Anomaly Chapter 144 – Inside the mist [9]

At the end, in the face of the vastness of that presence, my steps ca to a complete halt. My golden eyes, shining intensely even through the thick mist, fixed on a single point. There, “sothing” moved — floating, or perhaps walking — in a way that was impossible to define.

My gaze remained locked on that figure as it passed, indifferent to everything around it. The world seed insignificant before it. Perhaps that’s why it didn’t co toward ... Because, to sothing so grand, I was too small — too insignificant to even be noticed.

Moreover, that thing was imnse — too large for to even form a clear thought about its true size. Miles, perhaps? It was the kind of scale that defied any common sense.

The surroundings remained in complete silence. Not even the cara strapped to my chest made a sound. Everything there seed dead, frozen in ti, except for the distant sound of that colossal entity in the background. Curiously, I didn’t feel as surprised to see it. I an, in the dream I had when rembering my past — the one where I was with Nekra — sothing similar had appeared.

In fact, what I saw in that dream was even bigger... so enormous that no mind could comprehend its vastness. It’s strange to say, but it was as if the abyss itself couldn’t contain it. And because it couldn’t contain it... it escaped. That’s how it reached Nekra. Well, anyway, we all know how that ended.

Anyway, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the thing in the distance also disappeared. Its outline — the only visible part from where I was — slowly faded away, as if it were being swallowed by the thick mist.

In the end, a final sharp scream echoed through the fog, cutting through the air like a lant. After that, everything returned to complete silence, leaving only the sound of the wind hissing, as if nothing had happened.

***

(POV - Emily Parker)

When that thing erged from the mist, Emily couldn’t make a sound. No scream, no sigh, no coherent thought ca to her mind — only a paralyzing emptiness. She just watched, motionless, as the creature slowly glided before her eyes.

As for the size... Emily couldn’t even conceive anything like it. From what she could tell, it could easily surpass the size of an entire city — maybe much more than that.

It was in that mont, surrounded by the thick mist and the oppressive silence, that Emily understood sothing profound: these creatures didn’t belong to any place she could imagine. They didn’t co from Earth, nor from any world conceived by the human mind. They were beings of a completely different order — strange, unfathomable, alien to everything Emily had ever seen.

It was while these thoughts tumbled in Emily’s mind that Victor’s voice sounded beside her, filled with frustration: “This is really ssed up...” he muttered, his eyes fixed on the horizon: “No matter what weapons we used, that thing probably wouldn’t even notice our presence, even if we were right underneath it”

Emily agreed with Victor’s words — humans were probably nothing more than ants in the eyes of that thing. They were too insignificant for it to bother deliberately harming them. However, Emily wasn’t sure if she should feel relieved or even more uneasy with that realization.

Rupert, standing next to Victor, let out a deep sigh, a sound filled with frustration that made everyone around turn to look. He ran a hand over his face, as if trying to dispel the weight of his thoughts: “How the hell did the world get turned upside down in just one night?” he said, his voice filled with disbelief, as if he still couldn’t grasp the sudden chaos.

Rupert’s question was probably the sa one everyone was asking themselves internally. Even Emily, when she first saw the mist, didn’t consider it a threat. In fact, she even stayed outside the shed for a few minutes, just staring into the emptiness, unhurried, unafraid.

But as she recalled that, Emily’s hand began to tremble. The weight of realization hit her suddenly: she had been a step away from death. Sothing invisible, sothing she didn’t understand, could have taken her without her ever having a chance to comprehend what was happening.

Moreover, there was no sign of where the cause of all this might be. It was as if they were in the absolute dark, without even a lantern or any light source, just wandering through the growing darkness. Each step led them to a deeper place, with no indication of an end, as if the void around them expanded infinitely.

With her head down and a heavy expression, Emily blinked her eyes, clearly filled with doubt, as a sense of discomfort took over her chest. Her mind was distant until, suddenly, Laura’s voice cut through the heavy silence of the environnt, making everyone present turn their attention to the sound: “Huh? What is that?”

Emily looked up, Laura’s words echoing in her mind as her focus shifted to the monitor in front of her. Her eyes narrowed, trying to pierce the thick mist obscuring her vision. But despite the murky scene, sothing seed to stand out.

A light? Or perhaps a bright glow, visible even through the dense fog, like a distant fla defying the surrounding darkness. Emily’s first thought was that another monster had appeared.

However, another thought quickly crossed her mind: what if it wasn’t? What if that was the key to ending this whole nightmare? The idea settled in her mind like a sharp blade, bringing a spark of hope.

Her gaze turned to Laura, Victor, and Rupert, who, like her, seed equally fascinated and unsettled by the mysterious glow. The light seed to be a beacon in the darkness, and for a mont, sothing deep within her reignited — a spark of hope, as if the weight of despair had finally lifted. Perhaps, just perhaps, not everything was lost. Even Emily, once so skeptical, was starting to allow herself to believe again.

***

(POV – Protagonist)

Currently, my eyes were fixed on a bright point in the distance. Even amidst the thick mist, that point glead with an intensity that seed to defy the fog. It was as if it was calling my attention, resisting the chaos around it.

I suppose Emily and the others were seeing that too, so I remained silent, waiting for them to say sothing. Honestly, I imagine that the sight of sothing so colossal, like the giant anomaly we had faced monts before, must have affected their morale.

After all, how could one accept that sothing so powerful and terrifying was loose in the world? I doubt any ordinary human mind could accept such a reality without questioning its sanity.

As these thoughts swirled in my mind, Emily's voice ca through the cara attached to my body, clear against the chaos inside: "[Angel of Death], can you hear ?" Her tone was soft, but there was an urgency that couldn’t be ignored.

I blinked slowly, and in the next mont, I leaned forward, locking my gaze directly onto the cara. To anyone else, I probably looked upside down. Either way, the distance between us prevented from communicating with Emily, and in the end, this was the only way to show I could hear her.

"Do you see that light? Do you think you can get to it?" Emily asked, her voice heavy with silent urgency, more of a plea than an order, as if her words were the last hope in the midst of chaos.

I focused on the cara for a mont, feeling the weight of the situation before returning to my usual posture. My eyes fixed again on the distant light, but honestly, I had no idea how far it actually was.

For all I knew, it could take weeks, maybe even months, to reach that point. Sure, I had thods to move faster, but with the cara strapped to my chest, any attempt to use them would be, at best, risky. Moreover, my options were limited.

Anyway, standing still wouldn’t help. I knew the solution would co little by little as I walked. With that thought, I took the first step, moving my feet slowly, and began walking toward the bright light cutting through the fog.

With each step, I felt a strange sensation, as if I were sinking deeper into this misty space. As I advanced, sothing in the air began to shift. Subtle, unusual vibrations spread around , as though the mist itself were alive.

I could sense it clearly, perhaps more than any normal person could, because my senses, as an anomaly, were far more attuned than a regular being’s. Sothing was different, and I could feel it.

More precisely, it was the awareness of everything around . Even though I couldn’t see clearly because of the thick fog, I could feel that there were many things around . Yet none of them seed to have the intent to attack .

In fact, they seed more like they were hiding, trying to camouflage themselves in the thick haze. Honestly, this was sothing new, even interesting, from my point of view.

If the anomalies in this fog were hiding, that could an there were other anomalies out here, hunting them. Almost like an invisible ecosystem, where each creature played its role in a network of predators and prey.

The fog was thick enough to erase the horizon, a gray shroud that seed to swallow the world around . With every step, the sand gave way beneath my feet, dry on top, but moist and sticky underneath, as if the earth itself were trying to pull in. It was strange.

But nothing, really, was strange to . Not anymore. The air here was dense, heavy, as though it were trapped, still. The silence was absolute, broken only by the soft friction of my feet against the grains of sand. Until, in the middle of the stillness, I heard it. Sothing crawling. Not one... many.

They erged from the mist, as if expelled from so putrid womb of the world. Worms. Long, translucent, grotesque. Their bodies pulsed with a distorted energy, sothing that resembled life, but in a twisted, artificial way.

So showed sharp teeth, others had hollow eyes — and so just trembled, as if in agony. They writhed frantically, but not toward . They were fleeing, as though sothing else was hunting them, sothing even more terrifying that drove them to escape.

Instinctively, I should’ve been on high alert, but I didn’t feel anything. I just watched, with a calm that made no sense in that mont. The earth trembled, first almost imperceptibly, and then with increasing force, as though sothing colossal was trying to erge from the heart of the world.

Then, the sand exploded upward, a snap of earth that seed to tear through the very fabric of the ground. One of the worms, huge and monstrous, was ripped from the soil, emitting a guttural sound — if it could be called a scream — before being torn in half by massive jaws, forged not for chewing, but for devastation.

The creature that erged was colossal, a twisted vision of nature. A deford crocodile, its irregular scales and exposed flesh looking as though they had been hastily and wrongly stitched together, as if the very essence of life had been violated.

Its body was broken, with grotesque bone shapes and misaligned joints, but still, it moved with relentless power. It lived, killed, existed in an insane and unstoppable way. Its eyes, deep and injected with a malevolent gleam, locked onto . I was seen.

Its eyes fixed on , deep and attentive. The silence between us wasn’t threatening — it was a kind of silent recognition. Sothing in its gaze told it knew what I was, as if we had t at a convergence point where sides no longer mattered.

I stared back without hesitation. I didn’t retreat or advance. I just stood there, motionless, as though ti itself had slowed around us. Fear didn’t co. It never does. Not since I beca what I am. And even if it did, it would be just another wave breaking against a hollow rock, without force, without echo.

Then, without any warning or ceremony, the monster sank back into the sand, taking with it the silence it had shattered. The sound of the worms disappeared, swallowed by the vastness of the desert, and everything returned to the quiet it had been before.

The mist, thick and unyielding, enveloped once again, as though what had happened had been just a fleeting nightmare. In the next mont, without hesitation, I continued my walk, as if nothing had altered the course of my destiny.