CHAPTER 21: STAGE

LOCATION: AGARA — GAL1049

The old lady stands right behind her. Her gentle demeanor is entirely gone, replaced by an ominous, unmoving grin that twists her features into something deeply unnatural.

Echa's jaw instantly clenches at the sight. She takes a single step back, swallowing hard.

“Don’t resist, dear. I will make it as painless as possible,” the grinning lady speaks, taking a slow step toward her.

Echa stays dead quiet. Her gloved finger inches toward the B3-Fiveter hidden under the back of her coat, sweat dripping from her chin as she struggles to maintain a neutral face.

The lady's grin suddenly vanishes, her face turning dead serious. Without warning, she plunges forward, slamming straight into Echa and knocking the wind completely out of her lungs. The anomaly drives her back hard against the wall, clamping a ruthless hand around her neck. The B3-Fiveter slips away, clattering uselessly to the ground.

Surrounding ornaments crash to the floor, breaking away instantly as the heavy impact sends a shower of dust down from the resting roof.

Echa claws desperately at the anomaly's arm, trying to pry the grip away as it slowly, mercilessly crushes her throat. Through her blurred vision, she sees the granny smiling down at her again. She darts her eyes around, looking for any way out.

Echa can feel her life slipping away. She lands a few weak punches against the granny’s face, but the anomaly looks completely unbothered by the blows.

“Close your eyes, dear. Feel the death,” she laughs, her grip tightening even further. The strained nerves and veins show clearly across Echa's face as she struggles to breathe.

“No…” she gasps out in a desperate whisper.

A small creaking sound echoes from behind Echa as the granny suddenly loosens her suffocating grip. Echa lets out a long, relieved breath, her hands still weakly holding onto the anomaly's wrist.

The granny bends lower to observe, her eyes squinting as she spots the Orynite fixed to Echa's belt. The crystal is glowing faintly, a small, sharp crack now running across its surface.

“What kind of trick is that?” the old lady mutters, reaching down to seize it. The Orynite shimmers slowly as she tears it away from the belt, roughly shoving Echa aside.

Echa falls hard to the ground, wincing in sharp pain as she gasps greedily for air. “No… that’s mine,” she says weakly.

She slowly forces her head up to see the granny grinning wide, lifting the Orynite crystal high against the dim light to inspect it. Trembling, Echa moves her hand to touch her earphone, trying desperately to contact Index.

“This could sell wel—”

Before the granny anomaly can even finish the sentence, her entire form gets violently pulled and sucked straight inside the Orynite.

The light on top blinks violently. A sudden, blinding flash of white light surges through the room, briefly projecting glowing lines of an ancient language across every single wall before the space instantly snaps back to normal.

Echa stares, her lips parted and her eyes wide at the sight. “What the...” she mutters to herself, completely bewildered.

The Orynite hovers in mid-air, shimmering under the ceiling light for a split second before suddenly plummeting toward the deck.

She dives forward, catching it just before it hits the hard ground. Her fingers wrap tightly around the Orynite, her teeth gritting in sharp pain from the sudden, violent movement.

“Got you,” she murmurs to herself, slowly forcing herself back up onto her feet.

She scoops up the B3-Fiveter with her other hand. Parting her fingers slightly, she inspects the faint crack running across the glowing Orynite before pulling the crystal tight against her chest, her lips pressed into a thin, cold line.

Her green eyes dart warily around the quiet room. She whispers, “Let’s go.”

The door clicks open. The sharp crunch of her boots hits the metal frame. All around her, the chaotic chatter of other variables, the rushing sound of gravity-defying water, and the roar of an aircraft landing fill the atmosphere.

Then, a voice lingers... replaying from the dark of her memory.

Echa walks steadily through the street, her hand tightly gripping the cracked Orynite inside her coat. Her mind is actively replaying the briefing that brought her here.

“Here is the plan, listen up, you two,” Index’s voice echoes in her memory, calm and serious. “Echa gets to GAL1049 on her own, trying her best to blend in. The anomalies will quickly register her as hostile. And I want them to focus solely on you.”

“Why do I have to be the bait again?” Echa’s past voice asks, her tone deeply worried.

“Because you are different from us. I can process your data matrix much better than Sid's. Also, he is a grown ass adult who can’t run fast,” Index replies flatly. Sidharth chimed in right on cue: “That hurts, babe.”

“Fine,” Echa mutters in the present, letting out a heavy sigh just like she did back then. “I don’t even know how to properly use the B3-Fiveter,” she whispers to herself, her fingers brushing the heavy weapon.

“FOCUS!! We have a complete backup copy of you, Echa. So, we will simply revive you if the mission goes south,” Index’s voice commands, dead serious. “While they are completely distracted by you, we will reach the back of the central stage and execute the script. Once it runs, we retreat and pull you out with us.”

Back in the present, Echa's steps suddenly falter.

She can feel the heavy, unnatural eyes of the anomalies staring directly at her. A few shopkeepers stop what they are doing, and passing variables turn their heads to track her movement. Swallowing hard, she forces herself to keep moving through the crowd.

A man walking right behind Echa suddenly freezes, sensing a strange liquid spilling down from the high-tech roof panels just as several human bodies crash heavily onto the ground.

The horrific sight makes the surrounding crowd abruptly stop what they are doing. Realizing the situation has turned completely grave, Echa closes her eyes for a split second to steady her resolve. Instantly, panic erupts. People start yelling and sprinting past her, their frantic bodies hitting and shoving her toward the terminal exit.

“Look at the roof! It’s the anomalies!” a guy screams in pure panic.

The ceiling is completely overrun with twisted human figures. The anomalies glare down with glowing red eyes, their distorted bodies crawling upside down on four legs across the roof panels. They stare quietly, tracking the fleeing crowd.

Echa keeps her head down, slowly pushing her way in the exact opposite direction, wading through the stampede toward the back of the central stage.

Over at the terminal exit, the fleeing crowd hits a dead wall. People run blindly to the front, only to be violently jammed against the gates as the weight of the crowd behind pushes them forward.

“Why are we stopping?!” people from the back shout angrily, trying to shove through. “Keep moving!”

But the path is entirely blocked. The local security drones lie completely smashed and sparking on the floor. Standing right over the wreckage is a massive, horrific anomaly formed from three joined human bodies. It slowly turns its grotesque gaze toward the trapped crowd, its hands tightly clutching a fresh, headless corpse.