Broken Anomaly

Connor walked back toward the center of Solace, alone and in a daze.

It hadn't taken both him and Eric long to reach Sam after the short conversation they had earlier. Though, if he was being honest, he didn’t remember how the interaction with Sam went, his thoughts too jumbled to actually make sense of anything.

At some point during their conversation with Sam, Eric said he would go on ahead and darted away on his own. Sam kept speaking to Connor until he realized that he wasn’t even looking at him, he was looking at Eric, who had just left.

Sam kept trying to get Connor's attention and when he failed to do so, he turned and returned to his work at the garden.

Connor, noticing that Sam had left, or better said, the absence of a figure in the corner of his eye, took it as a sign that they were done. He began to walk back toward Solace, still thinking about the words of the young man.

“Skip the hard stuff.” He kept muttering the phrase under his breath. Each time he repeated what Eric had said, pieces of his memories bubbled to the surface and became more vivid.

Heat, humidity, rain—his previous job required him to work regardless of the weather. And for a moment, he was back there.

The words that Eric had uttered reminded him of similar words he had heard before. The people that spoke said words tended to do so with a complete seriousness and utter disregard for the actions they were about to commit.

“Were his parents also...” Connor said, failing to finish the question. He kept trying to make sense of things, but for some reason he couldn't.

It wasn't due to anything external or magical. He had just become used to the peace of home. Each time he tried to find clarity, his own mind fought back in a self-preservation effort.

"I'm not the same from back then," he told himself repeatedly until he believed his own words. Slowly, everything around him began to gain a higher degree of clarity. His dulled senses and intuition slowly began to awaken once more.

He could feel his instincts come back to him. With each step, they were being sharpened once more. Then suddenly, as he returned to the center of Solace, a familiar unease washed over him.

As he looked at the scene before him, he began to feel uncomfortable. Everything looked normal, but was it? His now reawakened instincts guided him, and through them he gained certainty. Something was wrong.

----------

Anna rummaged through the duffle bags, looking for anything that she might find interesting.

“Looks like a potion,” Stella said as she looked at the container with a bright red liquid that Anna had just put on the ground beside her. “Yep, that’s exactly what it is,” she added, having used Inspect on the container.

Anna took out a simple necklace. The string looked old and spent. There was a small piece of rock with a single rough engraving on it. She examined it for a while before ultimately throwing it to Stella.

“Slight strength necklace,” Stella said, examining the necklace. She put the necklace on her desk, checked her status, and then grabbed the necklace. “Plus five strength,” she added, throwing the necklace back at Anna.

Anna easily caught the necklace and put it in the bag once more.

“Finally,” Anna said with a sigh of relief as she lifted a double-edged sword with a smile on her face. “This should do for now.”

She truly had no specific purpose when she began, but when she kept coming across different weapons, she decided to begin searching for a sword.

She didn’t really need one—she had hers. Though it was broken now, it would recover eventually, maybe… If she was being honest, the conviction she used to possess toward the fact that the sword would be fine had slowly begun to fade.

It wasn’t the physical appearance of the sword that made her doubt her sword's recovery; it was something beyond the physical, maybe even beyond concepts. When she thought about what the cause may be, only two possibilities came to mind as explanations for her sword's current condition.

First, it used an immense amount of power against the red goblin, needing much longer to repair itself or maybe even requiring assistance to do so. This was fine, it meant it was temporary.

Second, whatever it did to “cut” her death turned it into its current state. She didn't have to be an expert to know that doing something to prevent a death would be costly.

Common sense and her instincts told her that the second explanation was the reason for her sword’s current condition, and her instincts had never failed her before.

She examined the sword she had found. Just like hers, this was double-edged, but this one was more reminiscent of the swords used in western settings, while her sword was very basic and lacking any detail, though it was very clear that it had eastern influences in it.

She adjusted her grip, having to consider the pommel's weight, something she hadn’t needed to do with her own sword.

Irritation began to build up, but her head was clear enough to know that it was dumb to get mad over something like added weight, especially when it was so negligible. And just like that, the growing feeling of irritation disappeared, years of meditation training coming in to play.

“Don’t you already have a sword?” Stella asked, clearing the countless thoughts that kept racing through Anna’s mind.

Anna shook herself back to normalcy and looked at Stella. “Just until it’s back to normal. Don’t want to make it worse,” she said, her voice sounding tired.

Stella didn’t know what to say. She could clearly see how affected Anna was due to her sword's condition.

She found it a bit odd, but to be honest, everyone—including herself—had been acting strangely ever since the System’s arrival.

It wasn’t like anything fundamental had changed within any of them, but all of them were far more motivated. A smile crept up on her face as she remembered Eric’s eyes.

Before, Eric always seemed to be looking into the distance at something that not even he knew. It always made her uneasy. It felt like he would one day disappear without a trace. It reminded her of when he was much younger, and everything seemed to matter little to him. However, now his sight was steady. He finally had a purpose.

It was odd, she had never felt more complete than she did now, when the world had most likely become a ruin, and everything seemed lost. She had her friends, she had her favorite person always near her, and finally, her best friend had finally found something that, she was sure, would keep him near.

The setting sun entered through a window and hit her just right. The smile she wore was the most beautiful she’d ever had, full of a peace she had only just found.

“What’s with that smile?” Anna asked, a bit surprised, never having seen her this way before. She wanted to follow her and smile back, as she found it infectious. But suddenly, her insides began to twist, unease creeping through her body.

“Nothing,” Stella said, the smile remaining. She was fighting the growing unease that she too was feeling within herself, trying to remain in the happy moment she had finally found. “Can you go find Eric?” she asked, her sense of unease finally overwhelming her.

As soon as Anna heard Eric’s name, her instincts began to scream at her. Almost in unison, shaking was heard coming from the desk. She had never felt anything like this before. Even when facing the red goblin, she only felt like she was against an insurmountable wall, but she still had the will to fight.

This, however, was much different—this was pure, overwhelming dread. It felt like something inevitable was about to occur, and she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

She tightened her grip on the sword she just found, grabbed her shaking, broken sword with her free hand, and sprinted out of Stella’s office, guided only by her instincts.

----------

“Couldn’t you have done this yourself?” Alex asked as he pushed a cart full of car batteries through a cleared piece of the forest.

“Yes, but you’re here, and this is much more efficient,” Marcus said, while sitting on the cart and tinkering with a device that had various terminations, each connecting to one of the batteries. “I really want electricity, Alex,” he added, completely serious.

“Sure…” Alex muttered.

It didn’t take long for them to arrive at the school’s parking lot, where Alex had first seen the barghest horde and the other urstigar. Though now it was completely different.

All the cars had been moved toward the center, using them to prevent the growth of any new trees, or at least that was the hope.

A wooden platform had been constructed above the cars with a roof just as large. Alex could see cables hanging down from the roof, making a sea of jumbled cables on the platform.

“Solar?” Alex asked, quickly grasping what the platform and batteries were for.

“Yes,” Marcus answered.

“Will it work?” Alex asked, examining the roof.

"Who knows," Marcus replied with a shrug, his tone showing a clear disinterest in what he was about to do.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Alex asked, concern showing on his face. Concern for both his friend and his personal safety. His eyes began to dart from the batteries to the platform, then back to Marcus, who had empty eyes.

Marcus let out a dejected sigh. The energy he had only moments ago, seemingly having evaporated into thin air.

The platform in front of him was a reminder that he had recently hit a wall, and his motivation began to dwindle. It was why he had so little concern with what he was about to do. Right now, he was telling himself that he needed electricity, but he knew that he didn’t.

What he really needed was inspiration, and nothing had actually given him any. When the integration began, his mind raced with ideas, then he hit a wall, but then his mind expanded. But that was it, his mind expanded, and he applied a bit of the insight he gained and then never did it again.

He was still proud of the fact that he was able to enhance his bombs with mana and basically kill the entire barghest horde singlehandedly, but he hadn’t done much with his knowledge since then.

It wasn’t because he hadn’t tried, it was just that everything he tried to put mana into turned into a bomb. Anything that had a power source would be destabilized by the mana and eventually explode.

His first idea for electricity had actually been with mana. Its why he had begun testing with small-scale devices, not wanting to risk the generator.

His other hope was that something would appear in the store that would solve his problems, or at least guide him in the right direction, but that was also a no. He had combed through the new items as carefully as he could, but ultimately gave up, finding nothing.

The other avenue he had explored but also gave up on were the mana crystals that people had begun to find within the monsters.

The reason he gave up on those was because the amount of mana they contained was basically zero, at least for what he wanted to use them for. He would either need an incredibly large amount of the crystals or one that contained an equally great amount of mana.

Marcus sat on the platform and let out a deep sigh as he remembered all of his recent failures.

Alex took out a crystal from his pocket and threw it at Marcus, hoping that maybe it would help distract him. He had actually forgotten to tell everyone about the crystals. To be fair, they didn’t ask how I could see within the tunnels. It’s also their fault, he thought to himself.

“Did you get this from one of the hybrids you fought? Maybe the queen?” Marcus asked as he examined the crystal, noticing the strong blue light being emitted. It was far stronger than any of the crystals he had seen before.

“No,” Alex answered as he began to move the batteries from the cart to the platform. “The tunnels were full of them. There was also this huge one in the ceiling,” he added, gesturing as if grabbing the big crystal from his memory.

Marcus was stunned, it took him a second to fully process what Alex had just said. He slowly shifted his gaze toward Alex. “You mean that the tunnels were full of these?” Marcus asked, shaking the crystal in his hand. “Can—”

Marcus stopped speaking because he saw someone walking near the tree line. They weren’t close enough to see their face, but they could clearly see that they were walking with purpose, sword in hand.

Neither of them knew why, but that person made them uneasy.

“Something’s wrong,” Marcus said, his brow furrowed.

“You go back and get others. I’ll follow them and see where they’re going,” Alex said, unease clear on his face.

Marcus knew that he was currently weaker than Alex, so if he said he was better suited with going to get help, then that’s what he would do.

When they both turned to leave, they noticed that the figure was gone, having completely disappeared from their line of sight.

“Shit,” Alex said as he darted toward the forest, the sun setting behind him.

----------

Eric could feel it ever since his return. Something was about to go down, and every fiber of his being told him that he would not be the one left standing. But there was little he could do, and to be honest, there was little he wanted to do.

The entire situation was incredibly interesting, too much to ignore. How did can I tell that something is about to occur? How do I know that I will lose? He didn't have an answer to any of the questions that were popping up in his mind. All he knew for sure was one thing—he couldn’t wait to find out what would happen next.

That being said, he wasn’t entirely careless. He at least made some preparations with Connor. He had noticed it the first time he had helped Marcus with his haul from labs. It was clear he had some sort of military experience.

Though it might not necessarily be military, it could even be boy scouts. Regardless, his capacity to work and observe a team had clearly been honed through years of practice.

Now, Eric was being called somewhere else. He could feel an external influence try to pull him toward a certain direction, deeper into the forest. Even without really wanting to, he could resist the effects. He wasn’t sure if it was because the effects was weak or because of the Anomaly title.

If he resisted, he could probably avoid all this and continue like normal. But that wasn’t him. His life had been mostly empty until now, and this promised to add something to it, if only for a moment.

“I would’ve been one of the first to die in a horror movie,” he said to himself, a small laugh escaping him.

Eric arrived at a large clearing, that he couldn't be sure was there before, but he would bet that it hadn't. In the middle of the clearing stood a figure, furiously turning the pages of a book that emitted a faint glow that Eric quickly attributed to mana.

The figure forcefully closed the book and tied it to their tool belt, focusing all their attention on Eric.

Eric narrowed his eyes. “Wait, don’t I know you?” Eric asked.