Anomaly

Chapter 421 – From despair, hope is born [2]

(POV – Emily Parker)

Amid the relentless sound of keys being pressed, Emily kept her eyes fixed on the monitor in front of her. The bluish glow from the screen reflected faintly against her glasses, an accessory she usually only wore during moments of extreme stress, as she analyzed an almost endless sequence of files compiled over the past few months.

Lines of data, reports, and charts scrolled past her tired eyes while she searched for any irregularity, any tiny pattern that might have slipped through previous analyses unnoticed.

A long, restrained sigh escaped her lips when she realized that even after hours of reviewing the records, the answers remained frustratingly out of reach.

Her fingers slowed over the keyboard before one hand rose to her temple, gently massaging it in a futile attempt to ease the growing pressure building in her head. For a brief moment, Emily closed her eyes.

The exhaustion was beginning to slowly seep into her mind, heavy, persistent, clouding her thoughts and making every line of information harder to process. The burning sensation in her eyes and the stiffness in her shoulders made it painfully obvious just how far beyond her limits she had pushed herself tonight.

When Emily opened her eyes again, the dark circles beneath them looked even more pronounced, almost like permanent marks of her current condition. Her muscles felt heavy, and the faint sting in her eyes revealed just how many hours she had spent awake over the past few days.

Emily had been trying to balance her few scattered hours of sleep with endless hours of research as best she could, but it clearly wasn’t working nearly as well as she had initially hoped. It was true that she felt slightly less exhausted than she normally would after so many sleepless nights.

Getting a few hours of sleep spread throughout the day was still better than pulling entire nights without rest. Even so, the fatigue remained there, constant, silently piling up inside both her body and mind with every passing day.

Still, there was at least one small upside to this destructive routine: Emily hadn’t yet reached the point where she needed to drown herself in energy drinks just to function through another sleepless night.

The empty cans scattered across her desk were still relatively few, practically miraculous considering the pace she’d been keeping lately. And honestly, that alone could already be considered good news, because even she knew staying awake this long day after day was dangerously unsustainable.

In the middle of the chaotic storm of thoughts relentlessly pressing against her mind, Emily looked up the moment a freshly brewed mug of coffee was gently placed on her desk. The strong, bitter aroma spread through the small office, mixing with the smell of paper, dust, and sleepless nights.

Laura watched her for a few seconds before forming the faintest crooked smile, almost imperceptible, while giving a subtle nod, a simple gesture, yet one filled with silent support: “You should get some sleep for a couple hours” Laura commented casually.

The irony of the statement pulled a tired smile from Emily. Laura looked just as exhausted as she did. Faint dark circles rested beneath her eyes, her hair was messily tied back, and her relaxed posture screamed of someone functioning purely out of stubborn persistence at this point. It was basically the pot calling the kettle black.

Unaware of her friend’s thoughts, Laura continued, her low voice filling the muffled silence of the room: “Ever since we spoke with the Angel of Death four days ago, we’ve been trying every day to decode where this energy is coming from... but we still haven’t found anything. Even the Angel of Death herself said she couldn’t sense anything unusual...”

Laura let out a long sigh before leaning back in the chair across from Emily’s desk. The furniture creaked softly beneath the movement: “Are we actually going to find anything?” she muttered, running a hand through her hair: “Ever since the Angel of Death and her sisters started appearing, we’ve never been able to identify them before those anomalous abilities manifested. It’s like they just... appear out of nowhere”

Emily couldn’t think of a single answer capable of refuting her friend’s words, and that only made the irritation burning inside her chest feel even stronger.

What truly bothered her was the fact that even after spending so much time analyzing patterns, tracking signals, and trying to identify the possible location where the new sister of the [Angel of Death] might emerge, all their efforts had led to only one painfully obvious conclusion: The energy fluctuations belonged, without a shadow of a doubt, to one of the [Angel of Death]’s sisters.

And the worst part was that it wasn’t stopping. The oscillations kept spiking relentlessly even now, growing in chaotic, completely disorganized waves, as though something were forcing the energy far beyond any natural limit.

At times, it almost felt as if the levels would continue rising forever without ever stabilizing. The air around the equipment vibrated uncomfortably while tiny electrical sparks snapped between the overloaded monitors.

But honestly... tell her something she didn’t already know. From the very beginning, Emily had been almost completely certain her theory was correct. Deep down, she had always known this was connected to one of the [Angel of Death]’s sisters.

The real problem was something else entirely: Knowing that changed absolutely nothing. It didn’t reveal the exact location, it didn’t explain the cause behind the fluctuations, and above all, it didn’t alter a single thing in the grand scheme of things.

“Do we even have another choice?” Emily asked, exhaustion evident in her hoarse voice as she pressed her fingers against the back of her neck. Her shoulders tensed before she slowly rolled them, trying to ease the accumulated discomfort from several nights of terrible rest: “The High Council’s stuck to us like ticks. If another incident like that lunatic priest happens... or anything even remotely similar to the events surrounding the discovery of the Angel of Death’s sisters... we’ll be completely exposed. Easy targets for them”

She let out another long, weary sigh before shifting her gaze toward the countless monitors scattered around the room. Some displayed maps covered in red markings, while others showed incomplete reports and recordings corrupted by strange interference.

Emily understood perfectly why the High Council was acting that way. Ever since the anomalies became public knowledge, the entire world had seemed to come off the rails.

Governments had partially collapsed, secret organizations had begun openly fighting for influence, and collective fear had turned every mistake into a potential catastrophe. Still... this was one hell of a headache.

At the end of the day, Emily was just a scientist. A researcher who had devoted her life to studying the impossible, not controlling horrors beyond human comprehension. What exactly did the High Council expect her to do when an impossible-to-contain anomaly escaped? Or worse... simply appeared out of nowhere?

“Goddammit...” she muttered under her breath, running a hand through her messy hair as the weight of exhaustion pressed against her mind. After another tired sigh, she lifted her gaze again and spoke in a more serious tone: “The only thing we can do right now is keep searching. Maybe there’s some kind of pattern... some possible place where the Angel of Death’s sister might appear”

Laura listened to Emily’s words and let out a weary sigh, slowly rubbing her temples as she leaned back in her chair. Just like her boss, she wished everything were simpler, less obscure, less absurd.

“As always, the clues left behind by the [Angel of Death] sisters were minimal...” she murmured, a faint edge of restrained irritation in her voice: “At least we know we’re dealing with the last one. Because honestly? If new “Sisters” of the [Angel of Death] keep showing up every single time things start settling down, I’ll probably lose my mind before I turn thirty”

Emily nodded silently, keeping her arms crossed. Even if the information they received was never truly complete, the sisters of the [Angel of Death] had still provided enough for her and Laura to piece together a few theories. And there was one important detail. The anomaly would appear in the city.

Not only that, but everything suggested they were dealing with one of the oldest anomalies ever recorded, an existence comparable both to the graceful, aristocratic anomaly and to the [Angel of Death] herself. Just thinking about it was enough to make the air inside the room feel heavier.

Even so, there was at least a small sense of relief buried beneath the tension. Unlike the others, this entity’s methods seemed far more discreet and restrained. No flashy massacres, no rampant destruction, no chaotic manifestations. At least, that was what the few clues provided by the [Angel of Death] sisters seemed to suggest so far.

And honestly... that already counted as good news. Because when it came to the sisters of the [Angel of Death] “less destruction” was practically the equivalent of mercy.

After reflecting more deeply on her own thoughts, Emily decided to shove them to the back of her mind, at least for now. There were far more important matters demanding her attention at the moment: “Anything from Victor or Rupert?” Emily asked, her voice carrying a short, restrained note of expectation. A subtle spark of enthusiasm that, unfortunately, lasted no more than a few miserable seconds.

Laura slowly shook her head, firmly denying it while glancing away for a moment, clearly frustrated by the lack of answers: “At least nothing they’ve reported back to me...”

She fell silent for a brief moment, mentally organizing everything they had gathered so far. The slight furrow in her brow made it obvious how hard she was trying to connect pieces that simply refused to fit together: “The locations really did show traces of the energy... patterns similar to the ones we’ve seen in our graphs. But there was nothing there” Laura let out a quiet sigh before continuing: “Most of them were nursing homes... or gatherings of people who had lost someone, or had something important taken away from them”

Emily raised an eyebrow thoughtfully. Those were definitely strange places to detect traces of that energy. Still, it was far from the strangest thing Emily had ever heard. After all, hadn’t it only been a few months since a completely insane priest had nearly caused the end of humanity?

Compared to that, mysterious traces appearing at grief support meetings sounded almost normal by comparison... almost. Emily slightly raised one eyebrow at her own train of thought, an almost automatic gesture filled with silent disbelief.

At what point, exactly, had she become so indifferent to the absurd? Strange situations, impossible events, details that would make any normal person hesitate... all of it seemed to pass through her mind with disturbing naturalness.

A quiet sigh escaped her lips, carrying tired resignation as she looked away for a brief moment: (Probably the price of working in a place like this) The conclusion came effortlessly, dry and simple. And honestly, it made sense.

After spending so much time surrounded by bizarre incidents, eccentric people, and events that defied any reasonable logic, maybe her perception had simply adapted itself to preserve whatever little sanity she still had left. Accepting that in silence, Emily decided not to dwell on the matter any further. Some reflections were far easier to ignore than to understand.