(Christopher Jenkins’ POV:)

"Uncle Seth... what would you think if... hypothetically... I joined VEX?"

My uncle looked up at me, expressionless. "Hypothetically, huh? You aren't joining VEX, kid. You would die to the first Anomaly you come across." He pointed to the TV, bringing my attention back to the screen.

Now being displayed on the screen was the face of a young woman, who looked to be in her early twenties, with curly black hair and glasses, smiling for a photo. It was captioned with, "VEX Public Safety agent killed in crossfire during Toronto investigation".

"You'll end up like her," continued Uncle Seth. "I'm sure she was a strong and capable woman who accomplished many things during her time as a VEX agent, and things just happened to go really badly in one moment. One moment is all it takes, Chris. One moment for everything you've worked for to disappear." His eyes met mine again. "You're not joining VEX."

There was my plan B, completely torn apart.

I watched the rest of the report, and it explained how the girl's corpse was found on the side of the road with several bullet wounds through her chest. The battle between VEX and the Anomaly group was still ongoing, and the report ended by saying that VEX would ultimately prove victorious, and that the girl's sacrifice would not be in vain. It left a bad taste in my mouth that remained as I got ready to go to the movies.

On the way there, I thought about what my uncle had told me. How one moment, one mistake could be all it took to lose everything you had ever worked for. One second was all that you needed to lose your life. Especially if affiliated with VEX, going on dangerous missions like these... I could understand his concern. He was right - about that, and about how I was too weak to join VEX. There wasn't anything I could do to fight the Anomalies the way I was now.

While I was thinking, someone called out my name from across the road. I didn't realize I had already made it to the mall.

My friend Jake was waving at me from across the street, a grin on his face, his usually spiky red hair now loose, almost covering his eyes. When I got to him, I expected a handshake or something, but he punched me in the stomach, not too hard for it to leave damage, but hard enough to get his message across.

"We've been waiting for ten minutes, dude!" Jake snapped. "The movie's started already!"

"H-huh? But you said-"

"Doesn't matter, come on!"

At the entrance, two guards wearing gray uniforms stopped us.

“Good evening,” the one said with a smile. I couldn’t help but notice the strange-looking gun attached to the guard’s side. It was gray with the VEX logo on the side, and had a blue streak running down the barrel. The other guard remained completely stone-faced, passing the smiling guard two square devices. We were instructed to put our thumbs into these devices and close them up.

“But I’ve already been-” Jake started.

The smiling guard shrugged. “Just following orders. This is the protocol when anyone enters the mall.” The guard made sure we were ready and then pressed the buttons on top of each device, causing a very tiny needle to pierce the tips of our thumbs, drawing a single droplet of blood, which we had to show the guard. He then allowed us into the mall.

I never really understood why the VEX guards did this. Apparently Anomalies didn’t bleed. But surely, with supernatural powers, it would be easy to fake a single droplet of blood, right?

I followed Jake as he sprinted back into the mall and up the stairs, catching some strange looks from the passers-by, which I tried to ignore. On the second floor of the mall, at the entrance to the cinema, Jake rushed me to the table where the popcorn machine was. He pulled the tickets from his pocket and showed them to the lady behind the counter, who looked like she hadn’t slept in three days. She nodded and told the other guy working next to her at the cashier to get us some popcorn. After some arguing, the guy eventually decided to get us our food and drinks.

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I forgot to look at our tickets. I still didn’t know what I was getting into.

After the entrance into the cinema came the blinding flash of the white screen, scarring my retinas and carving an image of the movie studio’s name into my eyelids. It seemed I had only missed the introduction. Jake brought me to our row, where Erica and Julia were already done with most of their popcorn, and were so entranced by the movie that they didn’t notice I was there.

“Oh, you’re here!” Julia said, tearing her gaze away from the screen.

Erica waved at me, unable to speak through her popcorn.

“You could’ve got here earlier,” Julia told me, disappointed.

“Jake could’ve texted me earlier,” I retorted.

“Nuh-uh, don’t blame me,” Jake said, not looking at either of us. “Not my fault.”

“Anyways…” Julia said. “Well, Jake’ll explain what you missed. Right?”

Jake pointed at the screen, furrowing his eyebrows. He pointed at the character who was talking - a tall, bald guy with a black cloak. “Uhm… so, that guy, he… like… Uhh, well he’s the main guy, and his name… is… err… William… I think?”

“Wilhelm something,” Erica interrupted. “There’s an Anomaly trying to control people’s minds, and he’s trying to kill it.”

Julia frowned. “Wh- How do you even know this? We’re five minutes in!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the guy seated behind us accidentally spill popcorn over Jake’s seat, and a hefty amount of it went straight down the back of Jake’s shirt. Jake squirmed, trying to catch whatever he thought was in his shirt, before turning and staring at the man behind him dead in the eyes, expressionless. “What the fu-”

Erica elbowed Jake in the side, causing him to spin around and hunch over, holding the side of his stomach.

The man behind us picked up his popcorn quietly. “Uhh… sorry.”

We continued to watch the movie. It was about an unnamed Anomaly who was taking over the bodies of people closest to the main character and was attempting to lure him into a trap and turn him into an Anomaly. The movie was actually pretty good. Most of it was either a fight scene, or a chase scene where the main character had to hide from his daughter or friend or whoever was possessed.

Most of the movies that were about Anomalies were verified by VEX to make them more realistic and thus more “educational”, but this one wasn’t. It was a breath of fresh air to see an Anomaly movie that wasn’t trying to stuff anti-Anomaly propaganda down your throat.

Nowadays, VEX recruited people like it was the army. Thankfully, my friends and I were still underage, so we wouldn’t be recruited.

The end credits started to play. We all got up from our seats, our eyes tired after the two-and-a-half-hours we had just spent watching the movie. We found a place to sit by our favorite restaurant, which was named something in Italian.

“Anomalies… can turn people into Anomalies too…?” Jake said, confused.

“No, this movie wasn’t verified by VEX,” Julia told him. “So most of that stuff was probably made up.”

After we had ordered, Julia lifted a gift bag onto our table, which she had somehow been hiding all this time. “Oh, and I forgot to say happy bir-!”

Julia was cut off as all the lights in the restaurant and in the entire mall shut off, leaving us in lighting barely strong enough to see the people around us. The unrest was followed by an ear-piercing siren noise that was loud enough to make me cover my ears. But even as I pressed my palms harder and harder into my ears, the sound stayed the same volume. I saw the same reaction from my friends, then the others in the restaurant, then those outside.

The sound then cleared up, revealing a voice. A male voice.

“Greetings, everyone.”

There were no speakers nearby. No electricity. This voice seemed to be coming directly from inside my head. My own voice was too muffled to check if my friends were hearing this voice too. I could hear the muffled screams of the people around me, their confusion, their fear.

“Nobody needs to get hurt,” the voice said. “I’m only looking for one person in particular… Find him, bring him to me. Or Quebec City will be reduced to dust. You have until I decide I’m bored of waiting.”

I couldn’t make sense of what I was hearing. Who was this? What was going on? My surroundings got brighter.

“My target is…”

To my horror, I saw my own face appear as if right in front of my eyes, some kind of illusion. It copied my facial expressions. It was like this image was being projected in my mind. This reflection of mine… I wasn’t the only one seeing it. My friends, the people around me… they turned to face me, with scared expressions on their faces.

“...Christopher Jenkins.”