Anomaly

Chapter 420 – From despair, hope is born [1]

(POV – Protagonist)

Time continued to pass peacefully... or at least that’s what I wanted to believe. The cabins and the entire new space they had prepared for me and my sisters were surprisingly comfortable, even cozy. The light-colored walls, the constant scent of freshly polished wood, and the soft lighting during the night gave the place a strangely welcoming atmosphere.

Honestly, I couldn’t complain about that part at all. In fact, for the first time in months, I could say with absolute certainty that it finally felt like I had a real home. Not just a door leading to some impersonal cubicle filled with random objects scattered around without meaning, but a place that actually felt... mine.

Sometimes I’d catch myself paying attention to stupid little details, like the quiet sound of the wind tapping against the windows or the way my sisters seemed more relaxed in this new environment.

Small things like that somehow made everything feel more real. Anyway, putting those thoughts aside, it was obvious that boredom would eventually show up. More specifically, four days after I got my cabin.

After spending so much time practically trapped, staying still started bothering me again. I wanted to walk around, explore, feel movement. So I thought about wandering through the facility’s corridors again.

Thankfully, that wasn’t difficult. I had a certain level of authorization to move through some areas of the facility, although there were clearly limits I probably shouldn’t cross if I didn’t want to damage Emily and Laura’s reputation with the High Council even further.

It was during some of those walks through the facility, desperate attempts to fight off boredom, that I started realizing something was wrong. The atmosphere felt... strange. Heavy. Everyone was unusually serious. Scientists hurried from one side of the halls to the other carrying stacks of documents, tablets, or equipment while exchanging quick words in hushed voices.

The agents, meanwhile, looked tense all the time, overly alert, like they were expecting something to happen at any second. The strangest part was that nobody even tried to hide it. There were no occasional smiles, no jokes between coworkers, none of the relaxed energy that usually appeared after a successful mission.

It was collective tension. Because of that, I figured the same atmosphere had probably spread throughout the entire facility, maybe even the upper floors. Even so, from my perspective, the reason remained completely unknown.

What made everything even stranger was the fact that only a few weeks ago we had just escaped a potential apocalyptic scenario. Considering the scale of the threat, I expected the agents to still be celebrating the simple fact that neither the city nor the world had been destroyed in the process.

Still, I knew something else was happening, so my next objective became gathering information. Needless to say, my attempts were... frustrating, for lack of a better word. Usually, whenever I subtly asked why everyone seemed so tense or serious, whether scientists or agents, the exact same routine played out.

As if they had rehearsed it countless times, their stiff expressions would magically soften instantly. Some even gave small smiles before ruffling my hair with annoyingly gentle head pats. Then came the classic weird response, always vague enough to mean absolutely nothing.

“Thanks for your concern”

“You don’t need to worry about that”

“Everything’s under control”

And then, without failing a single time, they’d either change the subject or outright ignore me, insisting there was nothing concerning happening. Seriously... the head pats were the worst part. Extremely rude.

I know it might not look like it, but I’m not a kid. My current body does have a few similarities to a teenager’s... even if, technically, I’m still a little smaller than one. Putting my height aside, which obviously doesn’t bother me at all, I also tried talking to Victor, Rupert, Laura, and Emily.

Victor and Rupert were slightly easier to approach than the girls, mostly because both of them visited frequently, making it hard not to run into them eventually. The results, however, were disappointing.

With Rupert, I got absolutely nothing. Honestly, it didn’t even seem like he knew, or had even noticed, the strange tension spreading through the facility over the past few days. While everyone else seemed more restless, suspicious, or at least curious, Rupert stayed exactly the same. Or almost.

There was something different about him... just not in the way I expected. It was like, overnight, Rupert had come to understand some absurd universal truth, something so profound that everything else had become irrelevant in his eyes.

He didn’t seem distracted, scared, or worried. Just... indifferent. Like he had simply stopped caring about anything that might happen from that point onward.

Victor was a little different. He seemed to know something, not much, but enough to realize that something was wrong. He mentioned some strange fluctuations appearing recently, although he didn’t go into detail. From the hesitant way he spoke, it was obvious he didn’t fully understand the situation himself.

In the end, I didn’t have much choice besides accepting that and moving on. I also didn’t want to interfere with the time Victor spent with Chronas.

Even though he insisted he didn’t mind, after all, technically, I was part of the family too, I still thought it was better to leave them alone in Chronas’s cabin during Victor’s rare free moments.

Especially because, lately, the missions had become ridiculously easy. So easy that he hadn’t even needed to show up for the last few operations.

Finally, Emily and Laura were dealing with a situation considerably more complicated than the other two. Honestly, it had already been quite a while since the last time I’d actually seen either of them properly.

The two of them had been so busy lately that it was rare to find them anywhere other than their offices or surrounded by researchers and agents, discussing important matters with serious expressions and exhausted eyes.

I could be pretty shameless when I wanted to, but even I didn’t think I could interrupt them during moments like that just to act like a spoiled child demanding answers.

So in the end, I simply let it go. I figured that, when the right time came, something would inevitably happen. And when it did, Emily and Laura would come talk to me one way or another.

Unexpectedly, that moment didn’t take very long to arrive. About two days after my not-so-subtle attempt to squeeze information out of some random passerby in the facility, both Emily and Laura showed up to visit me.

I was fairly surprised when I heard a few soft knocks on the door of my cabin. At that hour, I wasn’t expecting any visitors at all. So when I opened the door and found Emily and Laura standing outside, I couldn’t hide part of the surprise written across my face. Both of them looked slightly exhausted.

Emily was holding several thick folders against her chest, loose sheets partially sticking out from the sides as if she’d spent hours carrying them back and forth. Meanwhile, Laura had a sleek tablet resting against one arm, her fingers occasionally sliding across the glowing screen while she analyzed some important information.

The sight left me a little... no, very surprised. Not exactly because the two of them had shown up here. Before the tension spread throughout the entire facility, Emily and Laura used to stop by at least once every three days, which, now that I thought about it, was actually pretty frequent.

I simply blinked once... then twice, still trying to process the situation before instinctively stepping aside to let them in. Neither of them reacted at all. They walked past me in silence, their dragging footsteps faintly echoing through the small cabin. The wooden floor creaked beneath the tired weight of their bodies as they headed straight for the bed.

Without saying a word, both of them sat down on the edge of it, letting out long, heavy sighs almost at the exact same time. Their gazes looked slightly distant and unfocused, as if they were only moments away from passing out right there from sheer exhaustion. Then again... technically, they were already sitting on a bed, so weirdly enough, that made perfect sense.

I slowly closed the door behind them before turning my attention back toward the two of them. It had been quite a while since we’d last seen each other, which made this sudden visit even stranger. I remained standing in front of them, silently staring while waiting for some kind of explanation.

Laura was the first to react to my gaze. Her expression immediately turned complicated, almost uncomfortable, as though she was trying to decide where to begin. Unable to find the right words, she simply raised the tablet in her hands until the screen was visible to me.

I didn’t understand what exactly I was supposed to be looking at. On the tablet’s screen, there was only a graph filled with lines and constant fluctuations. At first, everything looked relatively normal, stable, low, and monotonous. But then, out of nowhere, the entire thing completely lost its mind.

The lines spiked chaotically, violently rising and falling without any visible pattern, and they remained in that abnormal state for a long time.

Even so, I still couldn’t understand what any of this had to do with me for the two of them to come see me of their own accord... Actually... Strangely enough, the image felt familiar.

A faint pressure formed in my head as I stared at the graph again, as though a distant memory was trying to force its way back to the surface.

I was almost certain I’d seen something similar before, even though I couldn’t remember where or when. Maybe my thoughts had shown on my face, because Emily lifted her eyes from the tablet and, a moment later, practically confirmed what I’d been thinking.

“Since you’ve apparently already figured it out, I don’t see any reason to drag this out longer than necessary...” Emily murmured in a low, weary tone, slowly raising a hand to her temple as she massaged it with her fingers.

The dark circles beneath her eyes were more noticeable than usual, and the slight hunch in her posture made it obvious she’d been spending far more time working than resting.

A heavy, exasperated sigh escaped her lips before she spoke again: “The fluctuations recorded here are extremely similar to the ones that occurred when your sister, Tenebrya, first appeared...”

She paused for a few seconds, her gaze shifting toward the countless holographic files and data-filled graphs hovering around her. Streams of information reflected across her eyes as though she were reorganizing her thoughts before continuing.

“To be honest, we’ve spent the last few months analyzing every record we could find...” Emily continued, the exhaustion in her voice becoming even more apparent: “And we noticed something remarkable: the exact same pattern repeated every single time one of your sisters appeared” Her expression grew slightly more serious as she lifted her eyes back toward me: “The energy signatures, the spatial disturbances, even the instability in the readings... everything matches almost perfectly”

The silence that followed made the atmosphere strangely heavy. I didn’t need much more than that to understand where the two of them were going with this. Basically, one of my little sisters had appeared... or was about to appear. Considering the pattern so far, that was probably exactly what was happening.