Anomaly

After hearing that name spoken by both anomalies, Emily stayed silent for several minutes. Her mind was spinning at high speed, as if dozens of gears were turning simultaneously. Thoughts rushed past each other, each leading to different scenarios—some plausible, others absurdly unlikely.
She tried to foresee consequences, understand hidden connections, fit pieces of an unfinished puzzle. Although she knew it was all speculation, there was something she felt with unshakable certainty: something big was about to happen. Maybe not today, maybe not even next year... but it would happen. That conviction weighed on her chest like an inevitable premonition, impossible to ignore.
Extremely powerful anomalies were appearing one after another—that definitely didn’t seem normal. Since the
was discovered in that isolated forest, cases not only multiplied... they evolved.
The anomalies, or rather the so-called
, as Arthur insisted on calling them, kept showing up relentlessly, almost as if something had been awakened. Emily had never stopped to think about it before, but now, while reviewing the latest records, a troubling question began to haunt her mind—one she could no longer ignore.
(After all, why would the
be in that forest in the first place? An anomaly like that would hardly go unnoticed wandering around. In fact, it didn’t seem like it had arrived there—but rather that it had emerged from the heart of the forest, as if summoned or born from the very silence of the place) Emily thought, raising an eyebrow, intrigued.
At the exact moment she was lost in thought, the metallic, distinctive sound of the containment room door echoed through the cold, sterile walls. Emily and Laura, inside the room, immediately turned their gazes toward the entrance.
Victor’s figure appeared in the doorway, his expression carrying his usual calm, but his sharp eyes briefly scanned the two anomalies present before he started approaching, his firm footsteps echoing on the smooth floor as he came closer.
“Did something happen?” Emily asked, tilting her head slightly and raising an eyebrow in concern.
Hearing Emily’s question, Victor let out a tired sigh before answering, his voice heavy with restrained frustration: “The camera we installed on the
just lost signal... It happened shortly after you two left. There was no visible interference—it just... went dark”
Emily raised an eyebrow again, her hand moving to her chin in a thoughtful gesture. Her eyes sparkled with restrained curiosity, and a slight frown betrayed her ongoing reasoning.
“Was it attacked?” she murmured, more to herself than to the others: “Maybe by one of the fog monsters...” she finished softly, mentally weighing the possibilities as she analyzed recent events.
“I can’t rule that out” Victor replied, his face tense with the strain accumulating: “But honestly, it doesn’t seem like it. From where I stand, everything points to something starting to interfere with the signal just before the
reached that bright spot we’d been tracking in the fog”
After hearing Victor’s explanation, Emily concluded that the signal instability—and its subsequent loss—was related to the bright spot that had appeared in the fog. It was the only solid clue so far. Still, she remained completely in the dark about what could have actually caused it.
Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a voice nearby. The sudden call made her turn instinctively, catching Laura and Victor’s attention as well, who reacted the same way.
“Signal?... Camera?... what’s that?” Nekra asked, her eyes shining with curiosity as she furrowed her brow slightly. Her voice sounded strangely deep, with an almost ethereal tone contrasting with her inquisitive expression.
The next moment, a short, captivating laugh echoed through the room. Compared to Nekra’s usual laugh, this one sounded strangely alluring, as if it carried a subtle spell capable of hypnotizing anyone who heard it—it was Althea.
She knew that curious look of Nekra’s well—a bright, almost childlike sparkle that appeared whenever something caught her interest. However, as far as Althea knew, that particular look rarely appeared unless her mysterious “sister” was visiting.
“Imagine the camera as an eye that never blinks” Althea said softly, almost reverently, as if speaking about something sacred. Her eyes fixed on the horizon, she continued: “It watches everything in front of it, every tiny detail, every shadow that moves—but just seeing isn’t enough. It needs to tell something, someone, everything it sees”
Nekra tilted her head slightly, her eyes shining with wonder, absorbing every word like an enchanted child hearing a story for the first time. Althea smiled again, her face lit with a mix of tenderness and amusement as she watched her sister, finding her incredibly cute in that moment of sincere, innocent attention.
“That’s where the signal comes in” Althea continued, her eyes sparkling: “The signal is what makes the image travel from one place to another. Sometimes it shows up as a pulsing electricity changing shape, like a drawing made of living light running through wires, almost dancing on its way. Other times, the image turns into a complex sequence of magical numbers—a secret code only machines can decode and understand”
“So... the camera captures what it sees, converts that image into a signal... and that signal is sent somewhere else, where the image is displayed, right?” Nekra asked, her golden eyes shining intensely, her dark purple pupils glinting with a newly discovered understanding. A slight smile of fascination played at the corners of her lips as she grasped the idea, almost as if solving a small mystery before her.
Althea nodded slowly, a proud gleam lighting up her deep, attentive eyes: “Exactly” she said, her voice full of conviction: “It’s like the camera is a storyteller made of light, and the signal is the silent messenger carrying that story to those who will see it”
Nekra closed her eyes briefly, her expression thoughtful. The silence stretched around them until she murmured softly, almost to herself: “An eye that speaks with invisible wires... humans really do have a knack for creating strange things”
Althea chuckled softly, finding Nekra’s words oddly amusing—a mix of irony and truth she couldn’t deny. After all, those observations resonated deeply within her, especially after spending so much time living among humans. Although, compared to the vastness of her existence, that human life chapter was just a tiny drop in a vast open sea.
With a subtle gleam in her eyes, she murmured, almost like a promise: “And you haven’t even seen half of it yet”
The next moment, Althea’s gaze slowly shifted to the people around her. Victor, Arthur, and Emily also turned their eyes toward the anomaly, each wearing expressions blending apprehension and curiosity. In a steady voice, yet filled with a strange mix of respect and caution, Althea said: “But from what you’ve said, now I’m absolutely sure: this is Nyara. She’s always been difficult to approach—her nature is unstable, almost unpredictable. Nyara can cause distortions in the law of cause and effect simply by existing”
She paused: “Ah, but my sister never had trouble with that...” she continued, her voice softening with a hint of nostalgia: “That was before. Honestly, I have no idea how it’ll be now. Nyara’s concept has always been considered one of the strongest among us sisters, so much so that we called her uncontrollable. Even we didn’t understand how my sister managed to get close to her without suffering the effects of Nyara’s trait” Althea looked away for a moment, her eyes lost in deep memories.
Emily, Arthur, and Victor exchanged glances at the anomaly’s words. Victor’s gaze was skeptical, his eyes narrowed as if trying to decode every nuance of what had been said. Laura, standing beside him, wore an expression marked by quiet worry, her fingers nervously fidgeting with the edge of her sleeve.
Meanwhile, Emily remained still, absorbing the moment with a barely audible sigh—an old saying echoing in her mind right then: (Even if you don’t seek the storm, it always finds a way to reach you)
My eyes stayed fixed on the orb from the moment it silently emerged beside the lake. The surroundings fell into a heavy, absolute silence, as if the very air had stopped flowing. It seemed no one quite knew what to say; each breath became exaggeratedly loud in that moment of anticipation.
However, that unsettling silence didn’t apply to the trio who had brought us there, especially the man I met near the forest entrance. Somehow, he wore a calm, almost enigmatic smile, like he had predicted all of this, as if he expected the orb to appear right then.
Then, in the next instant, my eyes slid downward. Slowly, I raised one hand before me and fixed my attention on it. My golden eyes emitted a faint, nearly imperceptible light that seemed to dance across the transparent skin of my hand. A subtle shimmer, as if my skin was covered in tiny sparkling glitter flakes, reflecting light in a magical, strange way.
It was an unusual feeling—even knowing that hand clearly wasn’t normal, for a moment, it felt like the most natural thing in the world to me. I couldn’t quite understand why I thought that; it was just a fleeting flash that passed silently and mysteriously through my mind.
Anyway, as these thoughts crossed my mind, a chilling wind swept over my body. But there was something odd about that cold air, different from the typical biting wind you’d expect in a snow-covered place.
The breeze didn’t just make my skin prickle; it reverberated inside me, as if the cold had passed through every fiber of my being—even though I had no bones to feel it. It was a deep, almost supernatural sensation that made me shudder in a way I couldn’t explain.
Still, it seemed the others hadn’t felt the wind, but I already knew why. It wasn’t an ordinary wind that passed through me—what hovered there was a faint remnant of darkness, something so subtle only I could perceive it.
In the next moment, as I raised my gaze toward the orb, a black silhouette suddenly emerged. Its body looked like thick, swirling black smoke curling slowly around it, while its face glowed with a vast red light, as if its eyes were burning embers.
Those same eyes kept staring intently at the orb before them. Then, they shifted and locked onto me. It was my Alter Ego. The way he looked at me—so intense and silent—stirred an odd, inexplicable discomfort inside me.
I didn’t know exactly why, and that uncertainty was what troubled me most. It was as if that old connection, that silent understanding we shared just by existing, had suddenly been severed.
The intentions I used to feel so clearly, the thoughts I could almost hear in the silence of his gaze—all of it had vanished. Now, faced with that empty stare, I couldn’t sense any intention at all. It was like an invisible barrier had risen between us, making everything feel strange and distant.
At first, I decided to step closer. Just like I did with Althea, I figured touching that mysterious orb might trigger some reaction, something to give me a clue. After all, I had no other idea what to do.
But just before my feet touched the dark, muddy surface of the lake, my senses suddenly shot up. It was like a wave of danger pulsed in the air, a visceral, unmistakable feeling that made me instinctively pull back, lifting my feet off the lake before I even understood what was happening.
In the next moment, I blinked and slowly raised my eyes again. I fixed them on the figure of my Alter Ego. His red, intense, burning eyes seemed to shine brighter than ever, as if they were burning straight at me.
His body exhaled thick smoke, as always, but this time it was much denser, heavy with a deep black that seemed almost solid. The mist spread with an unsettling intensity, wrapping him in a dark, heavy aura.
A cold foreboding ran down my spine—something inside me screamed that if I dared take even one step closer, I would be attacked immediately. My Alter Ego wouldn’t hesitate; he would attack me without mercy.