Chapter 164 - When logic escapes [5]

From the moment I stepped into this place and my eyes started to scan the surroundings, something inside me stirred. It's hard to explain exactly why, but a silent strangeness settled in my chest.

Technically, nothing here seems threatening or out of the ordinary at first glance — the environment shows no obvious signs of hostility. Yet, the more I notice the details around me, the stronger the feeling grows that something is deeply wrong.

It's like staring at a surrealist artwork for the first time: everything is there, right in front of you, but there's a subtle distortion, an invisible mismatch that unsettles the senses. It's familiar... but off, like the world around me is slightly out of sync.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that everything in this place feels... unreal. The sky, for example, remains completely still, like a painting hung above my head.

And even though you could see the wind — the grass blades gently swaying, bending back and forth — I simply couldn't feel it brushing against my skin.

It was as if the wind existed only for the eyes, not for the body. In the end, no matter how many reasons I tried to list for why this place felt strange, the truth was I didn't have time to dwell on it.

With slow, quiet steps, I walked across the vast grass that stretched as far as the eye could see, like a golden sea rippling under a soft breeze. With every step, the blades beneath me bent and crushed slightly, as if holding up a weight that, technically, wasn't there. After all, my feet barely touched the ground — I was floating, hovering just inches above it. Still, strangely and almost magically, the grass reacted like I was really stepping on it.

However, if I had to point out the one real problem at that moment, it was simply that I didn't know where to go. This place, besides being strange, seemed like an endless loop of itself — no matter where you looked, everything was the same.

In the distance, all you could see was an expanse of grass covering everything, gently swaying in the wind. Aside from that, there was only the lake, still like a shattered mirror, and some twisted trees ahead, with curved trunks and dark green leaves that almost looked black.

At first, I considered just walking away, hoping something would happen. But honestly, I carried a strange feeling that no matter which direction I took, somehow I'd always end up back where I started. With that in mind, I decided to change tactics and observe more carefully what was around me.

The first thing that caught my attention was a solitary tree, its branches twisting as if reaching for something invisible in the air. When I got closer, I confirmed what I suspected: there was something truly strange about it — the bark's texture was unusual, like it was alive, pulsing lightly under my fingers.

At first glance, the texture of that tree's trunk was odd — at least visually. There was something about it that resembled human skin, with an overly smooth, almost organic surface. But the moment I touched it, I realized its texture was exactly what you'd expect from a tree: rough, firm, with little ridges of bark running under my fingers.

What was most unsettling, though, was the fact that I was floating slightly above the grass, as if gravity had forgotten me. Still, in a completely illogical way, I kept feeling the pressure of the ground beneath my feet, the soft touch of grass under my soles, as if I were truly standing on the earth.

Despite the strange trees, the only thing in that place that really grabbed my attention was the lake. With that in mind, I started walking toward it. Oddly, the grass beneath my feet swayed gently, as if guided by a constant breeze.

And indeed, the sound of the wind was clear, whispering through the branches — but curiously, I felt nothing on my skin. No air current, no shiver. Just the sound. Another anomaly to add to the list of peculiarities in this place.

Putting aside the fact that this place is, without a doubt, strange, the first thing I did as I approached the lake was to study its surface. It had a deep blue hue, almost hypnotic, but what stood out most was the apparent absence of a bottom — as if the water stretched infinitely downward.

The color and texture reminded me of a hand-painted lake, like something you'd see in a picture or an edited photo, where everything seems too calm to be real. After a few seconds staring at that liquid, enigmatic mirror, my next move was inevitable: I reached out and touched the surface.

Slowly, I lifted my finger toward the lake, hesitating for a moment before that still surface. As soon as my fingertip touched the water, a shiver ran down my arm — the sensation was oddly wrong. Instead of the cold, flowing texture of water, my fingers met something thick, almost sticky... like paint. I frowned, surprised. Why the hell would a lake be made of paint? Did that make any sense?.

I watched the surface ripple lightly around me, staining with dark swirls as if it were alive. The strangeness made me uneasy, but in the end, my curiosity won. Without thinking much, I plunged my hand into the lake, feeling the viscous substance wrap around my fingers like it wanted to pull me in.

The moment my hand sank in, I was sure — the texture was thick, sticky, much closer to paint than water. As my mind focused entirely on that strange sensation, something unexpected happened. The "water" which until then had a faint bluish tint, began to change.

An opaque white, almost ethereal, started to spread slowly, as if being poured into the lake from some invisible point. Watching closely, I saw that white engulf everything around, dyeing the entire surface until not a trace of the original color remained. It was an abnormal white — cold, artificial, like it didn't belong to this world.

Once the lake's surface turned completely white, nothing else happened. I stood there, staring at that milky vastness, trying to figure out what exactly I was hoping to see. Maybe a mysterious light breaking through the skies, some distant sound that would give me chills — any sign that something extraordinary was about to happen.

There was nothing. No flash, no sound, no shiver down my spine. Just silence. Everything remained exactly as before, the only difference being the lake, which used to reflect the blue sky and now was a dull, inert white, as if covered by a layer of frozen mist.

In the end, I stayed still, my golden eyes fixed on the lake's surface in front of me. The absolute white that covered it seemed to absorb everything, without reflecting any image — as if the concept of reflection simply didn't exist there. It was such a dense and opaque whiteness that not even my silhouette hinted at it, despite the apparent clarity of the water. For a moment, I felt as if I were staring into the void.

Then, just as I was about to turn and walk away, something moved — or rather, the lake itself, until then perfectly still, showed a slight tremor. A subtle ripple passed over its surface, almost imperceptible.

The white surface of the lake began to ripple with a barely noticeable delicacy, as if a nonexistent breeze silently glided over the still water. Small cracks, thin like fractures in old porcelain, started to open, revealing beneath the opaque layer iridescent shades that danced with the shy light of the sky.

And from there, something began to emerge. First, the hair appeared — long, fine, and ethereal, moving with the softness of submerged silk, floating in a silent ballet that seemed to defy gravity and time.

The colors shifted subtly and hypnotically, as if each strand carried an ephemeral fragment of an aurora borealis dancing in the wind. There was an almost ethereal luminosity, a glow that pulsed softly, imitating the slow and steady rhythm of nature.

Then, she — or perhaps it — rose from the lake with impressive lightness, without disturbing a single drop of water. No waves, no splash. It was as if reality itself had bowed, opening space and allowing her passage without resistance, a reverent silence filling the air around.

The figure presented as a young teenager, maybe 15 or 16 years old, of medium height and slender build, whose form fluctuated restlessly between the tangible and the impossible. Her skin, so pale it seemed made of solidified light, emitted a faint, almost ethereal glow that appeared to absorb the little light around.

Beneath her translucent hands, delicate fractal patterns appeared and shimmered briefly, as if they were fleeting memories etched in the ether. The being slowly opened her eyes and stared at me with an almost unsettling intensity. Her golden eyes looked at me like two incandescent suns.

The spirals inside her irises turned slowly, hypnotizing my gaze, pulling my attention as if wanting to devour it completely. The vertical pupils, similar to those of a cat, narrowed and widened in a steady rhythm, as if breathing life of their own.

I wasn't exactly sure what expression was on my face at that moment. Maybe it was the usual indifference, a silent shield I always wore. Or perhaps a flash of surprise — hard to tell.

Inside, though, a strange feeling twisted in me, something hard to define. It was an unusual sensation, a confused and nostalgic mixture that slowly crept over me. It was as if, somehow inexplicably, I felt... longing.

(You... who are you?) she asked, her voice sounding strangely familiar, like a distant echo that reverberated not only in my ears but directly in my mind, in layers beyond mere sound.

The language she used was strange, a tangle of sounds I had never heard before, yet somehow, inexplicably, I understood every word perfectly, as if it were a language engraved in some hidden corner of my memory.

Instead of words, it seemed she silently conveyed to me the meaning her gaze held for me. As if saying, without saying: (Familiar... yet strange at the same time... I can't remember you, but I remember your presence)

Honestly, I couldn't hide my surprise. I was almost certain she was a Virtue — mainly because her form was strangely similar to a human's. I don't know exactly why, but this resemblance seems to be a pattern among the Virtues, something almost natural to their essence. However, something bothered me: she didn't seem to remember me. This was quite different from what I experienced during my first encounter with Nekra and Althea.

I thought about talking to her, but the words died before even coming out. What exactly should I say? It wasn't like I came here knowing what to say or how to act in that situation. Usually, Nekra and Althea took the lead in speaking, since they seemed to remember me more clearly.

Besides, her presence was... unstable. Not in the sense of a threat, but like a star about to collapse — a cruel, irresistible, and inevitable beauty, beyond any human control or understanding.

Around her, energy particles danced like small glowing serpents, sliding through the air with sinuous, hypnotic movements. Impossible symbols appeared and vanished in irregular cycles, defying any understandable logic, as if obeying a language forgotten by time.

Her shadow flickered, wavering between presence and absence, until it vanished for a brief moment — reappearing on the other side, in a completely different pose, almost defiant. In a way, it seemed that shadow did not truly belong to her, as if it were a separate entity with its own will and a parallel existence.

(My memories... are missing... but my name... I remember) she said, smiling with a disarming naturalness, as if accepting without surprise the mystery surrounding her. Her eyes shone with a mix of serenity and mild curiosity: (I feel sleepy... as if I've slept for a long time) she added, her soft voice almost a whisper, while her fingers slowly touched the cold surface around her, as if trying to anchor herself to reality.

And at that exact moment, everything became clear to me. There was no right path there, no sign of direction, logic, or progress — none of what I knew or could predict. The space seemed to breathe disorder, a labyrinth where time and reason dissolved. Because, in that fleeting instant, chaos itself revealed itself before my eyes — and, to my surprise, it took the fragile and unsettling form of a teenage girl.