Krafft's Anomaly Notes

Chapter 28 Bad News

Kraft's hand on the bottle trembled, and he nearly flung it out.Immediately, he increased the strength in his hand and grabbed the bottle tightly to prevent himself from throwing it out and breaking it.

In terror, he found the fulcrum of reason.After experiencing something unimaginable by ordinary people, it seems that an unknown change has taken place in the spirit, and it is not easy to be shaken.

It cannot have its own thoughts, it is just a bit of liquid, and there is no basis for thinking ability.

This liquid is only inducing itself through some channels, rather than talking directly.The impulsive thoughts just now are essentially composed of the original materials in my mind.

Curiosity for new things, plans to conduct animal experiments, and learned that the professor and Lucius had swallowed the diluted solution.These contents were scooped up and combined to come up with new ideas that facilitated its release from the bottle.

Following the strong curiosity, the brain completes these contents by itself, so its "persuasion" only provides the most original attraction, and all the rest is completed by Kraft's own thinking.

The principle is not complicated, it is equivalent to a scammer making an emergency call, without specifying the specific information, only providing great anxiety, and the content is all imagined by the anxious victim himself.

As long as there is a primitive impulse, it will move the whole situation like a lever, using the reasons in the subject's subconscious to deal with him, which is applicable to all people and even all creatures.

"This is so interesting." Kraft held up the small bottle and exclaimed.Although I don't know what mechanism it affects my emotions, but this idea is wonderful.

If it's any other creature, it's better than an anglerfish lantern.

In fact, it has almost succeeded, with two people acting irrationally as it wished, it easily achieved its goal of contacting more creatures.

Let alone a few mice and two people who came into direct contact with the black liquor.

One more thing was not figured out: what's the point?At least Lucius doesn't seem to be too abnormal now, what is it doing this for?
Is it a parasite that lives in liquid?Is it bacteria?Or a virus?The pursuit of dissemination is nothing more than to spread oneself on a larger scale, to continuously multiply and reproduce, and to complete meaningless duplication.

It has been more than ten days since Lucius came into contact with it, and now there seems to be no physical abnormality, and the mental state is not easy to evaluate at present.

Is the amount too small, or the black liquor will not cause drastic changes in the short term?Will the mice that are used for experiments have the answer?

Kraft carefully put the bottle on another table, and asked Lucius who was holding the candlestick: "Do you remember any changes in the rats that you fed the diluted solution, I mean besides the coma The change."

"No." Lucius shook his head. "A total of fourteen mice were dissected by the instructor. Until the last experiment, no long-term observation was made."

"If you feel uncomfortable, please notify me in time." Kraft patted Lucius on the shoulder, and then glanced at the bottle on the table, "To be honest, I feel that this thing is a bit dangerous. If it is not necessary , we'd better not touch it."

Kraft was unable to explain to Lucius what he had noticed.When he consciously refused, the induction of the black liquid could not force people to act aggressively, especially after pulling away, the effect quickly weakened to the point where it was hard to detect.

"Really, no kidding, let's just stay as far away from it as possible. Don't you really think it's weird for you to drink diluent?" he added, with an attitude that made him seem like a timid old pedant , Give up precious opportunities for a little bit of risk.

But Kraft knew that this was the best choice, and he couldn't be too careful about something that was beyond comprehension, suspected to be a creature, and had a tendency to spread.

If it weren't for the fear of accidents, he would rather go out and lock the door and fill up the cellar with soil, and never set foot here again until the professor came back after figuring out everything.

This is not something he should touch, just like the gift he brought back from "beyond the cave", which does not belong to the part of human common sense, and he is far from thinking whether to pay the price that is too deep.

He refuses this change, refuses to pay any unknown price.He opened a corner of the giant screen, was shocked by what he saw, and didn't have the guts to face the whole picture.

At least for now, he has no good reason to jump into this muddy water.

"Okay, okay." Lucius picked up the glass bottle, shook it, the black liquid rolled in it, hit the thick wall of the bottle, and finally lay peacefully on the bottom of the bottle.

He opened the closet door and put the bottle back in, but the moment Lucius lifted the bottle, his movements froze.

He stopped the bottle at eye level and looked at it for a few seconds, then put the bottle back on the table, and under the light of the candlestick, he lay on his stomach at the level of the table and turned the bottle around a few times.

Then he said in an unbelievable tone: "It seems a little less?"

"A little less?"

"Yes, look at this thread." Lucius moved the candlestick closer and pointed to the place near the bottom of the bottle, so Kraft could see it more clearly.

There was a tiny scratch there, so lightly and inconspicuously that Kraft hadn't even noticed it just now.

Lucius pressed Kraft's shoulders and made him lean down, looking at the line at a height close to the table.

"I drew this line on the last day before the professor left. Logically speaking, it should be consistent with the highest point of the liquid level. When I took it out just now, I felt something was wrong."

"you sure?"

"Just now I thought it was a problem with the angle of view." Lucius' breathing behind the mask became heavy and rapid. He reached out to straighten the lens, readjusted the position of the bird's beak, and checked again at the level of the table.

Indeed, if this scratch is used as a standard, there is an obvious gap at the highest point of the liquid level, and about a quarter of the height has disappeared.

The amount of liquid itself is small. If there is no line drawn for comparison, it may be difficult to make a definite judgment based on memory and intuition.

"Could it have evaporated?" Kraft asked.People in this world still know the three-state changes of liquids, but they are still at the stage of seeing the white mist on the kettle as water vapor for the time being.

"No." This guess was immediately denied by Kraft himself.

He remembered that it had only been seven days since the professor left, and the experiment lasted more than ten days, with only a small amount of liquid dipped each time.The amount of liquid itself is small, if the evaporation is so obvious, it should have been noticed.

Considering that the amount of liquid itself is very small, it may even evaporate on the way to Wendeng Port, and there is no chance to keep it until now.

"Evaporation? Unlikely." Lucius also denied this conjecture.He fell into deep doubts, unable to understand how this happened.

"Aside from the professor and you, will anyone else be here?" Kraft asked.This is the most reasonable explanation he can think of so far. If this is not correct, Hei Lie can only run away by himself.

Lucius reached into his pocket. Inside was the thick metal lock and matching key that hung on the door. His hand brushed over it, and the cold metal was reassuring.

"That's impossible. Only the professor and I have the key. Unless someone can pry the lock and then hang it back as it is, but this lock is not so easy to deal with." Lucius gave a negative answer again.

He might have thought about this too, there's no need for people in the academy to do this.After all, it's normal to have some secret experiments, and most of them end in nothing. It's not normal to have no secrets.Who would go to such lengths to find someone else's secret laboratory?

As for the people outside the academy, not to mention how they got in, even if they came here by accident in a complex building, could it be that he unlocked it and put it back in, just took a little liquid from the small bottle?
Could it be that Heiye really ran away by himself?Kraft was bewildered.This thing doesn't seem to have this ability at all. It can't be that it opened the plug and ran for a while, and then put the plug back, right?
If it's so outrageous, it needs to lure creatures into touching it?
Amidst the question marks, Kraft ruled out several possibilities one after another, and the whole incident was shrouded in a sudden fog.

But there is actually a possibility.

"Although it may be strange to say this, there is no one else here. I want to ask the professor if he knows that you have scratched?" Kraft asked, staring at Lucius behind the red lenses, waiting for him to tell himself that the professor of course I know.

"..." Lucius was silent, as if he was thinking, and as if he didn't know how to answer, but silence itself was the answer.

The atmosphere in the room froze slightly. Professor Kalman should have been the one who was the least likely to have a problem. Kraft mentioned this purely in passing, but he didn't expect something to go wrong.

He hesitated for a while, picked up and put down the bottle on the table, did not give his own opinion directly, but threw out what he knew: "I took a small stone chip and scratched it casually, trying to estimate the amount of future experiments. Notify the professor."

Things began to develop in the direction Kraft least expected.

Professor Kalman's experiments were all carried out with Lucius, including the experimental records, which were handed over to Lucius for sorting out.As a professor's academic heir, he basically has no reservations, and his own son may not be so close.

What reason made him avoid Lucius before leaving, and secretly took out a quarter of the black liquid?
Anyway, it is impossible to use it for animal experiments.There is no need to avoid Lucius for animal experiments, and it is obviously more convenient for multiple people.

……

……

The two put the bottle back in the closet, left the box containing the experimental records, locked the door, covered it with the box, and left the cellar without a word.

Lucius seemed a little frustrated, but patiently explained to Kraft the time and place of his lectures as a lecturer, as well as the specific location of the house the professor reserved for Kraft, and left after confirming that Kraft had no doubts.

Kraft thanked him and watched his tired figure disappear at the end of the corridor.He knew what Lucius was thinking.

The person whom he regarded as his half-father did not give him the full trust he expected.He must be thinking now whether he did not do well enough, or did not show the ability to meet Kalman's expectations.

This kind of denial of himself may have hit him too hard, no matter what the reason is, it is difficult for him to accept, and it will probably take a few days to recover.

Kraft didn't go to comfort Lucius, and he didn't know how to do so.He still has to think about his own problems now, and Kallman's concealment is also bad news for him.

The liquid exhibiting weird inducing tendencies, the distorted and weird characters in the notes left by the professor, the missing parts of the samples that were taken away...

Standing in the corridor painted scarlet by the setting sun, he took a deep breath, as if he wanted to pull the shadow of the elongated colonnade along with the dusty beam of light into his lungs.

There is a vaguely familiar but unfamiliar and unknown smell permeating the mouth and nose, which makes people instinctively feel that it should not appear here.It can't be caught when focusing on the sense of smell.

From the moment I walked into the building myself, the more I understood it, the more obvious it became.It exists among the unrolled experimental records, lingers in the basement, and appears at every moment of Kraft's revelation.

Kraft woke up with a start, wondering why he felt familiar.It is a weak and irrefutable feature, indescribable, incomprehensible, and should not exist in the world.

"Fuck!" The otherworldly part of the soul couldn't help bursting out dirty words from his hometown, "It's really bad news."

He had come into contact with existences of the same kind that were countless times stronger than this in the snowy night.But now, it's just an inevitable reunion by chance.

(End of this chapter)