Honestly, back then, I just brushed off Althea’s words, treating it all like a simple joke. By that point, I had already recovered most of my mories from the ti I spent with her, which gave a pretty clear understanding of her personality.
If I had to sum up Althea in a few words, I’d say she’s the kind of person who loves playing pranks on others — always with that mischievous smile and an unpredictability that’s almost annoying.
Of course, back then, Althea’s pranks never worked on ... Or rather, I always found a way to flip the script and turn them against her. In a way, that was our pattern, the predictable cycle of teasing and little tricks that ended with her laughing, even when she was the victim of her own trap.
Because I knew this dynamic so well, I was absolutely sure Althea would never do anything that could actually hurt humans... At least, that’s what I honestly believed.
Of course, when I thought that way, I wasn’t considering one small detail: how radical or disproportionate the definition of “a joke” could be in the hands of a [Conceptual Virtue]. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t just an inside joke between the two of us. It was way... beyond that.
In the days that followed, the place where the scientists usually showed up to study us — and my sisters — stayed completely empty. And when I say completely, I an it in the most literal and absolute sense: there was not a single sign of any of them.
No hurried footsteps in the hallways, no distant voices echoing through the speakers, no creaking of lab doors opening. It was like the entire facility had suddenly been abandoned, turning into so kind of ghost structure.
To be honest, I barely left my room to check things out closely, so I can’t say for sure what’s really going on outside... But one thing’s curious: the treats, especially the ice cream I love so much, keep arriving as usual, dropped off at the sa ti and place as always.
Anyway, by then, my eyes were already fixed on Althea. For so reason, she seed oddly pleased with the attention I was giving her, like she was enjoying the situation. There was an unusual sparkle in her eyes, almost malicious, as she moved in a subtly provocative way, like she wanted to catch even more of my attention.
I frowned, suspicious, and let the question arise in my mind, my voice echoing like an internal whisper: (Althea... you did sothing, didn’t you?)
The mont I asked, Althea seed to shudder, like my words had struck her by surprise. A flash of hurt appeared in her eyes, and her wings — attached at the tailbone, previously slightly raised — dropped heavily onto her back, reflecting her disappointnt.
Her voice ca out low and trembling, filled with disappointnt: “Sister... even you? I already told you I didn’t do anything...”
Honestly, Althea was always suspicious... incredibly suspicious, to be exact. Every gesture, every look, seed to hide so ulterior motive. Still, the mont she said that, all my suspicion just faded away.
The reason? It’s simple: [Conceptual Virtues] rarely lie. In fact, they don’t even know what lying ans. Not because of morality, but because they’ve never had a real reason to use that kind of trick... deceiving soone simply isn’t part of their nature.
Of course, Althea was an exception in many ways. After all, she had spent so ti living as a human — which, in theory, could have taught her the value (or danger) of a well-told lie. But even so... at that specific mont, looking into her eyes, I just couldn’t believe she was trying to deceive . It didn’t make sense. Not with that. Not with her.
In the end, even though I clearly sensed sothing unusual was going on outside, I decided to just ignore it. Honestly, this kind of situation isn’t new around here anymore. The anomalies keep playing tricks, forcing the scientists and guards at the facility to rush into action. You could even say that, while events like this don’t happen every day, they’re far from rare. It’s almost part of the routine.
Sure, I was kind of curious about why Emily and Laura had just stopped their casual visits to my cell. It wasn’t like them to disappear without any warning or la excuse. Still, considering no one had co to get so far, I figured that whatever was going on outside hadn’t completely gotten out of control yet. At least, not for now.
***
(POV – Emily Parker)
Laura, who had been quietly watching the situation unfold from the corner, suddenly turned sharply toward Emily. Her eyes wide, breath quickened, her voice ca out in a barely contained panic: “Boss... things are totally getting out of hand!”
Emily and Laura were currently in a containnt room deep within the facility. The walls were lined with thick reinforced steel panels, each inch ticulously sealed, not just to maintain strict environntal control but also to block any kind of external interference — whether technological, psychic, or even sensory.
The lighting was cold and deliberately dim, designed to minimize unnecessary stimuli. The air had a faint tallic scent, an inevitable result of constant filtering and purification systems running nonstop.
In the center of the silent room rested the anomalous object: a tallic cube about fifty centiters on each side, gently floating a few inches above the floor, held steady by an almost imperceptible magnetic containnt field. Its matte surface showed an uneven graphite shade, with patches and textures that seed to pulse, as if the very matter fought to stay cohesive.
From its edges, small pulses of whitish light slowly traveled, radiating a subtle, almost alive energy, reminiscent of the steady rhythm of a deep, constant breath. The air around it vibrated faintly, as if the cube influenced the environnt.
Around him, a dozen cognitive field emitters pulsed, staying active despite increasing wear, trying—in vain—to contain the relentless effects of the impending collapse. The warning lights on the walls flickered irregularly, shifting between a nervous yellow and an urgent red, casting trembling shadows that danced across the tension-filled room.
Emily leaned over the ergency terminal, her fingers sliding and tapping frantically over the keyboard. The bluish glow of the monitor reflected off her tense face, illuminating beads of sweat forming on her forehead. Lines of control code scrolled rapidly across the screen, moving too fast even for her sharp, trained eyes.
“This isn’t just a simple instability spike...” Emily said, her voice tight, abruptly halting the calculations on the monitor. Her eyes locked onto Laura’s, filled with concern: “The field’s amplitude has expanded absurdly over the last three hours. The signal bypassed every external filter—not only that, it’s interfering with systems that should be completely isolated” She took a deep breath, trying to control the growing anxiety inside her, as the numbers blinked wildly on the screen, reflecting the intensity of the phenonon.
Laura kept her gaze fixed on the cube, her dilated pupils reflecting the faint light emanating from the object. Silence hung between them for a few seconds, heavy with tension, until she finally broke it with a low, trembling voice: “Do we have confirmation of this?” she asked, clearly anxious as she bit her lip lightly, trying to hide the nervousness creeping in.
Emily took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling slowly, as if needing a brief mont to gather courage before answering. Her eyes t Laura’s, filled with silent worry.
“Unfortunately... we do” Emily said softly, almost a whisper.
Then she turned the tablet screen toward Laura. On the display, a series of digital maps glowed in cool tones, each showing dozens of red dots rapidly spreading like voracious flas across several cities near the base where the cube was contained. The pace of the spread was alarmingly fast, as if an invisible countdown was underway.
Watching the situation with a tense gaze and a shadow of concern marking her features, Emily spoke firmly but unsettled: “The information containnt protocol has failed...”
Laura stepped back from the wall hesitantly, eyes fixed on the cube before her. She walked slowly, as if every movent required effort, stopping just a few feet from the enigmatic object. Her voice ca low, almost a whisper, more to herself than to Emily: “That ans... they’re rembering, right?”
A silence hung in the air before she continued, her expression a mix of surprise and apprehension: “All those civilians... all those ordinary people... are starting to rember”
Emily nodded, swallowing hard, a pang of unease running through her body. She couldn’t help but notice the cruel irony of the situation: the goal had been to erase every trace of the fog that had taken over the region, so people could resu their “normal” lives. But instead of forgetting, those people were actually recalling.
“All the mory wipes done by the cube so far... every event, from the first initial test to the most recent anomalous exposure incident... the mories are coming back, clear and relentless. They’re not just scattered fragnts or isolated recollections... it’s everything, absolutely everything that had been erased, resurfacing all at once”
For a mont, the silence in the room seed to double its weight, as if the very air had grown dense and suffocating. The civilians—those who had witnessed anomalous manifestations, disturbing episodes that required ticulous mory wipe sessions—were now recovering, piece by piece, mories that should have been wiped clean forever.
Images erged in their minds: fleeting, unsettling apparitions, reality distortions that defied logic, ti glitches tearing chunks from the present, and manifestations of indescribable entities that should never have existed in this world.
What worried them most was that the mories didn’t return gradually or in a controlled way. On the contrary, they ca back abruptly and violently, as if exploding inside the minds of those affected. Often, this chaotic return was accompanied by intense collective panic attacks, uncontrolled psychotic outbreaks, and a rapid collapse of public order in the affected regions, plunging entire cities into chaos and despair.
On the monitoring screen, a live feed showed footage captured by drones silently hovering over the city. In the streets, desperate crowds spread out: people scread in panic, tears stread down faces marked by fear, while others stood completely still, as if frozen in ti, catatonic before the chaos.
“Do we have any chance of reversing this?” Laura asked, turning slowly to Emily, her eyes reflecting a mix of hope and apprehension.
Emily hesitated, eyes glued to the unstable readings flashing on the cube’s panel. The bluish light reflected on her face, highlighting the anxiety creeping in: “I... honestly don’t know” she murmured, voice heavy with uncertainty: “We never designed a reversal protocol for this. The cube doesn’t seem to have been made to restore mories... only to erase them” She looked away, the weight of responsibility clearly visible, as if every word carried tons of weight in the room’s silence.
But Emily wasn’t exactly worried about the world descending into chaos. There were protocols and strict asures to contain the situation, using other anomalies controlled by the organization. However, erasing mories seed completely off the table.
In other words, people would have to learn to live with the reality that beings beyond human comprehension existed—and that they could appear at any mont near their hos. In the end, despite their efforts to hide this fact with all their might, the truth was unavoidable: the world was about to enter a new era. An era imposed abruptly and forcefully.
Sure, Emily wasn’t being completely upfront about what was really on her mind. For her, it wasn’t just a malfunction of the anomaly or so technical glitch — there was sothing deeper, a nagging feeling that they were dealing with so kind of external interference.
Whenever that thought crossed her mind, a vivid image would form: the mory of a specific anomaly, with an angelic appearance, whose mysterious and almost ethereal presence seed to defy any rational explanation. That figure, with its soft outlines and a faint glow, kept insisting on occupying her thoughts.
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