Chapter 191
Hearing those words while standing beside Nirma, Arya could no longer stop himself from asking.
Not because he doubted Ashita, but because he needed to hear the same conclusion from someone else's lips.
Because he needed reassurance that he was not losing his mind.
That he was not dreaming.
That the world he had always known as stable and predictable was indeed slowly collapsing around him, like an old house hollowed out by termites from within.
A house that remained standing for years out of sheer habit, only to one day collapse without warning, without a sound, without a cloud of dust, burying everything inside beneath ruins that could no longer be identified piece by piece.
"Ashita, what does the old well in the middle of the marketplace have to do with all of this?" he asked.
His voice nearly cracked at the edges, like glass that had fractured but had not yet shattered.
"I ordered Arya to hack into the agency's database, and he uncovered a fact that was never included in the official reports. When the locations of these five houses are connected on a map, they form a circle whose center is not the Prophet's Mosque, but an old well in the middle of the marketplace. According to archaeological records I stole from the year 2045, that well was the very place where Sinta Melina Ningsih first appeared in Medina to disrupt history. This was documented in one section of the novel Abnormality written by Theo Vkytor, while also completing the version of Abnormality given by the old man who claimed to be the last surviving descendant of the Ningsih family after the genocide committed by six-year-old Sinta, as recorded in the novel."
The silence on the other end of the line became so heavy once again that Nirma could almost hear grains of dust falling inside the clay phone.
This time, however, the silence was not broken by Ashita's voice.
Instead, it was Tegar who took the phone from Ashita's hand.
His voice was deep and weighty, like a temple bell echoing through an abandoned sanctuary.
It emerged after a long breath.
The breath of someone who had just resolved to do something that could never be undone, even though he knew its consequences would haunt him until the end of his life.
Or until the end of the lives of everyone he loved.
Which, in Tegar's world, amounted to no more than three or four people.
And Nirma was one of them.
"That means," Tegar said.
His voice was slow but unwavering, as certain as a compass needle that never hesitated, no matter how fiercely the storm raged around it.
"Sinta has already been to Medina before. She didn't merely visit. She came to disrupt history. And the copy of Abnormality given by that old man, the novel in which he confessed that his family was the last surviving branch of the Ningsih lineage after the genocide committed by six-year-old Sinta, is the key to understanding why Sinta is doing all of this."
They left Sa'd's house with footsteps far heavier than when they had entered.
Not because of physical exhaustion, but because the chest filled with hair and fingernails remained burned into their retinas like a stain that could never be erased.
As the moon drifted westward, signaling that midnight had already passed, they turned into a narrow alleyway.
According to the map they had stolen from the agency's database, it led directly to the house of Amr ibn al-Jamuh, a former idol maker who, even after embracing Islam, had preserved the distinctive structure of his home.
It was built in the ustuwanah style.
Long and narrow, with rows of wooden pillars rising from compacted earthen floors.
Its ceiling, made from palm trunks bound together with fibers, hung unusually low.
Anyone taller than average had to lower their head to avoid striking the beams.
"This location has the fewest agents," Arya whispered after pressing a button on his wrist.
His eyes scanned the stream of data flowing through the internal communication frequencies of the Temporal Cross-Police that he had successfully hacked.
"According to their superiors, this place is considered the least likely location for anything to happen. Amr was an idol maker before embracing Islam, and his house is surrounded by narrow alleys that make it difficult for large teams to enter."
Nirma said nothing in response.
Instead, she inhaled deeply, trying to detect the scent of the sleeping gas that had become the unmistakable signature of the kidnappings at the previous two houses.
But something was different.
The smell was almost imperceptible.
It lingered only faintly, like a memory already beginning to fade.
Watching Nirma's nose twitch in intense concentration, Arya forced himself to verify that her sense of smell was not deceiving her.
The sleeping gas was indeed almost nonexistent.
As though, in this house, the Great Abnormals had used a different formula.
Softer.
Slower.
More like a whisper than a scream.
More like an experiment than an execution.
The side passage connecting Amr's house to the public well, a passage that Amr himself normally opened every morning as part of a routine he had never abandoned since his days as an idol maker who believed water was the source of life and should be shared with anyone who thirsted, was now completely sealed with freshly placed stones.
Those stones did not belong to Amr's house.
Their color was darker.
They were wetter.
Colder.
Like stones taken from the bottom of a river that had never seen sunlight.
When Nirma touched their surface with her invisible fingertips, she felt an unnatural dampness.
The kind of dampness that suggested the stones had only recently been moved from an intensely cold place.
Perhaps from a cave.
Perhaps from an underground chamber.
Perhaps from an entirely different century where the air itself was unlike the air she was breathing now.
"This isn't an ordinary barricade," Nirma said.
Her voice emerged from behind her veil with an icy calm, the kind of calm belonging to an analysis determined to remain untouched by emotion.
"Amr would never seal this passage with stones. Especially not with stones that aren't his. Someone else did this, Arya. Perhaps the Great Abnormals. Perhaps to keep anyone from entering this area before they finished whatever they were planning inside."
Arya nodded.
His eyes remained fixed on the tiny gaps between the newly stacked stones.
If he pressed his ear against them, he could hear sounds coming from beyond the wall.
Not voices.
Not footsteps.
Only breathing.
Steady breathing.
Like someone asleep.
Or like an animal dreaming.
From the rhythm of those breaths, Arya concluded that there was still a living being inside Amr's house.
Still breathing.
But unconscious.
Suspended somewhere between dreams and reality.
Unable to wake, yet never truly asleep.
"Let's just go through the front door," Arya whispered.
"The agents here are only guarding the outside. They haven't gone in yet because they're waiting for orders from their superiors. And according to the data I stole, those orders won't arrive for another three hours. We still have time. But we have to move quickly."
To be continued…