emily blinked once. The anomaly embedded in the ceiling, lodged into the surface as though the concrete had yielded to accommodate it, blinked back. Only the head was visible, projecting outward, strands of hair dangling downward.

The room remained silent. The staring contest stretched on for several more seconds. Emily kept her expression impassive, though her fingers, resting against the bedsheet, had stiffened ever so slightly.

From the ceiling, the anomaly showed no discomfort, no fatigue, no embarrassment, just a steady, curious stare. A nearly imperceptible speck of dust broke loose from the ceiling around the anomaly’s face and drifted down between the two of them.

Emily let out a quiet breath through her nose. Then, breaking the standoff with the same casualness someone might use to comment on the weather, she said the first thing that came to mind: “You do realize you could just knock and come in... right?”

The anomaly blinked again. Emily’s words, tossed out almost absentmindedly, caught Laura’s attention. The faint edge of strangeness in her coworker’s voice made her lean forward in her chair, the wheels squeaking softly against the polished floor.

Curious, Laura rested one hand on the desk and peeked over the top of her monitor, but that wasn’t what caught her focus. Emily was staring straight up. Naturally, Laura followed her gaze. And then she saw it.

A head was emerging from the ceiling, passing through it as if it were mist. The outline of the anomaly shimmered in small translucent ripples, like water disturbed by an invisible drop. For a brief moment, Laura just blinked, her brain struggling to keep up with what her eyes had already processed.

It took a few seconds for recognition to finally settle in. A warm, genuine smile spread across her lips, smoothing away any trace of surprise.

“Oh! Hey! Over here!” Laura called, her tone bright and welcoming, lifting her arm and waving energetically toward the figure phasing through the ceiling as if she were greeting an old friend who’d walked in through the front door, not the ceiling above their heads.

Her voice caught the anomaly’s attention. The head lodged in the ceiling turned slowly until its eyes fixed on Laura. The gaze, deep, still, and unnatural, only made her smile widen further.

Then, without warning, the head began to withdraw. It didn’t fall. It didn’t dissolve. It simply slid back into the ceiling, as though solid matter were nothing more than a liquid surface swallowing it in silence. Laura blinked, confused.

She had honestly expected the anomaly to stick around longer, and the sudden departure left a faint trace of disappointment in her eyes. But before she could say anything, two firm, rhythmic knocks echoed through the house.

Knock. Knock. The sound came from the front door. Laura shot Emily a hesitant look. Emily held her gaze, one eyebrow raised and her lips slightly parted. For a brief moment, an oddly awkward silence hung between them. Laura tilted her head, clearly puzzled.

Emily blinked a few times, processing the situation, before clearing her throat softly: “Uh... come in?” she said, her voice edged with uncertainty.

The door opened with a faint creak, revealing the slender silhouette of a teenage girl. Her height placed her in an odd in-between, taller than a child, yet still far from carrying the presence of a grown woman.

Her relatively long hair fell messily over her shoulders, a few strands slipping forward across her face as if ignoring any attempt at order.

The shirt she wore was too big for her frame, the thin fabric shifting gently with each step, hiding the lines of her figure and reinforcing her fragile, unremarkable appearance, at first glance.

After stepping inside, the teenager... or rather, the anomaly... closed the door behind her with a calm motion, the click of the lock echoing in the quiet room.

For a brief instant, she remained still, as if adjusting to the space. Then she lifted her gaze to Emily and Laura. Her eyes were a pure gold, not soft or muted, but intense and vivid, like molten metal glowing at the heart of a forge.

Emily and Laura exchanged another look. Their slightly furrowed brows and parted lips gave away their confusion. Getting visits from the [Angel of Death] wasn’t exactly unusual... well, not that a visit from an anomaly could ever be considered normal. But given the kind of work they did, this was far from the strangest thing that had happened that week.

Still. Most anomalies remained contained in their cells. Emily sat at her desk, fingers resting on the keyboard while a news page about the cult remained open on her screen, flashy headlines, grainy photos, conspiracy theories.

Laura, meanwhile, held her tablet with both hands, the reflection of the videos playing dancing across her glasses. That was when a voice echoed.

It didn’t come from the room. It simply appeared, clear and unmistakable, inside their minds: (What you were watching)

Emily blinked first, glancing at her monitor, following the most obvious logic available. Laura did the same, shifting her attention back to the videos on her tablet.

The silence lasted only a few seconds: (I want to see them)

The voice did not change. There was no impatience. No threat. But there was no doubt, either. For some reason, an instinctive, primal reason, neither of them could interpret the words as a request.