Chapter 6: Anamolous
Don’t look at the number 23.
This was a known motto, especially to those familiar with Anomaly 0-01, aka "Once Upon Reality." But today was the day the Bureau of Anomaly Affairs broke that rule. They would be visiting Room 23 of Heaven’s Gate Psychiatric Hospital.
In a room filled with intelligence analysts, communication officers, operations officers, and logistics support, a huge wall—lined with video feeds from field agents via drones, body cameras, and other anomalous means—was now displaying the team assigned to the mission.
"Is that her?" Commander Pyo Chi Yeol asked as he gazed at a girl who looked to be in her teenage years on the video wall.
The assistant right next to him answered immediately.
"Yes, sir. That is Choi Ae Ran. She comes from a long line of ascendants, one of the rare awakened ones."
"I heard she is still a Stage One Spark. Are we sure she will be able to handle the task?"
"She is awakened, sir—well, pseudo-awakened—and she is surrounded by veteran Seeded. They will be fine."
"I hope so. We are dealing with a very high-level anomaly, and I don’t want us to make enemies out of the family of an awakened."
At Heaven’s Gate Psychiatric Hospital, the air was icy, carrying an inexplicable taste of dread as a red moon washed over the group of about twenty people. Choi Ae Ran stood at the center of this operation. This was her second real field mission, only an interval after dealing with the viral vector yesterday.
"Keep calm, keep calm," she chanted to herself. The anomaly they were dealing with was one that reacted to emotional states. She activated her vestige, bringing to life her Eyes of Truth.
Immediately, she felt a huge wave of meaning wash over her. The eerie atmosphere suddenly felt light, yet her vision was bombarded by bright colors that gave the hospital an almost childlike quality.
She looked to the rest of the team; they didn’t seem to notice anything yet.
"Team One, you will take the east wing. Team Two, the west. Team Three and I, along with the Awakened, will move after your sweeps to ensure we make it quickly to Room 23."
"Affirmative, Captain."
Soon enough, two teams—each made up of about seven operatives—moved out, dressed head to toe in heavy black uniforms, speckled with tactical gear of a highly specialized nature.
Choi Ae Ran felt their information flood her senses—from their names to their life histories, to all possible deductions—making her eyes and head burn from the overload.
"Breathe in," she breathed in, "breathe out," she breathed out, calming her senses as she reduced the torrent of information to only what was necessary for the mission: life signals, mental states, and emotional states, all falling into the familiar color codes she had worked hard to establish. Now she could focus more on mission-critical information, such as team members’ names and abilities, as well as the abilities of any other beings present.
Choi couldn’t help but feel a bit overwhelmed by the very concepts of the abilities she was seeing. From Life to Memory to Evolution, every manner of concept one could think of was held by one Ascendant or another. Yet their meanings still bled out as they melded with their mental, emotional, and spiritual states, continuing to spew information into her eyes.
Her gaze turned back to Captain Sang Hun Lee.
All his base levels seemed levelled, helping her stabilize herself. She had found out during yesterday’s mission that just by staring at him, she could calm down considerably.
She didn’t know why.
Maybe it was because he was a Stage Four Seeded Exarch, to be more precise. Or maybe it was because of the concept he embodied.
Maybe both.
She didn’t know what it was, but he calmed her.
Soon enough, messages came through the comms.
"East Wing clear."
"West Wing clear. All unanomalous humans have been evacuated."
Captain Sang Hun Lee, receiving the information, led them into the building.
The halls were oddly eerie, with little to no working lights. Only the red glow of the eerie descent above painted the area in crimson, yet they all did their best to stay calm and think happy thoughts.
Any dark thoughts could mean the death of the team.
The teams moved systematically, clearing floor after floor, the ascent almost feeling easy. Yet to Choi Ae Ran, it all seemed surreal.
She was seeing all manner of fantastical creatures: unicorns, living rainbows, princesses, women made of stars and suns.
She almost couldn’t help but fall into a trance.
"Cadet Choi."
A deep, authoritative voice.
The voice startled her out of her musings.
"Yes, Captain!"
"Can you sense any signs of a Domain Core?" Sang Hun Lee asked, pointing toward a door numbered 23.
Choi Ae Ran turned from the magical walls and the different doors across the hallway to the door marked 23.
The door looked perfectly normal against the fantastical landscape playing across the walls and surrounding doors. Yet its very normalness seemed to pull Choi Ae Ran toward it.
As she got closer, she could see faint glimmers and sparkles. A calming, almost immersive scent of flowers entered her nose.
"Cadet Choi, your input?" Sang Hun Lee asked.
Yet she couldn’t hear him.
"Cadet Choi? Cadet Choi!"
Seeing that Choi Ae Ran was not responding, Sang Hun Lee activated his abilities.
He tried to use the Concept of Control to forcibly stop her from inching toward the door, yet nothing happened. When he saw that she was still moving forward, he altered the laws in her specific area, making her be repelled by the door.
Yet that didn’t work either.
She seemed to have a singular objective.
Sang Hun Lee turned to his other companions for help, yet they all seemed dazed. Just as they were beginning to snap out of it, Choi Ae Ran made contact with the door.
The door dissolved into sparkles.
Inside seemed to be a swirling pool of bright colors, as if someone had mixed every type of vibrant color into a paint can.
A sense of dread quickly washed over the whole group.
"Everyone, run!"
All the agents began to run as the swirling colors poured out like a wave, turning the stale-looking hall into something straight out of a fairy tale.
Everything touched by the spilling fluid transformed into a vibrant landscape full of trees, forests, springs, rainbows, and mythical creatures such as unicorns.
Humans touched by the fluid transformed into different creatures. Some became frogs, others bears. Some turned into handsome princes and beautiful princesses, yet they were trapped playing out fairy-tale scripts, losing their sense of self. One became a western dragon with colorful scales, fierce eyes, and fire breath.
The agents fought tooth and nail, only for eleven of them to make it out of the building.
Once they were outside, the building closed its doors, and the structure returned to normal.
Seeing this, Captain Sang Hun Lee wanted to go back and search for the missing people. He peered through a window, only for the inside of the building to look relatively normal.
He walked toward the door, ready to go back in to see if any of the agents were still salvageable.
Yet his remaining team members stopped him.
After all, it was well known that once someone was swallowed by Once Upon Reality, they hardly ever came back normal.
Now, all they could do was wait for dawn to collect the bodies.
Sang Hun Lee clenched his fist, knelt to the ground, and punched it in frustration.
He had lost a lot of teams before, but this one stung more than most.
A teenage girl had been among them.
He wondered what Headquarters had been thinking, allowing this situation to happen yet again.
He breathed in, trying to calm himself.
All he could do now was wait to reclaim the bodies.
Pssshh.
His comms crackled to life.
"Captain Sang Hun Lee, there has been another anomaly appearance. It seems to match the second energy signature from yesterday’s traces linked to the Viral Vector. Mobilize for containment. It appears to be at an abandoned church seventy kilometers from your current position."
Sang Hun Lee couldn’t believe his ears.
He had just lost some of his people, yet he was already being tasked with another mission.
He looked back at the remaining members of his team, who still seemed unable to get over what had just happened.
He hesitated to answer the call.
Yet, in the end, he gave in.
After all, if they didn’t contain the anomaly, it could spell doom for regular humans.
"Understood. We are mobilizing now."
Soon, they were heading toward the relayed coordinates.
Only two agents were left behind to watch over the area and escort any affected individuals once dawn arrived.