How long had it been since I sat down next to Victor? Honestly, I didn't know. I hadn't counted the minutes or the seconds; we were just there, side by side, in near-complete silence. Neither of us spoke, but strangely, with Victor, that silence wasn't uncomfortable. It was... different. Odd, maybe, but in a curious and almost familiar way.
At some point, as my eyes wandered across his profile—the firm line of his jaw, the gentle curve of his nose—my lips moved almost without me realizing it, forming words my mind hesitated to voice. And then, as suddenly as it was silent, Victor heard in his thoughts: (Do you... hate me?)
When my words echoed, Victor's shoulders shifted slightly, as if responding out of obligation, but no other gesture followed. His eyes remained fixed on his sister in bed, and his hand continued gripping hers with silent firmness, loaded with tension and care.
For a moment, I thought about insisting, but I turned my gaze from Victor to her, sensing the almost sacred stillness of the moment. I didn't mind his silence; in a way, I had expected it. It was an answer, albeit a silent one, that spoke louder than any words ever could.
But in the next moment, when Victor's voice broke through the quiet, I couldn't help but shoot him a sideways glance. Internally, I was surprised; I hadn't really expected him to respond: "I can't say I feel good about you" Victor said, his voice calm but cold, without even looking at my face: "Even if you're not directly responsible for Sara's condition, I can't get it out of my head that you're part of it too... that you're one of the things that made her like this. I just... can't deal with it"
I watched Victor in silence, following each word from his lips without uttering a sound. Honestly, I didn't know if anything I said in that moment would make any difference. My true opinion? Probably not.
After all, if something like this happened to one of my sisters, I'd probably be exactly where Victor was now... No, actually, I'd be even more extreme, more intense, consumed by a rage I might not even be able to imagine.
Anyway, pushing those thoughts aside, I refocused on Victor's sister, still unconscious on the bed. Her body seemed completely inert, unresponsive to anything; not even her breathing gave signs of life, as if she were trapped in some suspended state.
I observed every detail carefully, trying to spot any irregularity, but noticed absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. Strangely, though she seemed entirely lifeless, there was an aura of silent perfection about her, a sort of undefined balance that seemed to defy logic.
Of course, I wouldn't give up just because of that. Even if my ordinary eyes couldn't see anything, what if I tried with my other "Eyes?" Maybe I could detect something hidden, some clue escaping normal vision. It was just a possibility, fragile and uncertain, but I couldn't ignore it. After all, what mattered was trying everything within my reach—every resource, every skill, every fragment of perception.
With that in mind, my eyes, in the next instant, began to shift colors, sliding from one hue to another as if reflecting invisible emotions. Through these new "eyes" I turned back to Victor's sister lying on the bed.
For a brief moment, a flicker of doubt struck me—was I really seeing this? Around her body was something resembling a "force field" an almost imperceptible aura, so thin and delicate it seemed to merge with her skin, like a natural extension of her body.
The field emitted a faint, ethereal glow, oscillating through a palette of soft, shifting tones, as if it were breathing. Each color change seemed to follow an invisible rhythm—slow, measured, almost hypnotic. It wasn't something you saw every day; in fact, there was something deeply unnatural about the scene.
It felt as if the very air around her were suspended, trapped inside that shell. And she, at the center of it all, seemed to float between two states—alive, yet strangely distant, as if the energy around her held her in a fragile truce between motion and stillness.
Victor noticed my expression and furrowed his brow, a shadow of concern crossing his face: "What is it?" he asked, voice low but attentive, finally shifting his gaze from his sister to me.
I hesitated for a moment, struggling with doubt. Should I tell Victor? After thinking it over, I decided yes—hiding something like this made no sense. With that decision made, I projected my thoughts into his mind: (There's something around her) I whispered mentally, keeping my eyes on the strange membrane—or whatever it was. I added in a graver tone: (It seems... like a barrier. Maybe a cocoon)
I wasn't sure how much Victor had actually picked up from my words—or even if he understood what I was trying to convey. He probably only sensed that something strange surrounded his younger sister.
But from my perspective, it was much more complex than a simple "something" For starters, could there really be an anomaly capable of causing this level of effect? It was hard to believe. Whatever was happening seemed far beyond what any ordinary anomaly could achieve.
And no matter how much I tried to find another explanation, my mind kept converging on the same conclusion, almost as if the answer were being whispered directly into the back of my consciousness: Conceptual Virtues. The name came naturally.
In the end, as my thoughts wandered aimlessly, a growing curiosity consumed me about the strange membrane surrounding Victor's sister. Before I knew it, my hands moved on their own, reaching toward her.
Victor noticed instantly. The look he gave me was a mix of discomfort and suspicion, as if trying to decide whether to stop me or just watch. Curiously, despite the obvious tension, he didn't intervene.
In the next moment, my fingers finally touched the membrane surrounding Victor's sister, and a strange sensation ran through my body, as if something subtle and unknown stirred at the contact. It felt oddly sensitive to touch, almost alive, with a texture like liquid, calm like the surface of a lake under moonlight.
For a moment, a daring thought crossed my mind: what if I broke that membrane? Would Victor's sister return to normal? The idea seemed tempting, almost like an instant solution to everything—but a nagging doubt lingered in my chest.
What if, instead of helping, it made her condition even worse? What if that thin veil was the only thing keeping her alive? Even if, somehow, breaking that strange membrane could bring her back to normal, I simply couldn't risk it—not without any concrete proof.
The possibility of killing her, of destroying any chance of saving her, was a risk I wasn't willing to take. So, after hesitating for a few seconds, I limited myself to lightly touching her and decided to do nothing more. After all, I didn't even fully understand what that state meant, nor whether she was still conscious on some level.
Victor, noticing my decision, turned his gaze back to his sister. His eyes, which had once held a fragile spark of hope, became dull, almost lifeless. It was as if the small flame keeping him standing had been snuffed out right before him, leaving only a silent void. My eyes returned to Victor once more, lingering on his rigid, silent profile.
I wanted to say something—anything—to comfort him, but I knew it would be pointless. First, because no words seemed sufficient to lighten the burden he carried; second, because being comforted by someone like me, an anomaly, something that in a way resembled what had left his sister in that state, would probably be the last thing Victor wanted at that moment.
In the end, after reflecting for a few minutes, I came to a single conclusion: I needed to see everything with my own eyes. I had to follow exactly the same steps she did, reliving that path step by step. If I could find the anomaly responsible for all of this—and destroy it—maybe, just maybe, Victor's sister would have a chance to return to normal.
Although a part of me considered asking my sisters for help, I decided I would do that only as a last resort. I didn't want to involve them unless absolutely necessary. At the same time, another strange sensation crept into my mind—something I couldn't ignore. The membrane around Victor's sister gave me a peculiar discomfort; there was something familiar about it.
It was as if I had seen it before, at some distant point in my past, but I couldn't recall when or where. This sense of déjà vu only heightened my unease, but beyond that premonition, I couldn't think of anything that could really help free her from this state.
In the end, there wasn't much more I could do besides that, not if I truly wanted to help her. If I intended to find the anomaly responsible for leaving Victor's sister in that state, I needed to understand exactly what had happened—every detail, every second.
I took a deep breath, forcing my mind to calm, and then projected the question directly into Victor's mind. My mental voice sounded firm: (What exactly happened to her? How did she end up like this?)
When my words echoed, Victor took a moment to respond. The silence that followed seemed to stretch longer than it should, and for a moment I wondered if he would simply ignore my question. I could see on his face that he was thinking, perhaps reliving something he would have preferred to leave buried.
Finally, his voice cut through the air, low and weighted with an old exhaustion: "I'm not really sure what happened. Even now, when I try to remember, it's all just as confusing as the day it happened... It was all... so sudden"
He paused long, as if searching for the right words, then continued: "We were both at the park. I was distracted, messing with my phone, when suddenly I felt something... different. First, I noticed that all the sounds had stopped—no conversations, no birds, not even the wind through the leaves. It was like someone had turned off the world"
His eyes narrowed, as if trying to rewind his memory and relive every instant precisely: "When I looked at Sara... she was already like that" His voice faltered, and the hand holding hers trembled visibly: "It was as if time had stopped for her. She looked completely frozen—no breathing, no blinking, no movement. Not eating, not doing anything at all..." He swallowed hard, the sound almost audible in the heavy silence of the room: "And yet, somehow... she seemed alive"
Victor took a deep breath, his jaw rigid as stone, while his words came out in a heavy whisper: "The last thing I remember was looking up at the sky. I don't even know why I did it... my head felt strange back then, like something was constantly buzzing in the back of my mind. But when I looked up, I saw something"
He paused, his fingers slowly curling as if trying to grasp the memory: "It looked... humanoid" he continued, voice lower still: "but the face... the face was impossible to comprehend. It was like someone had blurred the features with mosaics, distorting everything, like it wasn't meant to be seen by human eyes"
For a moment, as I listened to Victor's words, something strange happened—the scene simply appeared in my mind. It wasn't like the times when you try to imagine something; the feeling was different, much more vivid, as if I were actually there, as if I had been part of that moment.
And then, when Victor uttered the word "mosaics" another memory cut through me like a blade: my other self, the one I had seen in that world where Victor, Rupert, Laura, and Emily... died.
Wasn't his face covered in mosaics? The memory hit me like a punch to the gut. I felt a strange weight in my chest, a discomfort that made me swallow hard: (It's not possible... right?)