Anomaly

With the first solid lead they’d gotten in weeks, Victor and Rupert had no intention of letting it slip away. Keeping a low profile, the two men crossed the hall at an unhurried pace, approaching the teenage girl serving soup to the homeless behind a long makeshift table.

The warm scent of vegetables and seasoning lingered in the air, blending with the tired murmur of conversations all around them. At first, the girl only gave them a quick, automatic glance, offering each of them a bowl as though they were just two more people waiting in line. Thankfully, it only took a few quiet words for her to realize they weren’t there for food.

They were “law enforcement” investigating the recent cases of people suddenly abandoning everything overnight. What truly caught Victor’s attention, however, was her reaction. Or rather... her lack of one.

The teenager remained strangely calm, almost indifferent. No nervousness, no excessive curiosity or discomfort, just a tired, distant look as she continued filling bowls of soup as though the conversation meant nothing to her. Victor found that deeply unsettling.

He’d questioned teenagers before and knew how to recognize hesitation, fear, or anxiety, but this girl seemed far too empty for someone being approached by investigators.

Mentally filing away the oddity for possible future connections, Victor continued speaking in a controlled tone, asking for a few minutes of her time so he and Rupert could talk to her somewhere more private.

Despite the reluctant look she initially shot toward Victor and Rupert, tinged with mild irritation, the girl eventually agreed, saying she’d speak with them once her shift was over.

A shift that stretched on for another ten minutes while she continued helping people at the community center with impressive patience and determination, though the exhaustion in her movements was beginning to show.

Only after the long line in front of her finally disappeared were the three of them able to gather in a relatively quiet corner away from most of the activity. For a few seconds, nobody spoke. The girl stayed leaning against the worn wall, arms relaxed at her sides as she absentmindedly watched people moving back and forth across the hall.

The muffled noise of conversations, hurried footsteps, and chairs scraping against the floor filled the room, yet she seemed completely accustomed to the constant chaos. That was when Victor noticed her eyes were genuinely kind.

There was no falseness in the way she looked at the people inside the community center, she truly seemed to care about every single person there, even complete strangers. By itself, that wasn’t unusual enough to catch Victor’s attention. And yet... something about the scene felt off.

It was hard to explain, like a wrong note hidden inside a perfect melody. The girl’s relaxed posture, the natural ease with which she carried herself, even the warmth in her demeanor somehow felt too perfectly aligned, too carefully arranged. Victor briefly glanced toward Rupert and, judging by the man’s quietly suspicious expression, realized he was thinking the exact same thing.

“So...” the girl finally began, her voice carrying an uncomfortable mix of caution and subtle irritation. Her eyes drifted toward Rupert first, sizing him up for a brief moment before settling on Victor, one brow slightly raised in open suspicion: “What exactly do you two want with me?”

Letting out a quiet sigh, she removed the cap from her head, revealing slightly messy platinum-blonde hair. She ran her fingers through it, trying to straighten it out while briefly looking away, clearly uncomfortable with the entire situation.

“If this is about the money I’ve been donating to community centers... or all the help I’ve been giving people, everything was obtained completely legally” She huffed afterward, crossing her arms while the cap dangled loosely from her fingers.

There was a subtle trace of exasperation in her expression, as though this wasn’t the first time she’d had to justify herself: “My parents are rich. They gave me permission to use the money like this” Her eyes returned to the two men, sharper and far more distrustful now: “So tell me... did you come here to arrest me for trying to do something good or what?”

Victor and Rupert exchanged a brief look filled with disbelief at the situation. It wasn’t as though this was their first time interrogating teenagers, boys or girls alike, both of them had more than enough experience dealing with troubled kids, rebellious ones, or simply frightened ones.

Still, this girl was different. Too direct. Too sharp. There was a strange absence of hesitation in her words, as though she felt absolutely no pressure standing up to two agents like this.

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For a few seconds, silence hung in the air, heavy and uncomfortable, until Victor finally broke it. He took a small step forward, maintaining a firm posture, though his tone carried a calm friendliness.

“We’re not here to arrest you” he said, his voice steady and controlled: “We just need to ask you a few questions. That’s all. If you cooperate, this should only take a couple of minutes... and then you’ll be free to get back to your routine” The girl remained silent, watching the two of them without showing any obvious reaction.

Rupert let out a short breath through his nose before adding, crossing his arms with a faint crooked smile marked by irony: “And honestly? If we were here to arrest you, I seriously doubt we’d be this subtle about it” He tilted his head slightly, keeping his eyes fixed on her: “Trust me”

The girl merely huffed again, crossing her arms tighter against her chest while throwing Rupert a thoroughly exasperated look. Her fingers tapped lightly against her own arm, betraying her growing impatience.

Then, shifting her gaze away from him, she looked back at Victor with her brows raised in obvious irritation: “Alright, spit it out already... what could your authorities possibly want with some rich high school girl?”

Rupert remained silent. His eyes were still fixed on her, analyzing every tiny gesture and shift in expression, though in such a subtle way that anyone nearby would’ve easily missed it. Victor, on the other hand, took a few seconds before answering.

There were a lot of things he wanted to ask the girl, far more direct and uncomfortable questions, but he had no intention of pushing her right away. As strange as this entire situation was, she was still just a high school student.

Victor leaned forward slightly, bringing a hand to the back of his neck as he studied her carefully: “Have you noticed anything strange lately?” he asked in a calm but serious tone: “At the community centers you’ve visited... did anything unusual happen while you were there? Strange behavior, people acting differently... any detail could help” freewebnσvel.cøm

The girl raised an eyebrow, clearly not understanding where Victor was going with the question. Her fingers lightly tapped against her own arm as she tilted her head, studying him for a brief moment: “Other than you two? Probably not...”

She fell silent right after that, her gaze drifting once more toward the constant activity inside the community center. People coming and going, volunteers carrying boxes, muffled voices echoing in the background. Even so, the girl’s expression turned distant, almost reflective: “I’m not sure if this really counts as strange... at least not these days...” she murmured, suspicion evident in her voice.

Slowly crossing her arms, her fingers tightening against the fabric of her sleeves, she continued: “At almost every community center I visited, people seemed... lost” Her eyes lowered for a moment: “Their expressions were empty, lifeless. Like they’d already given up on trying to move forward”

A brief silence settled before she continued, now in a softer tone: “But after I spent some time helping... they got better. Little by little, they started smiling again, talking again, acting like normal people”

The girl closed her eyes for a second, letting out a small satisfied huff through her nose, apparently proud of that: “I was lucky enough to be born rich, so I figure the least I can do is help however I can” A faint smile appeared on her lips, subtle, but sincere: “I like making a difference... but more than that, I like giving people hope”

Then she opened her eyes again, the light in them wavering for a second as if she were searching for the right words: “I just...” she hesitated quietly. Her gaze drifted toward the horizon for a brief moment before she finally finished in an almost intimate tone: “I just feel like this is what I was born to do...”

Rupert, who had remained silent until then, finally spoke up. His voice carried a faintly sarcastic edge, though there was also a very real note of genuine surprise beneath it: “What? Feeding a couple traumatized people?”

The girl didn’t react directly to Rupert’s words. In fact, she didn’t even seem bothered by the comment. Instead, a small smile slowly appeared at the corner of her lips, an absurdly beautiful and strangely sincere smile, the kind capable of dissolving any tension around her.

Her eyes gained a soft, hypnotic warmth, as though they silently carried an impossible promise to ignore: that everything would be alright... that she would make everything alright.

Keeping that faint smile on her lips, she answered in a calm, gentle tone, though one that felt oddly out of place given the current situation: “No... more like... giving people hope. Hope to anyone who needs it”

Both Victor and Rupert exchanged a brief glance at the girl’s firm, and strangely intimidating, words. There was something unsettling about the way she spoke. It wasn’t aggression or arrogance. It was worse. An absolute, unwavering serenity.

Victor couldn’t fully explain why, but the more time he spent around her, the harder it became to see her as someone ordinary. Ironically, that was exactly the problem. She seemed too normal. Genuinely normal. In a world where fear, paranoia, and insanity had already become part of everyday life, that almost flawless calmness felt just as absurd as any grotesque anomaly lurking out there.

Still lost in those thoughts, Victor noticed Rupert subtly leaning closer beside him. The man lowered his voice just enough to sound like someone sharing an extremely serious conspiracy theory: “We’re absolutely sure this girl isn’t gonna sprout tentacles or something and slice us into tiny little pieces while smiling like a maniac, right?”

Victor slowly turned to look at him, staring at Rupert with complete exasperation. Rupert merely shrugged: “What?” he replied in that same absurdly serious tone: “That’s literally what always happens in horror movies with creepy calm kids”

Victor let out a tired sigh through his nose, rubbing his forehead for a moment. The worst part was that, considering everything they’d dealt with recently... the possibility didn’t even sound all that absurd anymore.