novelraw Chapter 628: Anna
Chapter 628: Anna
Himmfast had an inherent flaw.
The colonization of the Allen Peninsula began after the war. Due to the emergence of anomalies, the Exorcist Association mediated, and Macdonald I abandoned the construction of city walls, proclaiming a policy of openness and trade.
Although most understood the real reason—the exorbitant cost of construction.
Subsequent rulers continued this policy, which led to the prosperity of Belfast.
[Himmfast Ready for the Anomaly Fog Invasion!]
On the sixth day after their return to the Elm Forest, the news was accompanied by a photo of the "preparations"—a palisade of logs driven into the earth, encircling Himmfast.
Entire trees, felled in forests tens of kilometers away, were stripped of their branches and pounded into the ground—the quickest way to erect a wall.
Its strength was irrelevant, for it was not meant to withstand catapults or soldiers.
With the onset of darkness, braziers lit along the wall were supposed to hold back the advancing anomaly fog.
Jimmy took the newspaper Lu Li had finished reading and brought it to Remi, who was watching over the garden patch. The loose soil there was darker than the surrounding earth—Remi had just watered it.Rustle~
The branches overhead swayed quietly as tender little leaves silently sprouted from the dark-brown boughs, as if welcoming a guest.
A phantom white hand offered Lu Li a book. He took it, and Anna, holding her skirt, settled beside him, folding her hands gracefully in her lap.
"You're too immersed in someone else's memories," Lu Li's gaze lingered on Anna for a moment before returning to the open book. "They're affecting you."
Memories have a stronger impact than books, plays, or stories.
Like a boy who, upon first hearing tales of a hero's deeds, cherishes those fantasies for a long time. Or even begins to identify with the hero himself.
"They surface on their own when I'm busy with something," Anna paused. Sarah's memories would arise as if they were her own, and even more frequently.
When she prepared food for Lu Li, she would involuntarily remember Sarah doing the same for Adam. When Lu Li fell asleep, visions of Sarah's nightly vigils before the mirror would appear before her. Even while hunting, her thoughts would return to the power gained from the victims of Sarah's deadly game.
Even in moments of peace, her mind was filled with images of Sarah.
It was as inevitable as breathing or thinking.
"Don't lose yourself," was all Lu Li could say.
He didn't fully understand what Anna was experiencing, but he knew her torment surpassed any imagination.
"Don't worry. Whatever happens... I won't harm you," Anna smiled softly.
That night, Lu Li had a rare dream, one born from reality.
After the events in Ellen Royal City, Lu Li had agreed with Anna's reasoning to leave Sarah and Adam in peace. They returned to Typhoon with York, staying there for a day.
In the church, the radio on the pulpit had transformed into a transmitter for evil spirits, and a faint figure could be glimpsed in the confessional. As Lu Li walked past, a piece of parchment slipped out from the crack.
[Do not grant Adam's request]—the inscription read.
Thump, thump...
Lu Li started at the sound of his own heart. The crackle of firewood in the hearth. Anna turned from the table, her face, illuminated by the oil lamp, filled with concern. "A nightmare?"
Perhaps Lu Li felt regret, but who could say for sure.
Returning to his dream, he continued down the same thread.
This time, an alternate path.
Leaving the church, Anna whispered of the torment of a being deprived of a body: a stilled heart, a cold that pierced to the very core. She yearned to feel the flow of blood in her veins once more.
A commotion downstairs nearly woke Lu Li. Hooligans had burst into the inn. Anna coldly threw them out.
One of them, stumbling in fear, fell. Anna's distorted shadow overtook him, stepping into his reflection.
Fragments of another's memories flooded Anna's consciousness, and with them came the beat of a heart and the sensation of blood in a body.
In a Typhoon restaurant, patrons and waiters watched in horror as a young man madly stuffed food into his mouth. His stomach swelled like a pregnant woman's.
Before the worried owner could approach, the young man collapsed onto the table. The shadow silently withdrew.
Anna didn't like that body...
The chaos of memories changed her. Anna's projection wandered the streets, soon possessing the shadow of another girl, a pretty one.
"This one isn't right either..." Anna murmured. The girl's memories were more complicated than she had expected.
The projection continued its search for a suitable vessel. By the time Lu Li awoke from his dream, Anna was no longer the same.
The jumble of memories had blurred her consciousness. Though Anna remained Anna, not some collection of entities.
But her thoughts, her actions, were now woven from those other lives.
A stranger named Anna.
When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
...
The next morning, the new issue of the Investigator Weekly brought good news.
"We did it!" Remi clenched her fists at the edge of the garden patch.
Amidst the dark-brown, loose earth, a bright green sprout had pushed through.
Whether it was a reawakened weed or a sweet potato shoot, it was the first sprout in their field.
Although two days earlier, Enni had already unfurled a leaf the size of a fingernail, and the nameless plant in the pot had grown by a finger's length.
Remi barely restrained the urge to dig up the soil to check. After the Trader left, she turned her attention to the Investigator Weekly.
"News of a new calamity in the Wastelands."
The exorcists had reached the source of the disaster—an oasis with withered groves and decaying villages.
The paper reported on their successes: to avoid a repeat of a catastrophe like the Night Calamity, every member of the team was proceeding with extreme caution. Good news was expected soon.
In the afternoon, Anna returned from her hunt with an interesting find: a fishing trap.
The next morning, once the anomaly fog had receded, the inhabitants of the Elm Forest (except for Amper and the children) descended from the cliff with Anna to the reefs.
The roar of the surf was louder here. Black waves crashed furiously against the rocks, churning up white foam.
The waves at the reefs were too strong. The question wasn't about the catch, but whether the wire trap would survive at all.
On the shallows at the edge of the reefs, Anna baited the trap, tied a rope to a rock, and lowered it into the water.
They could only check it that evening or the next day, and it might well be empty.
But the ritual of the act was more important than the catch itself.
Remi and Jimmy stood on the reefs, ankle-deep in the water, breathing in the sea air. Lu Li raised his dark eyes, his gaze sweeping over the ruins of Belfast and the deserted lighthouse at the edge of the cliffs.
Its light had gone out long ago.