I’m the contracted bride of the billionaire

Chapter 67: Amelia’s Echoes

Activity packed the resistance headquarters as Philip and his colleagues prepared for their next expedition. Captain Chen’s audacious scheme was to obtain vital intelligence by breaking into a large alien stronghold.

Philip saw the nuances and felt great tiredness. The tension of their circumstances and his worries about Amelia had kept him from sleeping properly in days. “Mr. Waller, you should take a break,” Amanda said, seeing his tiredness. “We’ll wake you up when it comes time to leave.” Philip nodded slowly, realizing he would be useless to anyone should he collapse from depletion.

He moved toward a modest, substandard resting area, and Amelia’s notebook gripped tightly to his chest. As he sank into the little cot, Amelia’s thoughts flew across his head.

The picture of her next to the alien construction tormented him. One may argue she was a detained prisoner.

Alternatively had she evolved entirely into something else? He nodded off and entered a vivid dream before he could think any more. He ended up in a familiar location: the same studio where he first had met Amelia. Sunlight flowing through huge windows lighted abstract pattern covered canvases.

More importantly, Amelia herself stood right in the middle of the room. “Amelia?” asked Philip cried, his pulse pounding. She turned to face him, then sighed regretfully. “Philip.” All day I had been waiting for you. He shot at her, but his arms passed right through her body as he tried to hug her.

Amelia flashed like a vision, her picture only slightly distorted. “I’m not exactly here,” she remarked gently. “Not in the way you maintain I should be.” Fear and uncertainty replaced Philip’s delight. “Amelia, what’s happening with you? Where else could you be?” Her face grew increasingly tight. “I am… anywhere and nowhere at once. The aliens Philip are not what we believe them to be. They are “”.

The studio around her started to twist and turn before she could finish. Looking straight at the pulsating geometric forms that had replaced the burned walls, Philip’s eyes stung.

Amelia’s framework started to fragment into brilliant bits. Her voice echoed, “Find me, Philip.” She disappeared. Still, keep a wary eye. Nothing as it seems is the truth. Philip startled with awake heaving for air.

The dream had seemed so real and vivid. He smelled paint from Amelia’s workshop and could still feel the sun’s warmth on his skin. “Mr. Waller?” asked Amanda’s anxious voice sliced through his uncertainty. “Are you fine? You were chatting in your sleep.

Philip sat up rubbing his eyes. “I… I’m not sure.” I observed Amelia. It appeared quite real. Amanda’s approach reflected a mix of stress and empathy. “Sir, that amounted just to a dream.

Your unconscious reviewing all the events. Still, Philip wasn’t sure exactly. The dream had given him urgency as he felt Amelia was attempting to tell him something important. Opening the sketchbook, he half-expected to find fresh sketches or notes.

The pages stayed unmodified in any circumstance. As Philip prepared for the expedition, he couldn’t get rid of the aftereffect of the dream.

Every far-off shadow and distant sound carried Amelia’s voice. He kept peering over his shoulder, hoping to see her standing there. Under cover of darkness, the crew started across the changed metropolis toward the alien stronghold. Strange designs persisted overhead, thrashing with superhuman force.

Philip held the sketchbook tightly, knowing its covert ability would protect them should need it. Philip sensed the book radiating natural warmth as they neared their goal.

He gasped when he opened it as fresh designs started to show up on the pages and move and whirl before him. He said, “Hold up,” to the group softly. “Something is happening.” The patterns created a crude map showing a path across the alien defenses that their intellect had not revealed.Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

The others seemed shocked and dubious after Philip revealed the material. “How could one be trusted?” A newer hire asked. “What if it’s a falsehood?” Though they were dubious, Philip realized right away that Amelia was helping them.

We follow the map, he added firmly. Our best shot is it. As Philip followed the directions in the sketchbook across the perilous terrain, his senses seemed to sharpen. Colors manifested more clearly, sounds more crisp. And later he saw her as they changed a corner.

Amelia was dream-like, standing at the end of a long corridor and her shape flickering. She instantly yelled at him. “there!” Philip pointed out. “Is she in there?” The others sold stressed-looking goods. “See Who, Mr. Waller?” Amanda asked carefully. “There’s none there.” When Philip woke up, Amelia had vanished.

Accepting it was a fantasy or mental trip; he rushed to the hall where he had seen her. As they ran, reality around them grew foggy; they entered a room bursting with pulsating technologies. Inside a whirl of energy in the middle stood a human shape housed within a pillar. Philip’s heart dropped once he realized Amelia was caught in the energy field of the outsiders.

Still, as he walked nearer her, a question crept in. Reminding him the aliens were not real, he kept hearing Amelia’s voice in his thoughts. Dr. stared as the space rocked fiercely. Reeves alerted them to the threat the nearby alien defenses activation presented. Philip rushed towards the energy field, although Dr. Reeves forewarned him of the risk.

Amelia’s face transformed as well, growing less human and more angular. Her eyes gleamed with an unnatural brightness, and her speech combined Amelia’s with something entirely horrible.

As the energy field grew quickly, they ran backwards, but the alien power moved too fast. Philip’s hands opened and framed a defensive barrier around the blockage candidates in Amelia’s sketchbook.

The alien energy clashed with the mysterious power of the notebook. The chamber loaded with a magnificent thunder as reality itself seemed to rip at the wrinkles. Among the several Amelias Philip observed in the turmoil-the alien hybrid in the energy field, the one he knew and loved, and many more in between-were several variations in between.

Calling out to him, each of them implored him to believe her and save her. “‘Philip!” Amanda’s voice sliced out the craziness. “We have to get off straight away! The entire area is sinking!” Realising he had to make a hard choice, Philip started to cry. Stay and try to save Amelia, or whatsoever she had evolved into, all the while endangering everyone’s life. Alternatively you may depart, leaving her behind but guaranteeing the survival of his crew and the vital knowledge they had acquired. Philip followed his inclination as the cavern imploded around them.

With a troubled heart, he turned from Amelias’s whirlpool and guided his squad toward the exit. As they sprinted across convoluted halls defying gravity, their surroundings was collapsing. As they neared the outside edge of the alien construction, the region was rocked with a great explosion. Driven clear by the shockwave, they dropped to the ground covered in trash.

Philip climbed to his feet, his eyesight fuzzy and ears ringing, then turned back at the site of the alien stronghold. Its replacement was a whirl of energy driven by strong light. At the brink of the vortex stood someone. Amelia or something else could have been wearing her form. It raised a hand, as if bidding farewell, then felt as though the whirling energy swallowed her. Amelia! Philip yelled and dove into the whirlpool. Strong hands, though, held back him.

“It’s too late,” Amanda murmured, her voice tinged with sorrow and anxiety. “We have to walk away. Nowadays. Philip’s brain whirled as they retired to their secret base. Had he chosen the right course? He questioned if the Amelia he had seen was a hoax or real.

Furthermore, what had she been trying to teach him about the true nature of the trespassing visitors? While the squad presented their results to Captain Chen back at the resistance headquarters, Philip stood apart and glanced at Amelia’s sketchbook. Its pages were obvious now, the mysterious power apparently lazy. But as he looked, the paper began to show a single line shaping itself. It pivoted and bent, slowly materializing.

B Knowing what was being sketched, Philip leaned closer, his heart pounding. Though not as he remembered her, it was Amelia’s face. This Amelia had an otherworldly aura since her eyes revealed secrets incomprehensible to humans.

Underneath the portrayal, words began to show up: “The reality is greater than you understand. Find me in the area separating actual events from other elements.” As Philip shut the book, his ideas were flying. Whatever was happening or Amelia had become, he knew one thing for sure: her path was far from finished. The true riddle was only beginning to take shape.