He saw scenes he had never imagined he would revisit: his own birth, his sister’s first cry, the events that had led him to the organization... and, at last, his first encounter with the [Angel of Death], in the forest, beneath the cold light filtering through the trees. Everything appeared and dissolved before he could even react.
Victor watched each fragment of his life unfold in a succession of milliseconds. At the same time, he saw the crab’s claw advancing toward him with an absurd slowness, so slow that he could almost swear time itself had actually stopped. The barely perceptible creak of the carapace, the damp gleam at the tip of the pincer, even the displacement of air before it... everything seemed suspended.
He linked that strangeness to the power his little sister had given him: one of the Conceptual Virtues, the one that governed Time. Perhaps that was why, in some way, Victor knew that his own “Time” had reached its end. The feeling did not come as fear, but as an ancient, silent certainty.
It was as if an invisible hourglass, always at his side though never noticed, had finally revealed itself in that instant. He could almost see it before him, hanging motionless in the air, with the last grain of sand already settled at the bottom. There was nothing left to fall.
Almost instinctively, Victor was fully aware of one thing: he was completely beyond salvation. His “Time” so to speak, had already run out, like an hourglass turned for the final time. And somehow he knew that, once spent, there was no way to restore it.
Victor wasn’t sure how or why he carried such a conviction. There was no voice, no clear omen, no concrete proof. Even so, the certainty weighed on his chest, silent and absolute, as if it were part of his very nature.
Perhaps it was a side effect of the prophetic abilities he had acquired, of the capacity to glimpse fragments of the future. It was only a hypothesis, but in that moment it seemed like the only possible explanation.
Facing death, Victor felt no fear. Maybe he was simply too exhausted for it, so tired that even fear had become irrelevant. What truly filled his thoughts was only the desire to rest, to finally leave the weight of body and mind behind.
If he had to name a single regret, it was simple and painful: not having spent as much time as he would have liked with his sister. No unfinished ambition, no words left unsaid to the world, only that silent absence now tightening around his chest.
With a weak sigh, Victor closed his eyes. The world faded little by little, like a distant light being swallowed by night, and he waited in silence for his inevitable end.
Seconds passed, but nothing happened. The pain he expected never came. Had everything been too fast for him to feel it? Victor opened his eyes. And in the next instant, what he saw, and what he felt, made his mind falter, as if reality itself had taken a misstep.
There was something there that, instinctively, he knew should not exist. Something that defied any natural order, something that simply could not be done. And yet, against everything Victor felt was possible, against everything he believed to be right, before him stood a being that made the impossible real.
The [Angel of Death] stood before him, her body shrouded in a dense, shadowy aura. Both of her hands, covered by a black mantle that smoldered as if burning from within, held back with sheer brute force the impact of six colossal crab legs.
Each strike made the ground shudder, and still she did not retreat. Before those masses of chitin that could crush walls, the [Angel of Death] seemed almost like a toy, fragile at first glance, yet inexplicably unyielding.
Victor’s expression turned incredulous for a brief moment, before a grunt escaped his lips. At the same time, time seemed to start flowing again at its normal speed. Instinctively, he turned his face as a gust of wind tore through the air beside him, making his outfit snap and vibrate as it slammed hard against the canyon walls behind him.
Victor remained motionless, staring at the scene with wide eyes, unsure how to react. It was strange even to think about it: he should have been dead in that instant. His “Time” had run out, or at least, that was what should have happened.
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Yet somehow, he felt the flow return, like an invisible clock beginning to tick again inside his chest. The world resumed its rhythm, sounds slowly returned, and the previous moment seemed to dissolve, as if it had been nothing more than a brief illusion, a glitch in reality itself.
Victor moved his lips, but no word or sound came out. How could he even ask about it without sounding strange? From any point of view, it would seem as though he were complaining about being alive, which was, obviously, excellent news. And yet, the fact remained: he was not supposed to be there.
From Victor’s perspective, it was as if a tree had grown a new branch while the previous one, the one he was meant to be, had simply been cut off. He felt the weight of that substitution: an existence that continued to grow while the other had been silently erased.
Victor still couldn’t quite believe it. It was... strange. He knew absolutely nothing about it. He couldn’t even explain what, exactly, he was thinking, or why he felt so certain about it. There was no logic, no memory, no experience to support that conviction.
All he had was that quiet, unsettling sensation, that diffuse feeling flowing through him like an invisible current. And yet, somehow, he just knew. He knew that this was how things worked. That, whether he liked it or not, this was how they were meant to be.
Still lost in his own thoughts, Victor was jolted out of his daze by a voice that didn’t sound in the air, but echoed directly in his mind, the anomaly’s: “Wow!... that was close. I barely made it in time. For a moment, I swear I thought that thing had really crushed you”
Victor didn’t know what he was supposed to say. Technically, he should be dead, or rather, he had died. He felt it in his bones, in the strange emptiness in his chest, in the fragmented memory of that final instant. And yet, somehow, he was still there, breathing, feeling the floor beneath his motionless body.
Finding no answer, while his mind was still trying to accept the impossible, the anomaly spoke again inside his head, the voice echoing like a whisper: (Can you still walk?)
Victor closed his eyes and took a deep breath. A sharp pain shot through his body like a dry crack, but he forced himself to stay in control. He decided to leave all that “being dead” business for later.
When he opened his eyes again, he tried to get up. In vain. His legs simply wouldn’t respond, heavy, numb, as if dozens of pounds were stacked on top of him, pinning him to the floor.
Victor tried again, gathering what little strength he had left. He pushed his arms against the rough ground, his muscles shaking, only to collapse once more. Air burned in his lungs; his breathing came in short, ragged bursts. His body, exhausted and aching, seemed to scream for rest with every movement.
“I’ve hit my limit...” he said, feeling his legs weigh like lead: “Even if I could get up, I wouldn’t be able to run”
There was a brief silence. Then the voice echoed directly in Victor’s mind again: (All right... I’ve got this. I should’ve done it sooner... just don’t bite your tongue)
Confused by the choice of words, Victor looked toward the anomaly. The same smoking shadow that had once wrapped around its hands now burst from its back. Thin filaments of darkness shot outward, writhing like snakes, wrapping around his body and locking his arms and legs in a cold grip.
In a single instant, Victor was ripped from the ground. The anomaly, concentrating even more darkness into its hands, shoved back the advancing crab-like claws and then shot down the corridor toward the rest of the response team.
Victor could only watch, the air slicing across his face, as one by one they were snared by the filaments and dragged at high speed, pulled by the anomaly through the narrow hallway.
***
(POV – Emily Parker)
Emily stared at the monitor in total disbelief, her eyes fixed on the live feed of the operation. Up to that point, everyone in the room had remained in tense silence, stunned, on edge, no one knowing when, or if, one of the deployed members might die.
That was why Emily couldn’t contain her shock when, all of a sudden, the transmission showed Victor being crushed by giant crab hands. The claws closed around his body, warping the image on the screen, as a murmur of disbelief rippled through the room.
Clear and unmistakable, the sound cut through the heavy silence. Beside her, Emily heard Laura catch her breath, she was shaking uncontrollably, like many of the others gathered there.
Everyone knew Victor. Loved by many, despite, or perhaps because of, his oddly self-centered manner, he had always been a striking presence. That was why seeing him crushed before her own eyes was something Emily had never imagined she would witness.
Even though she knew, logically, that this work was extremely dangerous and that sooner or later something like this could happen, she had always believed she would hear the news from someone else’s mouth. Never that she would watch it herself.
Emily lowered her gaze, unsure how to react. The silence around her lasted only a moment. Soon, murmurs began, at first thick with shock, as if everyone were facing something impossible to accept. Then the shock gave way to doubt, raw, stark, almost uncomfortable.
Then Emily looked up. To her astonishment, Victor was alive. The [Angel of Death] had saved him, apparently arriving at the very last second, as if it had torn through fate itself to pull him back from death. The figure still hovered nearby, its presence heavy in the air, like an echo of something that should not exist there.
(What the hell?) Emily thought.
She was absolutely certain she had seen Victor get crushed. It hadn’t been an impression. Everyone in the room had seen it. The impact. The dull sound. The instant when there was nothing left but certainty. And yet, from one moment to the next, like some strange glitch, a tear in reality, a single blink, the [Angel of Death] was there, saving him. As if death itself had been... rewritten.
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