The problem was that Victor and I were still awkward around each other. It wasn’t like he was deliberately ignoring me, or throwing suspicious or hostile looks my way. Still, something was different. Victor just seemed... distant. His eyes wandered forward far too often, and when he spoke, his words were clipped and brief.
He seemed genuinely grateful that I’d saved him earlier, but at the same time there was something uncomfortable in his gaze. It was as if the simple fact that he was still alive left him feeling out of place, almost guilty. That conflict kept turning inward: he felt strange for having been saved, and even stranger for feeling that way in the first place.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand what was going through his head. Being pulled back from certain death wasn’t an easy thing to accept. There was gratitude, without a doubt, but also a deep unease, the sense that he should already be dead, mixed with the anxiety of still being here. Feeling all of that at once was confusing, heavy, and deeply contradictory.
I’d tried talking to him earlier, tried telling him that he didn’t need to worry about... well, about being alive. I know, it sounded weird when I said it out loud, and his reaction made it clear he thought so too, but somehow he seemed to understand what I was getting at.
Even so, it didn’t change the fact that he remained constantly uncomfortable, restless in a way that was hard to ignore. It was almost as if he were... I don’t know, waiting for his own death.
That might not be the perfect word for what he was projecting, but it came pretty close. And so far, nothing had happened since I saved him.
No strange signs, no random meteor trying to take him out of nowhere, no space-time distortion popping up just to “correct” the fact that he was supposed to be dead, nothing like that. Everything stayed disturbingly normal... at least for now.
Arthur, on the other hand, still looked... intrigued. He was clearly unsatisfied with my vague answers and remained deep in thought, his brow slightly furrowed. His lips moved as he muttered nonsense under his breath, fragments of thoughts that, to be honest, I eventually started ignoring altogether.
Our progress through the canyon continued in a monotonous fashion. Stone walls stretched out on both sides, tall and silent, and there was little to do besides keep walking, step after step.
Even so, everyone seemed to share a quiet sense of relief, comforted by the simple fact that, for the time being, we weren’t being chased by anything bizarre.
I was completely bored too, until something ahead caught my attention. The fog was still thick, making it hard to make out any shapes clearly, but I was certain I could see a pale, glowing point.
Even accounting for the misty veil around us, that point stood out unnaturally. It shone almost as brightly as the fog itself, appearing in my field of vision like something out of place.
As soon as my steps came to a halt, Victor, Rupert, and Arthur, along with the rest of the response team, stopped advancing almost simultaneously.
The rhythmic sound of boots echoing through the ravine gradually faded, giving way to a tense silence. Victor moved closer and stopped beside me, his body slightly leaned forward, as if ready to react to anything.
His sharp gaze swept across the ravine’s pale, washed-out sky, where the diffused light blurred outlines and made it difficult to distinguish any shape or movement.
After a few seconds of silence, he spoke in a low but steady voice: “Why did we stop?” Then he turned his eyes toward me, his expression tight: “Did you feel something?”
I watched carefully, my curiosity quietly growing. At the same time, I projected my thoughts directly into everyone’s minds, clearly and under control: (There’s...) I blinked briefly, hesitating as I realized how strange my next words would sound: (There’s a white light, intensely sharp, standing out on the path ahead)
Heads turned forward as soon as I finished. A brief silence settled in, thick and expectant, before a few members of the response team began exchanging confused looks, murmuring among themselves and wondering whether they could really see anything up ahead.
The dense fog seemed to swallow everything, warping shapes and depth. The first to speak up was Rupert. He narrowed his eyes, trying to peer through the white veil in front of him, then gave a slight shake of his head.
“I can’t see anything...” he admitted uncertainly: “I mean, it’s hard to see anything at all with all this fog. And besides, it’d be even stranger to make out something white, considering the fog itself is white”
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Next was Victor, who kept staring ahead, his eyes narrowed in clear concentration: “I don’t see anything different either... just fog” he said, pausing briefly.
Then he turned to Arthur, who had remained silent until then: “Do you see anything?”
Arthur slowly shook his head, long fingers carefully adjusting the monocle fitted over his eye. The lens glinted faintly before he looked up again: “Other than the fog?” he asked, his voice low and cautious.
He paused, letting out a restrained sigh, as if acknowledging the inevitable: “Nothing. My monocle can’t identify absolutely anything ahead”
I was confused to realize that they couldn’t see the clearly out-of-place light right in front of us. Still, considering how many strange and illogical situations we’d already been through, a suspicious light in the fog, visible only to me, was far from the most absurd thing we’d encountered.
That said, somehow I could feel that that odd glow in the mist was our way out of the labyrinth. There was no clear logic behind it, it was just a feeling, but so far my instincts had proven to be disturbingly accurate. Had something tried to kill us almost every time because of them? Absolutely.
I won’t deny that. Still, it wasn’t like we were truly lost. I was fully convinced that this was the right path, and the fact that something might try to kill us along the way was, most likely, just a side effect. I think.
Without saying anything, I put one foot in front of the other and started walking toward the light. After all, it wasn’t as if there were any other possible paths, except... well, except moving forward. Victor, Rupert, and Arthur exchanged brief looks, heavy with caution and understanding, before finally following me. Right behind them, the rest of the response team moved out as well.
The path stretched on for another five or six minutes before yet another fork appeared, splitting once again to the right and the left.
The light went to the right, and I simply followed it. For a moment, the group exchanged glances, it was easy to sense the confusion my quick decision caused, but no one said a word.
That same pattern repeated itself over the next few minutes. New forks appeared, always identical, and without hesitation I chose the illuminated path, moving forward as if it were the only option that made any sense.
With each choice, I could feel the looks on me grow more intense, heavy with doubt and curiosity. Still, the silence held.
Since no one questioned me, I felt no need to explain my reasons. In any case, they wouldn’t have understood. After all, I was apparently the only one who could see the glowing point.
After we passed through yet another fork, a new corridor stretched out before us. This time, however, the point of light ahead seemed more defined, almost standing out against the rest of the surroundings.
On top of that, I couldn’t tell if it was just my imagination, but the fog seemed thinner in that section, as if something were pushing it back or slowly dissolving it.
I kept a steady pace, heading toward the light, when a quiet remark from Victor caught my attention and interrupted my train of thought.
“The fog looks like it’s thinning” Victor said, narrowing his eyes ahead as if trying to peer through the last whitish veils still clinging to the path.
Rupert was the next to speak, a clear sense of relief in his voice, though his words carried a subtly ironic edge. He let out a short sigh before talking, as if finally releasing some of the tension: “So the supposedly random paths weren’t all that random after all. Great... getting lost in a labyrinth at the end of the world definitely wasn’t part of my retirement plan”
His words immediately caught my attention. I turned to face him, my golden eyes locking onto him in silent intensity. Noticing that he was now the focus of my gaze, Rupert turned toward me and met my eyes, lifting one eyebrow slightly in surprise.
Without saying a single word, I let my thoughts flow naturally: (You... retire?)
Rupert’s brow furrowed even deeper, the lines on his forehead sharpening, while Arthur merely smiled faintly, apparently finding my question genuinely amusing. When Rupert answered, his voice came out edged with restrained bitterness, almost rough: “What the hell? Do you really think we’re going to keep taking on lethal jobs when we’re walking around with canes?” He let out a brief breath through his nose, a dry chuckle: “Of course we retire”
“Though fewer than five percent actually make it to the point where retirement is even possible” murmured one of the anomaly response team members.
Rupert turned his gaze toward the man who had spoken, his expression instantly closed off, hard as stone. The silence that followed was heavy enough to make any reprimand unnecessary.
Under that cold stare, the man shrank back, swallowed hard, and fell silent at once, turning his attention to the ravine ahead and staring at it with exaggerated interest, as if those deep, jagged rocks had suddenly become the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen in his life.
“Well, he’s not exactly wrong” Victor commented in an indifferent, almost bored tone, as if he were making a casual remark about the weather. He shrugged, his gaze distant.
“Most of them really don’t live long enough to retire. And the few who do...” He paused briefly, as if choosing his words with calculated carelessness: “They end up so disturbed by what they’ve seen and done that they need to remain under constant supervision by the organization”
It made sense. In fact, I’d never really stopped to think about it that deeply. From my perspective, most members of the organization seemed like a bunch of oddballs, people who threw themselves into dangerous activities with a real, constant risk of death, and yet kept working there as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The strangest detail was that most of them stayed not out of loyalty or idealism, but simply because of the paycheck.
(That sounds... bad) It was the only thing I managed to respond, the thought slipping out before I even realized it.
Victor and Rupert exchanged wry, ironic half-smiles, as if sharing a silent understanding. Arthur, on the other hand, seemed genuinely amused by my words; there was a curious glint in his eyes, and the slight arch of his eyebrows gave him away.
I could almost read his thoughts, something along the lines of: “An anomaly complaining about human labor issues?” or some equally sarcastic variation crossing his mind at that moment.
Victor, meanwhile, simply nodded in agreement. A short sigh escaped his lips before he admitted, in a tired but honest tone: “Yeah... it really is pretty bad. I won’t deny that”
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