Chapter 123: Sealed in Memory
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Breathing heavily, Heidi sprinted toward Vanna, who stood commanding the situation in full battle armor. As she approached, the guardians nearby instinctively stepped forward to block her path. However, upon realizing that this disheveled, soot-streaked woman was a senior advisor to both City Hall and the Storm Church, they promptly stepped aside.
“Are you actually in charge here?” Heidi exclaimed, eyes widening in surprise as she looked at Vanna and the highly trained church troops she had assembled. “You’ve gathered so many hands?”
“A fire in the museum is no trivial matter,” Vanna responded curtly, scrutinizing Heidi from head to toe. Relieved that her friend was physically unharmed, she sighed. “I guess your vacation plans have gone up in smoke again.”
“It’s ‘gone up in smoke again,’ to be precise!” Heidi replied, her voice tinged with resignation. “Why does bad luck always follow me? Ah, my head hurts…”
Noticing a large, painful-looking lump on Heidi’s forehead, Vanna gently touched the area around the injury, her eyebrows knitting together. “Did you manage to escape from somewhere?”
“I was actually rescued… Ah, that feels so much better,” Heidi said, feeling the pain on her forehead starting to subside. Her attention sharpened, and after a momentary pause, she looked around hastily. Leaning closer to Vanna, she said, “I need to be somewhere quiet and sacred, like a chapel, as soon as possible.”
Sensing the urgency in Heidi’s sudden shift to a more serious tone, Vanna wasted no time. She directed her commands to the clerics in her team. “Take charge here. Seal off the museum immediately. Raise the contamination alert to spirit level—”
“Abyssal level,” Heidi cut her off, her voice low but urgent.
“Adjust to abyssal level, then. And evacuate all civilians within a 200-meter radius of this square!” Vanna ordered, her heart pounding with concern. She then turned to a local priest, sporting a short beard, who had just escaped the fire. “Take us to the closest chapel. We’ll need a private room for prayer and prepare incense number 16.”
“Absolutely, please follow me. The chapel is not far from here,” the priest nodded, still slightly dazed from his recent ordeal.
Vanna and Heidi left the square quickly, getting into a vehicle with the priest who led them to a nearby community church. As they were en route, Vanna noticed Heidi’s complexion turning an alarming shade of red.
“What’s happening?” Vanna touched Heidi’s forehead, her face creasing with worry as she felt an unnatural heat emanating from her skin. “Why is your temperature spiking?”
“I think I may have been exposed to something at the museum,” Heidi responded hurriedly, her voice laced with urgency. “I used self-hypnosis techniques to temporarily block some critical information deep within my memory. The hypnotic seal has just lifted… and the memories are starting to resurface.”
As Heidi shared her experience, Vanna listened carefully, her eyes widening incrementally as she processed the gravity of the situation. A chilling realization washed over her—Heidi was contaminated by a severe supernatural anomaly, so potent it could affect the fabric of the real world merely through remembrance.
“Stop thinking about it. Slow down your thought processes,” Vanna instructed sternly, gripping Heidi’s shoulders for emphasis. “Focus on my eyes and divert your attention to something else. If you can’t manage that, try self-hypnosis again.”
“I’ll give it a try,” Heidi said, inhaling deeply to steady her racing thoughts. She looked into Vanna’s eyes, as serene and bottomless as a calm sea. Despite her best efforts, memories of colossal, blazing torrents of fire and a chaotic ocean of flames in a lightless void continued to break through her mental defenses, oozing into her consciousness like blood from a freshly opened wound.
Just then, a subtle but distinct sensation of coolness seemed to originate from her chest, pulling her back toward mental clarity. Glancing down, she saw her humble glass “crystal pendant,” glowing softly. Although the light was faint, it acted like an anchor, tethering her fraying consciousness to the reality of the here and now.
“We’ve arrived at the church,” the priest’s voice came from the front of the vehicle, snapping both women back to the present moment.
With Vanna—revered as a formidable saint—leading the way, Heidi was swiftly escorted into the local chapel. A private prayer room had been prepared in advance, its sanctity amplified by the burning of specially formulated incense exuding both calming and protective properties. This preparation was possible thanks to the priest’s foresight and mystical communication with the church staff.
As they stepped into the room, they were enveloped in a light mist of aromatic incense. Dominating the space was a statue of the Storm Goddess Gomona, her expression one of eternal watchfulness. The priest remained outside, wary of potential psychic contamination.
Once inside, Vanna suddenly sensed the illusory sounds of ocean waves filling her ears. Accompanying this was a strange sensation that they were under the scrutiny of a higher, all-powerful entity. In synchrony, every candle in the prayer room flickered and then roared to life, their flames dancing wildly and crackling with almost vocal intensity.
As Vanna shifted her gaze back to the statue of the Storm Goddess, it seemed to transform, exuding a remote, towering grandeur. An indescribable aura of majestic reverence emanated from it, slowly but decisively focusing on Heidi.
“The Goddess is watching over us,” Vanna thought, initially alarmed by the sudden mystical occurrences but soon relieved as she observed the color returning to Heidi’s previously flushed face. “You’re safe now. Allow your memories to resurface; let’s unravel what you’ve seen and experienced.”
Heidi responded with a quiet nod, then proceeded to unfasten one of her earrings. The piece of jewelry appeared unremarkable, but as she skillfully flicked it open with her fingernail, a hidden compartment was revealed, containing a slender platinum needle just a few millimeters in length.
Without hesitation, she clenched the earring firmly and allowed the needle to pierce the skin of her palm. Blood welled up around the point of entry and began to trickle down her hand. This act was more than mere self-infliction; it was a mental trigger she had meticulously installed within herself during her early years as a psychotherapist. The piercing sensation of the platinum needle would act as a catalyst to unlock and flush out any toxic memories or thought barriers she had consciously or unconsciously constructed in her mind.
As the needle broke her skin, the room seemed to change immediately. The previously faint sound of illusionary ocean waves surged in volume, becoming almost overwhelming. At the same time, the candles in the room flickered ominously, their light dimming to produce disconcerting shadows. The air felt thick, layered in veils of fluctuating, blurry gauze swirling around the statue of the Goddess. Within these layers were fragments of illusory scenes—disturbing glimpses of what Heidi had locked deep within her memory.
It was a terrifying snapshot of some harsh, unfathomable reality.
Caught within these blurry veils, Vanna beheld the images that had so alarmed Heidi: a massive, cataclysmic torrent of fire erupting into the void, flames unlike anything the mortal world had ever produced. The blaze was overwhelming, possessing an awe-inspiring energy that dwarfed any human-made force. It was as if she were watching an ocean of fire, a tide so immense it threatened to engulf everything in its wake. Even Vanna, a saint of considerable spiritual strength, found her muscles tensing at the spectacle.
The scale of the fire was unimaginable. Did it extend hundreds of thousands of kilometers? Millions? Or was it even more expansive? Was this simply fire, or a manifestation of some primal force brushing against the very fabric of existential truth?
At some point, Vanna realized she had been holding her breath. She continued to watch, transfixed, as the towering flames soared, curled, and then descended, their flowing forms creating an intricate dance of grand arcs against the backdrop of an infinite void. Even after the illusion faded and the unsettling sounds of the ocean receded, Vanna remained momentarily stunned.
Finally, it was as if a sea breeze gently wafted through her mind, moistening her thoughts and grounding her back to reality. It was the comforting presence of the Storm Goddess pulling her back to her senses. She shifted her gaze to Heidi, who met her eyes with an expression of sheer astonishment.
“Is this what you encountered in the museum?” Vanna finally managed to ask, her voice tinged with a mixture of awe and dread.
“Perhaps… yes,” Heidi stammered, her heart still racing. The intensity of the memory, amplified by her self-hypnotic procedure, had surpassed even her wildest speculations. “But this vision, this force—it doesn’t seem like something that could ever be ‘displayed’ in a museum or any other space we know…”
“This couldn’t have been just some sort of ‘exhibit,'” Vanna declared emphatically, her voice tinged with incredulity and concern. “Even without understanding the exact dimensions or boundaries of what you saw, my gut tells me this vision is too vast, too otherworldly to be housed within any structure. It couldn’t have manifested in our physical realm.”
Heidi pondered this, her eyebrows knitting together in deep concentration. After a long pause, she finally spoke, choosing her words with care. “It’s possible that what I witnessed occurred while I was unconscious. I initiated a state of self-hypnosis during that unconscious phase. What I saw might not be its physical or essential form, but rather some kind of ‘projection’ that imprinted itself on my mental landscape.”
Vanna eyed her friend closely, her gaze piercing but not unkind. “Heidi, you’re a skilled mental therapist, and I have no reason to doubt your capabilities. But you have to admit, using a containment seal to trap psychic or supernatural pollutants in your own mind while unconscious is a risky endeavor, even for you.”
“I’m confident in what I did,” Heidi responded, her eyes meeting Vanna’s as she gave a slow, deliberate nod. “During my years of specialized training at the Truth Academy, I honed my skills to automatically contain hazardous or disturbing information within my subconscious, even if my main conscious self is compromised or temporarily incapacitated. The drawback is that the process isn’t precise. It results in memory gaps, leaving me unable to recall many specifics or the exact circumstances under which I encountered this ‘projection.’ I can’t even tell you what served as the medium or trigger for this vision.”
Vanna studied Heidi’s face for a moment longer before releasing a soft sigh, her shoulders dropping slightly as if letting go of a heavy burden. “In that case, I have to trust your expertise. It sounds like you’ve truly come into contact with something that transcends our typical understanding of the supernatural.”
I knew the pendant would help
You called it.
Haha, he says it provides protection, so it provides protection.
Captain:”*jokingly* it comes to mind and protects the wearer from curses~
Pendant: “Aye-aye cap’n.”