Truth Beyond the Veil Chapter 4: Chapter 3: An Abnormal Coincidence

Read chapter 4 of Truth Beyond the Veil by DarkCosmos on NovelPedia.

Summer, 21:00 Location: Victor’s house, Earth; Victor woke up feeling oddly refreshed, as if reborn. That is, if the weird, persistent thirst could be ignored. The thirst had plagued him the entire day, and no amount of water seemed to quench it. He drank a full bottle of water, but it did nothing other than make him feel bloated. "Man, I feel like I've drunk a whole week's worth of water in one day…" Victor sighed, putting down the empty bottle on the coffee table. “…What the hell is happening?" There were some obvious, subtle changes that were undeniable enough to prove the fact that this was not an illusion. My college friends seem normal, too. "Hmm, Spider? — Let’s do some hand signs to test—” Victor felt something and looked up at the wall to notice a spider. An idea sparked in his mind as he flicked his wrist and performed some unnatural gestures, which did nothing other than strain his wrist and fingers. Nothing. "And nothing seems to work…” Well, what happened was an interesting thing—let's put that aside for now and first complete our daily online ritual. He booted up his laptop, then headed to the fridge to refill the bottle and grab some snacks. He shared the link in the group and got a response right away. The first person to respond was Theo, with Leo joining a few seconds later. “Whoa… It feels like you guys were waiting for it!" Victor said in amazement. Theo turned on his mic and camera, "Well, among us, you are the only one who is this punctual at night". Theo was going to say something, but he stopped after looking at both Victor and Leo. Victor was about to say more, but he paused, noticing something odd. All three suddenly grew quiet, observing one another. Leo spoke first, "So something happened to you guys, too, huh?” "Let's take this to our private network," Theo suddenly interjected. “The drone one? That thing you two made for fun?” “Uh… Yes,” Theo awkwardly nodded. "Will it even work?" Leo asked, quite skeptical about it. "It will, but there will be some connectivity and bandwidth issues." Victor nodded to Leo, then turned toward Theo. "Give me a few minutes… You guys prep the drones. Theo, start the server." Victor bolted to the basement, startling his cat on the way. He retrieved a dusty drone and an old laptop, connected the drone, and then ran to the terrace. He set it flying at a safe height, high enough not to alert the authorities, and returned to connect to Theo's server after tweaking a few settings. They again made a meeting and rejoined after a few minutes. Victor laughed, "This shit came in handy, huh…I thought I was the only one. I didn't notice anything strange at college, either.” "Same here. I even tried to confirm it discreetly with a few people on Mumpy,” Theo nodded. “…You have friends?" Victor asked, raising a brow with a weird look on his face. "Yes. Three. And they're all girls." Theo's smug smile nearly begged to be punched. Leo squinted his eyes and, with a mocking smile on his face, asked. "Are you sure they're girls?" Theo's smile instantly vanished, then his face became stiff, and after 20 seconds, he got all serious and said, "We are getting off-topic, our private network is not that good, and the drones are pretty old too, let's discuss what happened —” “Hehe", Victor and Leo gave a knowing laugh. They all knew Theo was a little naive in these matters. "Your topic-changing skills have leveled up, I guess… so who will go first, you or Leo?” Victor asked. "Leo, you go first, you look more… hmm… How should I say it? Your changes look more severe than ours…” Theo said, unable to find the correct word to describe Leo’s change. "You guys sure about this…?" Leo hesitated, watching Theo and Victor nod. “Well, where should I start… hmm… It started yesterday night, well, today would be the correct word, but let’s not think about it." "It all started after I received a call from Victor —" Leo paused for a few seconds and took a deep breath. "The call that you didn't even let me pick