Anomaly
Chapter 180 – When logic escapes [21]

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 memories from the time I spent with her, which gave me 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 me... 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 — me and my sisters — stayed completely empty. And when I say completely, I mean 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 some 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 same time and place as always.

Anyway, by then, my eyes were already fixed on Althea. For some reason, she seemed 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 something, didn’t you?)

The moment I asked, Althea seemed 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 disappointment.

Her voice came out low and trembling, filled with disappointment: “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, seemed to hide some ulterior motive. Still, the moment 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 means. Not because of morality, but because they’ve never had a real reason to use that kind of trick... deceiving someone simply isn’t part of their nature.

Of course, Althea was an exception in many ways. After all, she had spent some time 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 moment, looking into her eyes, I just couldn’t believe she was trying to deceive me. It didn’t make sense. Not with that. Not with her.

In the end, even though I clearly sensed something 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 lame excuse. Still, considering no one had come to get me 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 came out in a barely contained panic: “Boss... things are totally getting out of hand!”

Emily and Laura were currently in a containment room deep within the facility. The walls were lined with thick reinforced steel panels, each inch meticulously sealed, not just to maintain strict environmental 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 metallic scent, an inevitable result of constant filtering and purification systems running nonstop.

In the center of the silent room rested the anomalous object: a metallic cube about fifty centimeters on each side, gently floating a few inches above the floor, held steady by an almost imperceptible magnetic containment field. Its matte surface showed an uneven graphite shade, with patches and textures that seemed 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 environment.

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 emergency 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 phenomenon.

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 moment to gather courage before answering. Her eyes met 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 flames 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 containment protocol has failed...”

Laura stepped back from the wall hesitantly, eyes fixed on the cube before her. She walked slowly, as if every movement required effort, stopping just a few feet from the enigmatic object. Her voice came low, almost a whisper, more to herself than to Emily: “That means... they’re remembering, 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 remember”

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 resume their “normal” lives. But instead of forgetting, those people were actually recalling.

“All the memory wipes done by the cube so far... every event, from the first initial test to the most recent anomalous exposure incident... the memories are coming back, clear and relentless. They’re not just scattered fragments or isolated recollections... it’s everything, absolutely everything that had been erased, resurfacing all at once”

For a moment, the silence in the room seemed 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 meticulous memory wipe sessions—were now recovering, piece by piece, memories that should have been wiped clean forever.

Images emerged in their minds: fleeting, unsettling apparitions, reality distortions that defied logic, time 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 memories didn’t return gradually or in a controlled way. On the contrary, they came 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 screamed in panic, tears streamed down faces marked by fear, while others stood completely still, as if frozen in time, 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 memories... 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 measures to contain the situation, using other anomalies controlled by the organization. However, erasing memories seemed 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 moment near their homes. 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 some technical glitch — there was something deeper, a nagging feeling that they were dealing with some kind of external interference.

Whenever that thought crossed her mind, a vivid image would form: the memory of a specific anomaly, with an angelic appearance, whose mysterious and almost ethereal presence seemed to defy any rational explanation. That figure, with its soft outlines and a faint glow, kept insisting on occupying her thoughts.