Krafft's Anomaly Notes

Chapter 424 A Feeling of Fear Upon Returning Home

From a certain day onward, Kraft gradually realized that his premonition was becoming increasingly clear.

More accurately, it could hardly be called a premonition anymore.

Premonitions should be vague; they are irregular products formed by the subconscious digesting and blending of unnoticed details.

Or perhaps some mysterious force is subtly reminding us, creating a slight ripple in our minds through the barrier between reality and the skull.

People may occasionally glimpse a few clues about the future and make some presumptuous preparations. But more often than not, they can only wait in vain and worry, wasting their time and effort, or even achieving the opposite of their intended goal.

His "premonition" was not so.

Of course, it is not like the divine revelation described in the scriptures, which is abruptly instilled in the mind through visions or messages, clearly instructing him to do something.

It is a form that is more difficult for ordinary people to understand.

It's like the loosening of the boundaries of consciousness; the world is no longer gradually transformed from external stimuli into internal cognition through the eyes, ears, mouth, nose, and skin in a predetermined order.

It began to pour into consciousness in a more brutal and direct way. Light was no longer the photoelectric conversion on the retina, and sound was no longer the deflection of cilia in the cochlea.

Skipping physiological processing and translation, the raw and pure essence seeps into the mind first, like cold air tentatively blowing in through a crack in a door that has never been closed tightly.

The feeling wasn't strong; most of the time, it wasn't even fleeting.

Only occasionally, he would feel that information came faster than sound, and vision was wider than sight, as if everything had a faint, lingering meaning that surfaced in his consciousness a step earlier.

Once you actually see or hear it, it will quickly fade away until it disappears without a trace.

It is not limited by time or space. When reading the letter, he saw the writer's flickering candlelight and tense mood; when picking up the item, he touched the original owner's cold and damp palm.

Consciousness is no longer like a well-maintained room, but an old house that has been torn apart from the inside out. The cracks have widened, the doors and windows are wide open, and cold wind, rain, dust, and distant echoes have drifted in directly.

These uninvited things took up so much of his energy that he only recently realized that change wasn't happening in just one direction.

Since the wind and rain outside can seep in, the light, heat, and shadows inside the house are likely leaking out in the same way.

He seems to be able to "understand" himself better now.

In the monastery, almost no one would describe the abbot as "majestic" or "serious"; his almost indulgent and easygoing nature has become a stereotype.

Aside from medical and research arrangements, he never interfered in daily routines, nor was he keen on using precepts to correct other people's behavior; these were left to Raymond to arrange and regulate.

Prolonged periods of neglecting one's duties and frequent offline activity have not created a de facto invisible person.

On the contrary, he often seemed to exhibit an unusual presence.

The initial result was that teaching became increasingly easier. Key points that previously required repeated emphasis can now be remembered with just a brief mention; specialized terms with unique meanings are understood with only a simple explanation.

Even some mysterious and abstract concepts, or secrets beyond this world, no longer need to be deconstructed or compared; the listener will show an almost unexpected look of realization.

Words are no longer invisible; they guide people onto the path of the instructor's thought process.

He was once quite pleased with himself, feeling that he had greatly improved his teaching skills and might be a hidden teaching talent.

Later on, clinical communication became smoother.

He gradually realized that he hadn't encountered family members and patients who were "impossible to reason with" for a long time. This was very unusual. Even in another world where the breadth and depth of education far exceeded that of the present, there were still people who were stubborn or tried to go against objective laws, believing that diseases should be cured according to their own ideas.

Those powerful envoys who came with preconceived purposes, and the illiterate mountain folk who had never read a single word in their lives, should not have understood his casual remarks about pathology, prognosis, and treatment. They should have offered many ridiculous questions and suggestions.

In the past, it took a lot of time to break things down, explain them in the simplest terms, and get them to reluctantly nod in agreement and leave with questions and doctor's orders that they would forget as soon as they turned their heads.

Occasionally, in the midst of his busy schedule, he would slip up and use overly technical written expressions. However, after a brief moment of surprise, the other party would grasp the essence of the statement in a simple yet accurate way: what to do, how to do it, and why to do it.

The words bypassed personal insights and habits in an illogical way.

Some people can even repeat his words afterward, though the words are jumbled up, the meaning is almost exactly the same.

It was then that things finally caught our attention and revealed their truly unsettling side.

His words seem to have been more than just remembered.

Some seemingly insignificant details, such as keeping medicine bottles in a fixed location, paying attention to the temperature of the bottom of the bowl when feeding patients, and not adding meat with bones to porridge.

Logically speaking, these trivial instructions are the easiest to forget, and most of them are just casually mentioned.

However, the medicine bottles were indeed handled by different hands every single day, and the patient did not drink porridge that was too hot to drink or choked on. One day, he witnessed the chef struggling with a piece of poultry breast meat for a long time, obsessively picking out every slender rib.

Many of the people involved could not remember being given such instructions, and only realized that they had been doing it all along after being reminded.

Those one or two sentences didn't linger on the surface of my memory for long; they seemed to sink deeper, quietly taking over some of my habits.

The essence of the matter is gradually becoming clear. As barriers are broken down, the more we see, the more we change.

The soul opens, words and actions become reality.

He felt tired.

Although I had just woken up, fatigue made my eyes dry and my forehead tense, as if I had been reading all night without sleep, or as if I was physically and mentally exhausted after a long journey.

Kraft took a deep breath and found that his shoulders were slowly relaxing.

The scent, long unseen yet unforgettable, filled my mouth and nose.

It smelled terrible, like a fish market covered in scales and slime, or the faint fishy smell of rotting, waterlogged logs and seaweed. Horse-drawn carriages drove along the perpetually waterlogged stone road, the fine sand rubbing and compacting against the surface.

In the distance, hazy lines of land rise on the horizon, like broken threads on an old garment, evoking inexplicable emotions.

A morning breeze drifted in from that direction, carrying a lingering chill.

Suddenly, a space opened up in the wind, and instinctively filled it with a heavy, blunt metal, which hung heavily high up and was struck by the swinging giant hammer.

The shock spread outwards, and invisible ripples rippled through the air, enveloping the college, passing the church, leaving the harbor, and meeting the ships on the wide sea.

He heard the bells.

We've arrived at Wendeng Port.

I've been working for over ten days straight, I'm about to die.

(°-°〃)