Anomaly Chapter 265 – Timeless State [22]

(POV – Emily Parker)

After Emily’s words, the room sank into a heavy silence. No one dared to speak—not even Victor. Emily knew why, and although a flicker of guilt ran through her, she didn’t take it back. She couldn’t. Everything she had said—every word, every gesture, every glance—had been genuine. Not a single word had slipped by accident, and none of them were fake. They all ca from her, consciously and deliberately. And that was a truth even she couldn’t deny.

Amid the silence, Emily found herself lost in her own thoughts. She watched the situation unfold with calm detachnt, analyzing every word spoken by the [Angel of Death]. Nothing escaped her mind—every movent, every nuance. The idea of an anomaly being able to create a human from absolute nothingness wasn’t exactly new... but now, faced with the evidence, it was impossible to ignore the weight of that possibility.

Anomalies are spreading across the planet — and in so cases, even beyond its boundaries. Each one manifests powers that distort, shatter, and reinvent the very laws humanity once thought it understood.

At tis, Emily caught herself wondering: “What if humans were created by an anomaly?” It was a simple, almost naïve thought—one of those ideas that appear and fade just as quickly.

Even so, Emily hadn’t forgotten it. She didn’t dismiss it as foolish—she simply tucked it away sowhere in her mind, where unsettling ideas waited to make sense. Without proof, theorizing about sothing so absurd was just a waste of ti... yet part of her still wondered, what if?

But now, the evidence Emily had been searching for was right before her. In silence, she observed Victor’s sister sitting motionless on the bed. The girl remained quiet, her body stiff, as if still trying to comprehend what was happening around her.

Her eyes—an intense red crossed by bluish pupils—swept across the room before finally locking onto Emily’s. A shiver ran down Emily’s spine under that strange, enigmatic stare. Even if her body looked completely human, those eyes most definitely were not.

Whenever Emily t them, chills crawled down her back. It was like staring into a bottomless abyss, where darkness seed to swallow even the light itself; like falling into a pit with no end; like gazing into the universe only to realize how small and fragile she truly was in the face of sothing so vast and incomprehensible.

Faced with that strange feeling that wrapped around her as she stared into “Sara’s” unfathomable eyes, Emily frowned slightly. There was sothing about that presence that unsettled her — as if a quiet premonition were taking shape at the back of her mind. For a mont, she hesitated.

“Your na...” she murmured, letting the words fade into the air. Realizing that wasn’t quite what she ant to ask, she took a deep breath and corrected herself in a cautious tone: “Actually... your identity — do you still rember it?”

“Sara” still sitting on the bed, didn’t answer right away. She just stared at Emily in silence—her face expressionless, her mismatched eyes reflecting a calm that felt almost otherworldly. Ti seed to stretch within that wordless exchange until she finally tilted her head in a faint nod.

Her lips moved with an almost chanical grace, and her voice echoed through the air — soft and asured, a soulless lody, balanced yet completely devoid of emotion: “I was gifted the na Chronas by my dear sister... when ti finally settled”

Her words fell dry and cold—stripped of any warmth or humanity. They reverberated through the room, filling the air with a nearly tangible weight until they reached the three of them—Emily, Laura, and Victor. Slowly, Emily turned toward Victor, who still had his back to her.

Even without seeing his face, his feelings were clear. His body trembled with restraint, his fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles had gone pale. On the floor, a thin red stain spread outward—the fresh blood contrasting sharply with the floor, a silent reflection of the storm boiling inside him.

From the corner of her eye, Emily noticed that Sara—or maybe Chronas—was watching Victor. There was an odd serenity in her expression, a calm that clashed with the tension around them. Her lips moved slowly, as if tasting every word before speaking, and her voice ca out soft but steady: “But I also rember the na my human parents gave ... Sara”

Those words—simple yet impossibly heavy—made Victor’s trembling stop completely. His hands, once clenched tight, opened almost involuntarily. Slowly, he turned to face Sara, still seated on the bed.

His eyes, slightly widened, reflected confusion—and sothing close to awe. His half-open mouth released a dense silence as he stared at Sara, as though seeing her for the very first ti.

Emily cast a sideways glance at Victor, trying to read the expression on his face before turning her attention back to “Sara” sitting at the edge of the bed. Her lips moved slightly, but no sound ca out. Hesitant, she wet her lips before speaking in a low, uncertain voice: “Do you rember? Your human parents? The life you had? Victor?”

“Perfectly” Sara replied, without a hint of visible emotion—her tone almost cold, as though each word had been carefully weighed.

Victor remained silent even after “Sara’s” words—his sister, the person he cherished most in this world. His lips parted, but no words ca. He didn’t know what to think. Was that truly his sister... or just an aberration wearing her face? The doubt ate at him from within.

After all, what defined soone as truly human? The mories they carried? The personality shaped through the years? Or the experiences and feelings they had grown into?

But if all of that could be copied, rebuilt, or distorted... what difference did it make? A shiver ran down Victor’s spine. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that crept over him every ti he looked at her—at that familiar face that sohow no longer felt the sa.

However, completely ignoring Victor’s condition, “Sara” who had remained silent until then, finally spoke—her voice soft, almost nostalgic: “On my first birthday, I rember Mom and Dad spent months planning everything ahead of ti. They wanted it to be perfect. But when the day finally ca, Dad forgot to give the new address... We had moved two months earlier, and because of that, the cake ended up being delivered to the old house—days away from the new one. In the end, Mom improvised a huge dinner, full of laughter and slls I can still rember. We all ate together... and that’s how we celebrated my birthday”

Victor blinked slowly, trying to shake off the numbness that clouded his mind. When he finally looked up, he saw her—his “sister” Crimson eyes, streaked with bluish pupils, stared back at him with unsettling intensity. Even without the faintest trace of emotion on that inhuman face, Victor, defying all logic, could still discern the shadow of the sister he once knew.

“On my tenth birthday...” Sara continued, her tone flat, almost detached, as if rely recording facts: “You took to an amusent park with Mom and Dad. I had cotton candy—my favorite color, pink, fluffy and sticky, clinging to my fingers. We went on so many rides—the carousel spinning as I laughed nonstop—and you bought a tiara. You said that, for that day, I was a princess... even though I didn’t feel anything special about it”

Victor was speechless, unable to form a reply. What could he possibly say to that? Every word from that entity was a carefully preserved mory—etched in his mind, carved into his heart—remnants of the ti he had spent with Sara.

And now, there stood soone—or sothing—recounting every detail with almost cruel precision: the conversations they once had, the small gestures they shared, the monts that defined their lives, each fragnt exposed as if under a microscope.

“I think it was around that ti that I started to feel... distant” Sara went on, unfazed by the stares or thoughts of those around her: “I still talked to my friends, to Mom and Dad... but it was as if the words had lost their aning. The laughter sounded hollow, and everything that used to make happy felt far away, out of reach”

She paused briefly, her fingers intertwining on her lap: “And the more I drifted inside, the less I wanted to be around you all. Because... because I thought that if you noticed, if you realized how much I was changing... we wouldn’t be a family anymore”

Then “Sara” lifted her gaze toward Victor, locking eyes with him: “Like now” she murmured.

Victor, silent, rembered that day vividly. Every piece of that mory remained alive—the sound of her laughter echoing among the colorful lights of the amusent park she loved so much, the sweet scent of cotton candy that used to make her eyes light up. And then, without warning, everything changed.

She simply stopped going. Stopped caring. The sweets lost their flavor, the park lost its magic. Back then, Victor had thought it was just a phase—a natural shift, the start of adolescence. It never crossed his mind that behind that distant gaze, sothing far older and darker was awakening... an ancient entity, stirring within her.

Sara closed her eyes for a mont, as if trying to organize the chaos inside her. When she spoke again, her voice was steadier: “But it’s also true that I carry the mories of Chronas... No—actually, it’s the opposite. My mories as Chronas simply hadn’t yet rged”

Then Sara—or Chronas—slowly opened her eyes, their ethereal glow eting Victor’s with unyielding intensity: “It caused a dissonance within ...” she began, her tone low and distant: “The human body wasn’t capable of containing my power. Little by little, it began to deteriorate. First, it was my emotions... then, my desires. In the end, I would have beco nothing but an empty shell”

She paused, her gaze lowering to the floor as if she were seeing sothing invisible to anyone else. When she spoke again, her voice was softer, almost sorrowful: “That’s why my dear sister had to intervene. She contained my awakening, stabilized the chaos within ... until this human body was ready to ascend—so that I could, at last, return to my true form”

Victor closed his eyes for a mont, as if trying to hide from the words still lingering in the air. Emily understood perfectly why he did that. The anomaly he despised so deeply—the one he claid had ruined both his and his sister’s lives—was, ironically, the very thing that ended up saving her. The contradiction was both bitter and absurd, and a crooked, ironic smile crept across Emily’s lips.

“So... what does she say? And what do you think about it?” Emily asked, her eyes fixed on Victor—her words clearly directed at him.

The silence that followed seed to stretch into eternity, dense and suffocating, as if even the air hesitated to move. Victor remained motionless, his empty gaze fixed on the ground, his thoughts tangled between past and present.

Then “Sara’s” voice returned—softer this ti, carrying a tone that sounded almost human, almost real: “Victor... do you still have the necklace I gave you? The one with the blue thread... the one I gave you before I completely lost consciousness?”

She lifted her gaze, and for a fleeting mont, her eyes were no longer just those of Chronas—there was a deep, almost human tenderness in them.

“That day” she began: “I realized how much you love ... how much I really ant to you. That’s when I understood that it didn’t matter what I was—human or anomaly—you would always see as your little sister”

Victor stayed silent, unsure what to say. The mory hit him suddenly—vivid, painful, inevitable. And then he understood.

It didn’t matter what Sara had beco, nor the na she now bore. None of it erased the monts they shared, the laughter, the silly fights, the bond only siblings could have. In the end, Sara—or Chronas—was, is, and would always be... his little sister.

When these thoughts crossed Victor's mind, a wave of guilt overwheld him—intense and suffocating. He felt miserably guilty; after all, he had spoken those harsh and unfair words to soone who hadn’t just helped him, but had also saved his little sister.