Anomaly

Into the Light

I had to move quickly. Park and others were already on their way.

How on Earth was I going to cover this up?

Plan as you go, Nichols.

I picked up Alora's body, cradling her to my chest while ignoring the pains shooting through my limbs. Limping, I made it to the parking lot, where I found Park's car, umoved. I didn't have the key, but Alora didn't seem to have it either, so I hoped that she had left it in the vehicle.

Sure enough, Alora had hidden the key in the sun visor. Gently, so gently, I rested her body in the passenger seat. Then I drove to my house while my mind raced with questions. What had just happened? Who was this... creature laying next to me?

But I couldn't think about those things right now. I had to focus on getting us away from the incoming agents first. I needed to buy myself time to figure this out.

My street was vacant; everyone seemingly decided to heed the evacuation order. As I carried Alora into the house and laid her on the living room couch, my thoughts began to spiral again.

She killed someone. A dangerous monster who was about to kill me, but she still took a life. Then, she almost lost control of her powers. If she had, who knows how much damage she would have done? Who knows how many more she would have killed?

And the marks on 358...she wasn't the only Anomaly to have abilities capable of inflicting burns. But I couldn't ignore the fact that those burns were eerily similar to the ones that had been found on my father's body.

A soft noise immediately drew me out of my thoughts. I turned to see Alora stirring. Her eyes fluttered open, then darted around, probably assessing the danger she was in.

"Hey," I said, drawing her focus to me.

"I'm not locked up," she realized.

"No."

"Why not? Isn't that the rule for people like me?"

The sharpness in her tone didn't escape me. I understood where it was coming from, too. That was the rule for people like her. Except the Agency wouldn't even call her a person...she was a thing, an "it."

"You can take away other people's abilities," I prompted, ignoring her question for the time being.

"No," she replied. "I can absorb them. It takes them away temporarily, but they come back in a day or two."

"So 358 didn't actually lose its powers," I realized.

"You mean Doug, and no," she answered. "But it would have lasted long enough for your people to bring him back to the Agency."

"You know about the Agency?"

"It's where my parents met."

I looked at her quizzically, waiting for an explanation. She sighed.

"My parents were both...well, as you would call us, Anomalies."

Her voice dripped with disdain at the word. I had never really questioned it; that was just what they were called. But I could tell from Alora's tone that she wasn't a fan of the label.

"My mom's abilities manifested when she was young," she continued. "Her parents were afraid of her. They gave her up when she was 5, without hesitation. My dad, on the other hand, was 19. He had started getting weird, debilitating headaches. It turns out they were related to being able to dig around in people's brains. The Agency asked him to turn himself in, and he agreed.

"At that point, my mom was 18 and had lived in the Agency for most of her life. The two were in neighboring cells and figured out a way to communicate. They fell in love. Eventually, my dad asked the Agency to release them. He said they would live wherever the Agency wanted, do whatever the Agency wanted, as long as they could be together. But the Agency immediately denied his request.