Anomaly

Emily tapped her fingers against the cold surface of the table almost unconsciously, the uneven rhythm betraying an anxiety she refused to acknowledge. Her eyes, tired yet alert, remained fixed on the monitors in front of her, which displayed surprisingly crisp images of the current status of the team deployed to the point where the anomalous phenomena appeared to converge.
Put simply, it was the location that all evidence suggested was the central point, or at least the most likely focal source, from which the recent anomalous incidents had originated, a place that, in its silence, seemed to concentrate the cause of all of them.
At first glance, everything resembled a perfectly ordinary triage operation, routine, even. And it would have been, were it not for one impossible-to-ignore detail: all communications with the team had gone completely dark hours earlier. No signal. No data pulse. No confirmation of any kind.
In simple terms, they were receiving absolutely nothing, at least nothing that could justify those images. Emily seriously doubted that, by this point, any camera on-site would still be intact.
And yet, against everything she knew, against protocol, logic, and experience, the signal persisted. It wasn’t coming from any of the deployed members. It didn’t match any registered transmitter... but in some deeply unsettling way, it kept coming through.
Emily subtly shifted her gaze to the side, fixing it on a particular being, the one primarily responsible for the strange situation they now found themselves in. It was a small creature, delicate and almost angelic in appearance, with tiny wings attached near the base of its spine, fluttering gently as if responding to the emotional atmosphere in the room.
There was something about it Emily couldn’t explain, an instinctive, profound sensation, like a silent call. A powerful aura of “Mother” seemed to surround the being, warm and comforting, stirring in her a mix of disorientation and inexplicable familiarity.
Emily stared at the small entity for several seconds that felt like entire minutes. The surrounding silence made every beat of her heart more noticeable as thoughts and questions piled up in her mind, spinning without finding an exit.
Even so, none of those questions crossed her lips. Emily had the strange feeling that the being wouldn’t answer, or that, if it did, its words would only deepen the fog already forming in her thoughts.
Of course, Emily wasn’t alone in the room. There was someone else there, someone who didn’t seem particularly bothered by the fact that one of the most dangerous anomalies in the facility... possibly in the entire world, was floating almost amicably in the air near the monitors, as if it were the most normal thing imaginable.
“So... how exactly did you manage to establish a signal with them?” Laura asked. Her tone was mildly inquisitive, restrained, as she murmured the words under her breath, loose thoughts, likely tied to the signal that had returned... without really returning at all.
“We completely lost contact with them hours ago” She glanced at one of the monitors and absentmindedly pointed at the screen, her brow furrowed in clear contemplation: “Besides, I seriously doubt that place has any kind of coverage that would allow communication”
Laura paused briefly before adding, almost to herself, with a mix of confusion and curiosity: “And where the hell is that, anyway? Is it even still on Earth?”
Emily looked toward Laura, who was also watching the monitors with a curious, questioning gaze, the kind of analytical expression so common among the scientists who worked there.
Emily let out a brief, restrained sigh, almost imperceptible, before turning her eyes back to the anomaly. It floated calmly in the air, stable and silent, moving with the graceful lightness of a hummingbird suspended in time.
The anomaly slowly drifted through the air, as if defying the laws of gravity, and cast Laura an ambiguous look. Her golden eyes gleamed with an unusual intensity, reflecting something close to curiosity. For a few seconds, she remained silent, carefully organizing her thoughts before speaking.
A vague sound slipped from her lips, a soft: “Hmm...” carrying an almost effortless calm.
She tilted her head slightly, as though weighing something private, while her golden eyes closed for a brief moment, a restrained glow flickering behind her eyelids.
The murmur that followed was low, nearly absentminded, directed more at herself than at anyone around her, like a casual yet confident realization: “What I did was simply a small trick”
The anomaly paused briefly, as if considering her own words. Then she opened her eyes again, the golden light emanating from them now tinged with irony and amusement. Her lips curved almost imperceptibly before she concluded: “In fact, I seriously doubt that any kind of technology you humans are capable of creating would work in that place”
Upside down, she simply shrugged, her expression clearly indifferent: “This method is much better and simpler” she said calmly: “Besides, like I said before, your equipment wouldn’t stand a chance of working there” The anomaly lazily extended her arm and pointed at one of the monitors.
She paused briefly before finishing, her voice heavy with detached certainty: “A simple trick for me: I take the sensory residue my sister leaves behind and project it onto the monitors” she explained casually: “After all, it’d be boring to watch everything alone...” the anomaly added, sticking her tongue out for a moment as a mischievous smile spread across her golden lips.
Emily blinked several times, clearly affected by the anomaly’s words. Her gaze shifted between the monitor and the entity for a few seconds, one eyebrow lifting in confusion. Then she looked at Laura, whose expression was just as difficult to interpret.
The two exchanged silent looks for a moment, long enough for both to reach the same conclusion: neither of them had understood a single word of what had just been said.
The anomaly seemed to notice their confusion and, with a playful smile forming on its lips, decided to rephrase, this time using simpler terms: “We’re seeing everything through my sister’s eyes”
Emily and Laura turned their attention back to the monitor, focusing on the overhead view being displayed. The image drifted slowly from one point to another, occasionally making sharper movements, as if someone were deliberately searching for flaws, exploring improbable angles, forgotten corners, any possible blind spot. The silence between them stretched on, heavy with concentration.
Emily was the first to break it, tilting her head slightly as she narrowed her eyes at the screen. The doubt that slipped from her lips was exactly the same one circling Laura’s mind: “Even if the viewpoint is coming from a high position, covering almost everything?”
The anomaly slowly turned toward Emily and gave a crooked smile, subtle, deliberate. Emily knew that smile well: it was pure amusement. A smug kind of amusement.
Laura spoke next, raising an eyebrow while keeping her voice low, heavy with doubt and curiosity: “So the
doesn’t see through its own eyes? In practical terms, that would make them useless. Evolution offers plenty of evidence that traits without function eventually get completely eliminated over time”
The next moment, she brought a hand to her forehead, rubbing her temples as if trying to organize her thoughts, and muttered something almost inaudible to the rest of the room, a mix of frustration and irony: “Why the hell am I trying to apply biology to an anomaly?”
“Fufufu...” the anomaly laughed, the sound echoing in an oddly soft way, as if the question were some kind of private joke. Its eyes seemed to gleam with irony as it continued: “You humans keep applying your knowledge to things you don’t understand... when, in truth, there’s simply nothing to apply”
Emily didn’t fully grasp the anomaly’s words, but she caught the veiled mockery aimed at her. As if sensing Emily’s reaction, the anomaly let out another laugh, short, muffled, almost restrained, that echoed strangely through the air.
Then it slowly spun in midair, as though gravity didn’t apply to it, and drifted until it stopped just a few inches from Emily.
Its golden eyes locked onto hers, intense and unsettling. And inexplicably, Emily felt as though she could see something deep within that gaze, not a defined image, but an ancient presence, watching her in return.
“Fufufufu...” The anomaly’s smile spread once more, slow, deliberate, inevitably drawing Emily’s attention: “I wouldn’t advise holding my gaze for too long” it murmured, its voice low and velvety, steeped in calm: “Some knowledge is better left unlearned, my dear Emily” The smile widened ever so slightly, almost complacent: “You might end up witnessing something that was never shaped to fit inside a human mind”
Its lips curved slightly, forming an oblique smile where mystery and amusement coexisted: “Our apprehension of reality doesn’t share the same perceptual alphabet as yours. While humans rely on limited organs, eyes, light, contours, my way of seeing ignores form altogether”
The anomaly raised a finger into the air, as if touching something invisible: “I perceive densities of life. Emotional tensions. The silent combustion that sustains a being’s continuity. You don’t appear to me as bodies, but as impulses, the desire to persist, resistance to the end, how much each of you does or doesn’t acknowledge the weight of existing”
Its golden eyes shimmered softly: “When I observe the world, I don’t record scenes. What reveals itself to me are entanglements, futures in gestation, decisions still vibrating before they become real. Bonds, dreams, choices. That is what fills my field of vision”
Emily glanced at Laura, who returned the look almost instantly. Both wore the same confused expression, a mix of unease and caution, making it clear that the anomaly’s explanation didn’t make much sense to them.
From Emily’s perspective, what the anomaly described couldn’t really be called “seeing” but rather feeling, and that distinction unsettled her deeply. How could someone see through emotions? How could diffuse sensations be turned into images or certainty?
For humans, those concepts were completely separate, nearly opposites. Vision was objective, external; feeling was subjective, internal.
One couldn’t replace the other. Not even for anomalies, at least as far as Emily knew. In fact, this was the first time she’d ever heard anything even remotely like it.
As Emily drifted in thought, the anomaly moved again. Its body floated a few inches above the ground before stopping in front of the monitors. Then it descended gracefully, almost ethereally, until its feet touched the floor without making a sound. Its eyes turned back to the glowing screen, a faint crooked smile curling its lips.
“You don’t need to think about it that hard” the anomaly said, its voice low and strangely calm, clearly directed at Emily: “Human minds are unique... but still mortal. You’d probably go insane, or simply be erased, if you were able to witness it”
Emily and Laura exchanged a brief glance. The silence that followed stretched on, heavy with the strangeness of the anomaly’s words. Each seemed confused in her own way: Emily furrowed her brow slightly, searching for logic, while Laura pressed her lips together, uneasy.
It was Laura who finally broke the silence, her voice low but firm: “Witness what?”
The anomaly turned slowly. The smile still adorned its lips, serene, almost playful, but its golden eyes seemed strangely more intense now, gleaming like freshly forged metal under light. As it spoke, its words echoed softly: “Our true forms”