Krafft's Anomaly Notes

Chapter 399 Passage Through Wounds
The lead box, which once held something, is now empty.

Cold sweat trickled down his nose. Kup struggled to open his jaw, trying to utter the words that were almost at the corner of his mouth, but he couldn't make a sound.

The statement that has not yet been exported is missing a keyword; it has been removed.

Or perhaps they escaped.

Something seemed to be missing from the room, yet something else seemed to have been added. A strange tension permeated the air, as if the space itself had been squeezed and made way, and a whole segment of existence had squeezed into the crevice, wandering along the subtle barrier between subjective perception and objective reality.

But it was too close and too large, inevitably oppressing its surroundings and creating a ripple-like tremor, like a crawling insect burrowing under the wallpaper, its supple body slid and twisted, pushing up the surface of reality, causing it to bulge and undulate.

It moves freely within the confined space, existing in a state between existence and non-existence.

To the less perceptive, that subtle sense of contradiction would be almost imperceptible. Brother Kanther, who had just entered, didn't even realize what was happening; his gaze was still sweeping across the floor, perhaps thinking that some valuable item had rolled off and been lost.

Kup dashed to the table, grabbed the arrow in his hand, and then returned to the operating table, deftly and comically twisting his body to avoid the spread-out instrument pack and the disinfected area.

The conditioned reflexes developed through training allow the body to complete the movements almost automatically, with most of the mind being used to find the missing object.

The result horrified him: the information that should have been preserved like a skeletal specimen had come to life, leaving its place and only a snake trail disappearing into the darkness.

Those memories were as if they had been processed by a highly skilled practitioner, who cut them open and removed the relevant parts, peeling away images, sounds, and sensations one by one, and then skillfully stitching them back together.

No matter how ingenious the surgery, it can never be completely scarless.

What remains is a scar that stretches along the line of memory, thin and cold. Whenever I trace back to this spot, waves of dull pain and twisting sensations tug at my nerves, reminding me of unhealed sinuses deep within the skin, a long, lingering writhing, and...

【snake】

Its arrival was undeniable, its departure unstoppable. It reshaped itself based on the images preserved in the memories of others.

He saw the same bewilderment on the faces of other survivors and immediately realized that he was about to face that thing again for the "first time".

But this isn't the first time for it.

Kup held his breath, trying to catch the slightest sound.

He couldn't remember how he was attacked, but the injuries he sustained couldn't be faked; they must have been something tangible, at least when they hit him.

The semi-enclosed interior space provides a defensive advantage, with nowhere to hide, and entry requires passing through doors and windows.

However, the attacker did not arrive as expected. An indescribable sense of unease passed through the curtains, climbed over the tables and chairs, and moved through the cluttered space without getting a single thing on it. Any narrow gap was enough to accommodate it.

You can even feel something passing through your body, crossing meaningless defenses.

His experience of being destroyed by forces in the real world has clearly made him more cautious, and he did not choose to show himself immediately.

No one knew where to look; all that remained was an undeniable intuition—it had already come in.

A sudden silence descended upon the rooftops, attics, and outside the windows; the occasional birdsong had vanished completely, leaving only the distant voices of people echoing from the village. A bitter tension rose within him. He gripped his weapon tightly; memories could be lost, but the composure forged through experience would not.

More importantly, a solid ballast was right beside him, stabilizing his emotions caused by the unexpected situation.

But when he glanced out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kraft pick up the needle and thread, and his movements suddenly quickened, and a fresh red liquid was gushing from the patient's wound.

The quiet rustling sound was almost drowned out by the soft rustling of the cotton ball wiping the blood scab, the sounds blending together like smooth scales rubbing against fat, moistened by a viscous liquid.

"Get some gauze... no, go heat up the wire." Kraft grabbed the remaining pieces of gauze and stuffed them into the wound, while simultaneously pressing the pressure point on the inside of his upper arm to stop the bleeding.

The effect was poor; the bleeding was like a swarm of snakes emerging from the ground, clinging to the cotton fibers, and the white was instantly stained red.

The wound was restless; perhaps due to muscle contraction or something else, it worsened further, spreading and tearing out in a crawling manner.

My fingers could feel irrational spasms twisted and knotted, resisting pressure. The skin was cold and hard, as if beneath it wasn't muscle, but something tough and smooth, struggling and writhing, refusing to be controlled.

The smell of rust wafted into my mouth and nose, and my saliva became thick and sticky. When I moved my Adam's apple, it felt like I was swallowing a mouthful of salty, sticky liquid, which made me want to vomit.

"Press here, quick."

Kraft's tone remained calm, but with a hint of urgency.

Seeing that the priest's skin was turning pale again, he grabbed the nearest hand and, regardless of whether it was disinfected, took over pressing the wound. He then picked up a razor blade and deliberately widened the wound.

The hemostat clamped down, the sutures were then slipped in, pulled and tightened, and the fingers skillfully moved back and forth between the coils. Two knots, one on each side, fell into the wound through the clamp jaws, and the crimson spread suddenly stopped. The blood tide was absorbed by the gauze and receded.

Only then can the source of the bleeding be seen: a section of blood vessel stump, cleanly severed as if cut by a sharp instrument, which cannot be fully explained by tearing.

The curved needle pierces through one side and emerges from under the skin on the other, with extreme efficiency to the point of being almost brutal, like a flying fish leaping out of the sea. The silver light guides the white trajectory, binding the restless crack and pinching its head and tail.

The wound suddenly contracted and twisted, trying to continue its expansion, but was eventually forced to close up, leaving only the middle section moving irregularly, like an elongated creature struggling under the skin.

Without lingering, he turned to the second wound that penetrated deep into the muscle, and pulled the two sutures together in advance. The slightly wriggling edges twitched like a snake's tail, unwillingly settling down.

A faint friction sound rang in my ears again, prompting me to listen intently, but I couldn't pinpoint its source; it was crawling through a non-existent crevice.

The doctor, a seasoned snake catcher, could always find the next potential threat among the intertwined wounds, intercepting the tendency of the wound to extend in advance, and stopping the path with simple and effective suturing, not too much, not too little.

Only those with a basic understanding of the mechanism can realize that this is not treating a wound, but rather nailing something that was trying to escape back into its grave.

Initially, it held the upper hand, moving among the wounds in some incomprehensible way and taking up residence within them.

But as time went on, Kraft's movements became more and more skillful, and his predictions came one after another.

From Kup's perspective, these operations were shifting from being barely understandable to being incomprehensible. It was as if the operator was seeing it more and more clearly, pinning it down with something other than needle and thread, gradually clarifying its shape and trajectory.

The balance between initiative and passivity tilts, and the snake's head and tail gradually become apparent.