Chapter 20: Anomaly Catching Anomaly

Adaptation to Site 17 (10)

Nightmare.

A dream you can't wake up from.

Henry Russell, an agent affiliated with Site 17.

He wished that the situation he was currently facing was just that.

"Huff… wheeze… huff…"

He was gasping for breath.

The lungs in his chest felt like they were about to explode.

No, maybe they already had.

But even so, he couldn't stop running.

Because, behind him right now.

Something, something of unknown origin,

Had been following him since a while ago.

'Don't look, don't look, don't look, don't look…!'

Because he wanted to check the distance between him and it, Henry inadvertently tried to look back,

But soon, he clenched his teeth so hard he thought they would break, and resisted the temptation.

Because, to capture the appearance of that thing in his sight right now,

Would be nothing more than a suicidal act.

The déjà vu he felt from the moment he first encountered it.

The goosebumps that started to rise all over his body, along with nausea.

And, the unknown information that flooded his head,

The inexplicable headache that felt like it would shatter his head.

All these symptoms were more than enough to stop his legs, which were currently running like crazy,

Even though he felt the fear that it would grab him by the scruff of his neck any moment,

He trembled at the fact that an irreversible event would occur from the moment he looked back at it, and he had no choice but to run forward.

'Where did it all go wrong?'

He wanted to deny reality, but soon, he desperately suppressed his desire to be comfortable and began to analyze his situation calmly.

Before falling into this hellish space.

He was definitely staying at Site 17, his workplace.

And, as always.

After eating lunch, he chatted with other employees for several tens of minutes,

He would have been walking towards the security room to relieve his colleague.

After entering the security room, the scene that unfolded before his eyes.

Far from being the familiar sight of the security room, it was a space so wide and large that it couldn't even fit within the entirety of Site 17.

At first, he wondered if he was dreaming.

At first glance, it was just an ordinary large shopping mall.

But, the atmosphere that felt like it was not of this world, coming from somewhere.

And the bleak scenery where not even a single bug could be seen, let alone a person, it gave off an unpleasant bleakness, as if feeling the uncanny valley.

But, he was also a member of the Anomaly Management Bureau.

Even with a situation in front of him that would have prevented ordinary people from coming to their senses for much longer, he was able to quickly regain his senses,

And he quickly tried to go back out through the door he had entered,

But the door, which the handle was definitely in his hand and must have still been open, had already turned into a completely blocked state, with no way back.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it…!"

Curses burst out.

Knowing that it wouldn't help to overcome this situation,

Henry couldn't help but spit out those words.

That's because he knew it all too well.

The Anomaly that exists at Site 17, and the phenomenon that occurs when the containment procedure for that Anomaly fails.

And the fact that among the people who accidentally entered that Anomaly due to the failure of the containment procedure,

Not a single person has ever appeared outside that door again.

'No, how did that happen?' Henry thought.

Well, No. 1983 is not a moving Anomaly, and it is even less of a type that has a self.

Only the peculiar phenomenon that occurs when the door is closed and the things that try to come out of the door are dangerous.

Due to its containment procedure, which requires the door to be kept open at all times, it is only natural that he would not enter it.

Even if that were possible, something new and peculiar would have to occur that had not yet been discovered in Anomaly No. 1983,

And due to a very serious misfortune, he was just becoming the first victim.

And, although he didn't want to admit it,

Seeing that he had come to this place now.

It seemed that the serious misfortune he had just mentioned had finally befallen him.

"―_―__―__Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

The sound it made echoed from not far away.

I don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear it.

From the moment he heard its cry, he felt chills and his whole body began to tremble.

Nevertheless, he had to listen carefully to the sound it was making.

Since he couldn't directly look at its appearance,

In order to gauge the distance between him and it, he had to listen to the sound it was making.

―――Aaaaaah, aaaaaaaah, ah, ah, aaaaaaaaa!

The sound it made echoed in Henry's ears.

A bizarre scream echoing from not far away.

It was definitely echoing from a place much closer than where he had first heard the sound.

It was certain.

The distance between it and him had narrowed to an extent that was incomparable to before.

And, even if he continued to run aimlessly like this,

In the not-so-distant future, he would eventually be caught by it.

'What should I do, what should I do, what should I do?!'

That can't happen.

No matter what, he had to avoid being caught by it.

He was the type of person who always said, "Is dying worse?" but,

From the moment he first encountered it, he instinctively realized that something more terrible than death would happen the moment he was caught.

He felt so desperate that he would rather take his own life than be caught by it,

But the pistol on his waist had already poured all its bullets into it,

Now it was just a meaningless piece of scrap metal.

Despairing at the unreasonable reality,

While looking around for a railing where he could fall down somewhere, even if he died now,

Something he hadn't seen before came into his sight.

'Wait, that's――'

It was a door.

A red door with a sign that had a pictogram of a person running out,

And the word EXIT written in large letters.

So to speak, it was an emergency exit.

In a split second, many thoughts ran through his head.

This place was definitely a place he had been to before.

Since he started being chased by it, he couldn't go back to the way he came,

And above all, he had already searched every inch of the path he had passed,

So this space, which was the first part, was already quite familiar to his eyes.

But he had no memory of seeing a door like that.

In order to find a clue to get out of this place, he had searched all the doors and hidden spaces,

But he had never seen that door, which had a shape that he could never miss.

It was a very suspicious situation.

Well, wouldn't anyone think so?

An emergency exit that appeared in front of him in a moment of crisis.

It was almost as if someone had blatantly set a sweet trap and was beckoning him to come.

The moment he went inside, the emergency exit might instantly transform into a large mouth and swallow him.

'But, there's no other way…!'

But, as he said.

Right now, there was no other option but to go through that door.

As far as he remembered, this space was not far from where he had first entered this place.

And the place where he first entered was a dead end with no way to go.

If he chose to run, ignoring that door,

In fact, it could be said that the future of being caught by it was confirmed.

―――Ah, ah, ah, aaaaaah, aaaaaaaaaaa!

The bizarre scream it emitted could be heard.

The source of the sound was coming from a place much closer than before.

A moment of desperation.

In just a few seconds, hundreds of worries and choices were repeated in his head.

Soon, with an expression as if he had made a decision.

Without hesitation, he started running towards the red emergency exit.

――Bang!!

As he forcefully slammed his body against the emergency exit, the door swung open with a rough impact sound.

He did that to save as much time as possible in case of an emergency,

Fortunately, the door didn't seem to be locked.

Stairs leading up and down in front of him.

However, the stairs leading downwards were already blocked by collapsed piles of stones.

Henry headed towards the only option available to him: the stairs leading upwards.

Without looking back, he began to climb relentlessly.

How long had he been climbing?

Once he realized that it was no longer chasing him,

He sat down on the stairs, gasping for breath.

"Haa... Hoo... Keuh, haa..."

He was thirsty.

But unfortunately, there seemed to be no drinking water here.

He didn't know how long he had been in this place,

But after searching this place for quite some time, he couldn't find any food that humans could consume.

Of course, even if he found something to eat, whether he could safely put it in his mouth was another matter.

Right now, he was so thirsty that if he were given something to drink, he would gulp it all down without a moment's hesitation.

"...Is rescue not coming?"

Henry muttered, sounding dejected.

He was well aware that due to the nature of Anomaly 1983, it was extremely rare to even recreate the space where it had previously appeared, let alone find and rescue someone who had entered it.

However, the only hope he had was that the Bureau would come to rescue him.

And whether it was a rotten rope or not,

His only option was to wait for that rope to be lowered.

"Damn it..."

A deep sigh escaped.

It was a common reaction for a human in a desperate situation.

He had managed to escape from whatever was chasing him by running to the emergency exit,

But in the end, this method also failed to provide a solution to escape this place.

The reason being that the path leading upwards was,

Just like the blocked stairs leading downwards,

Completely blocked by piles of collapsed stones, making it impossible for anyone to pass through.

There was only one way.

To go back down from where he came,

To return to the place where he was being chased.

Whether to find a way to escape, or to find a place to end his own life.

Those were the only options available to him.

"Haa..."

Another sigh escaped.

Agent Henry, despairing of the reality he faced,

Began to walk back towards the place where it might be lurking, of his own volition.

Not long after he started descending the stairs, a door appeared before him.

The same red emergency door he had entered through earlier.

If he opened this door, that place would appear again.

And surely, inside,

The entity that had been chasing him would be wandering somewhere.

But to get out of this place, there was no other option but to explore that vast space again.

"..."

Holding the doorknob of the emergency door, Henry thought.

In his memory, there was definitely a large open space in the middle of the shopping mall.

Although it was blocked by railings, the height was manageable enough to climb over if he tried hard enough.

He hadn't been able to run towards it earlier because he was being chased by that thing,

But if he were to find himself in a situation where he was about to be caught by it again,

Wouldn't it be better to fall from there instead?

Of course, he wasn't planning on dying that easily.

After all, there were still many unexplored areas in that space,

And although it was a slim, very slim hope,

There was a chance that he might find a place where people could live.

In any case, for a human being,

Giving up one's inherent right to live was not something that could be easily said, even as a figure of speech.

Kkiiiiiik―――

As he pulled the door open,

Unlike the rough sound he heard when he opened the door earlier, a chilling sound that seemed to scratch the inside of his ear rang out.

Strictly speaking, it was just the sound of hinges rubbing against each other, a common sound from old doors.

But psychologically, sound had more influence than one might think.

Through the slightly opened door, he began to see the place he had entered earlier.

Slippery floor tiles that seemed to be made of marble.

And pristine white pillars, and shops with only signs, their interiors empty.

However, he couldn't help but feel that something had changed.

The place he saw through the crack in the door was,

Much darker than before.

'...Did the lights go out?'

He looked up at the ceiling where the lights were,

But the light was still spreading from there at the same level as before.

Not dark, but not bright enough to illuminate the surroundings.

An ambiguous light that couldn't completely dispel the darkness that existed in various places.

But the space he had wandered through earlier had felt like broad daylight.

Of course, the atmosphere of the scenery, with not a single human shadow in sight, was frightening and even eerie.

But in any case, darkness was not one of the reasons for that.

So, why was he suddenly feeling something strange about this space?

Henry was able to find the answer to that question soon enough.

The scene he saw after fully opening the door was,

The place in the center of the store, where there was a large hole going up and down.

The place where bright light flowed in, and the space where he had decided to jump over the railing before something irreversible happened.

It was as if cement had been poured in and a long time had passed.

It was all filled with something solid, without even a small gap.

"...What is this?"

A place that had completely changed in less than an hour.

Moreover, thinking that the change was quite malicious towards him,

His whole body stiffened, and he couldn't speak――

"Haha..."

Soon, as if he had given up on everything,

He slumped down like a doll with its strings cut, and began to laugh like a person whose soul had left their body.

In the center of the wide space.

On the pillar that had suddenly appeared, filling that place.

――There is no escape.

As if to deprive those who came to this place of hope.

A phrase written by someone was roughly drawn.

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