Anomaly

I wasn't really sure anyone still had much hope that the weather might stabilize at this point. Up until last week, at least, that had still seemed like a reasonable possibility. I mean, sure, it was getting colder.

Freezing, actually, would be putting it mildly. The temperatures had been steadily dropping, and the wind seemed to have developed the irritating habit of finding every little gap in our clothes just to freeze the skin underneath.

But even with all that, things still hadn't gotten bad enough to make me think they could simply keep getting worse. At the end of the day, it was still just cold. Irritating, biting, uncomfortable cold, but... just cold. Nothing particularly new there. Then it started snowing. And that was when things took a decidedly stranger turn. There were, in fact, two problems with that.

The first was pretty straightforward: as far as I knew, it didn't snow in this part of the country, where the city was located. A few snowflakes might occasionally show up depending on the year and the weather conditions, but an actual snowstorm? Snow piling up on the ground? That just didn't happen around here.

The second problem was even more concerning. The snow didn't seem to be letting up. If anything, as the days went by, it only seemed to get heavier. The other issue, and, frankly, the one that was really starting to worry everyone, was the fact that it had simply started snowing in the desert.

I didn't need to explain just how completely abnormal that was. In fact, calling it "abnormal" almost felt like an understatement. Even considering the massive temperature swings that could occur in desert regions, especially at night, I'd never heard of a desert just... starting to snow like this.

The sight was strange, to say the least. Sand and snow coexisting in the same place. A thin white layer slowly forming over the dunes, tiny frozen particles dancing through the air as the wind swept across the region. The problem was that this strange sight was starting to become something we were getting used to. The snow kept falling.

More and more flakes began piling up around us, covering the ground and the nearby rock formations. The temperature continued to plummet as well, making the air colder with every passing minute. And, as if all of that wasn't enough... My senses suddenly started going off like crazy, almost like fireworks exploding all at once at some teenager's New Year's Eve party.

Something was wrong. Very wrong. I didn't know exactly what, but every instinct inside me seemed to be screaming the same thing. Stay alert. Things didn't seem to be going particularly well for Emily, Laura, or Victor either. Actually... I hadn't seen any of the three of them in a while. The last time I'd run into Laura had already been about three days ago.

She normally showed up every day, usually sometime in the afternoon, even if it was only to chat for a while or check on how things were going. Emily had been gone even longer. She also tended to make time to visit us whenever she could, so the fact that she hadn't even shown up lately said quite a lot about how bad things must have gotten by now.

Victor was in a similar situation to Laura's. He normally visited his sister every single day without fail. Three days without showing up was already quite a record, especially considering how hard he'd been working to rebuild his connection with Chronas. Come to think of it, I actually found it a little funny that Victor brought her gifts practically every day.

Not that Chronas really cared about the presents. From what I'd noticed, she cared much more about the simple fact that Victor showed up and spent some time by her side. Still, she seemed to genuinely like the gifts, even if she rarely made it obvious. Chronas had a surprisingly mischievous side, especially considering the almost perpetually impassive expression she usually wore.

Sometimes, I got the impression that she deliberately did certain things just to mess with Victor and watch his reaction. It was hard not to find that a little amusing. But this time, even Victor wasn't showing up.

And that... wasn't a good sign. With all that said, my sisters were, as always, about as useful a source of information as any random wall I could find in the middle of the street to have a conversation with.

Unfortunately, Charlotte wasn't any different. She said she could sense that something was wrong, something that shouldn't be there, but that someone was deliberately hiding that information from her. It wasn't exactly a useful answer, but at least it was something. I don't think I'd ever mentally cursed out one of my sisters as much as I cursed Selyra during those few minutes.

Anyway, the short version was simple: I wasn't going to get any genuinely useful information out of them for the time being. The others simply kept repeating that they were waiting for "their" moves before deciding whether to act... or tell me anything. And that, naturally, raised one very important question. Who exactly were "they"? That was the million-dollar question.

Anyway, I decided to look for Emily or Laura. Normally, the two of them were the best-informed people in the entire facility. Of course, there were a few scientists beneath them who also received important information, usually passed along by Laura or Emily, but... why waste my time going to them when I could simply ask the source directly?

It was much more convenient. I didn't have much trouble getting around the facility. When you can literally sink into the ground and "swim" through it to reach practically anywhere, getting around stops being a problem and becomes almost a matter of convenience. Besides, using this method, I could even teleport to any place I'd seen at least once before.

All I needed was a clear enough image of the location in my mind, and the rest happened almost naturally. It was fast, silent, and, most importantly, much easier than simply walking through the corridors. The problem was that I had absolutely no idea where Laura was at the moment. I tried looking for her in the places where I would normally expect to find her, but I couldn't find any sign of her.

No clues, no leads, and, much to my growing frustration, no one seemed to know exactly where she'd gone. I passed by a few members of the organization along the way, both agents and scientists, and, to be honest, they all seemed pretty tense. There was an obvious sense of unease in the air, with people exchanging worried looks and speaking in lower voices than usual.

For the most part, a good deal of that tension seemed to be coming from the snow. Which was, in a way, a little ironic. They were only starting to worry now, when the desert was literally freezing right before their eyes.

I genuinely couldn't blame them for it. For most of the time, they had probably been hoping this was nothing more than an abnormal but ultimately natural weather event. An unexpected cold front, a sudden drop in temperature, anything with a reasonable explanation that could turn the situation into something that didn't require the organization's intervention.

Because of that, they had simply ignored signs that, in hindsight, had been pretty obvious from the very beginning. I couldn't deny that waiting until the desert literally started freezing before doing anything seemed a little stupid, but, from the humans' point of view, it made some sense. After all, they were the ones, especially the agents, who had to put themselves in danger whenever an anomaly appeared.

If you spent your entire life entering dangerous places and facing things capable of killing you, you'd probably start desperately hoping that every strange situation had a simple explanation. Maybe that was why they were so determined to believe the cold was just... well, cold. Even with the entire desert slowly turning into one gigantic block of ice.

Of course, I couldn't exactly say I was any better, considering that, up until this point, I hadn't even tried to do anything to stop whatever was happening out there. Still, in my defense, I didn't even know what was actually happening.

I might be an anomaly with plenty of abilities, some of which were definitely powerful enough to turn me into a thermonuclear bomb, but as far as I knew, none of them involved omniscience... at least, not that I'm aware of.

The ironic part was that, despite normally being the person responsible for dealing with the most critical anomalous situations, I was somehow always the last person to receive any relevant information. It was almost as if they expected me to put out a fire without even telling me where it was.

I sighed. Maybe it would be easier to find Emily first. Or I could simply keep looking until I found someone who knew where the two of them were. Either way, I had time. In the end, I decided to visit Emily. At this point in the day, I figured she was probably in her office, so that's exactly where I headed.

As always, my teleportation point inside Emily's office was on the ceiling. I was just about to manifest when I realized she wasn't alone. Laura was with her. Which, now that I thought about it, wasn't exactly strange. In fact... why hadn't I thought of that before? The two of them worked together frequently, so it was perfectly natural for them to be in the same room.

What really surprised me was realizing that, besides the two of them, Arthur was there as well. And Victor. I stopped on the ceiling for a few seconds, watching the four of them below. This was definitely an interesting combination of people to find gathered in the same room. I considered simply appearing like I always did, but at the last moment, I changed my mind.

I was curious. Very curious, actually. I had no idea what they were talking about, but there was something about the way they were gathered together that caught my attention. Judge me if you want, but I had a feeling I'd ruin whatever they were discussing if I simply appeared from the ceiling in the middle of their conversation.

So instead, I remained quiet. If I was lucky, I'd figure out what they were talking about before they noticed me. And if a good opportunity presented itself... Well, then I could simply reveal myself. For now, though, listening first seemed like a much better option.