Prior to the summoning

Christa Rowfield, the English teacher, stands over Ajax and Shaula. They are both unconscious and lying next to each other.

Christa is a beautiful woman with blonde hair, green eyes, a voluptuous body with large breasts and supple buttocks. She is currently wearing a nice outfit consisting of mid-high heels, dark blue jeans, and an olive blazer over a white sweater.

She doesn’t know what just happened.

Christa kneels beside the two of them, Ajax on the right and Shaula lying on top of his right side.

“Ajax? Shaula? Can you wake up? What happened? Shaula! Ajax!”

They don’t respond to her voice or the way she is slightly shaking their shoulders.

Christa places her right hand’s fingers under the left side of Ajax’s jaw. She is working frantically to make sure the two of them are still alive. The time is slightly past 10 am, still in the middle of the English exam and two students have been rendered unconscious.

Nightmare. This is a nightmare… two of my best students...

Christa feels a heartbeat coming from Ajax. She performs the same action on Shaula and confirms that she is also alive.

Then, she moves the back of her right hand over Shaula’s lips to ensure that she is breathing. Christa feels Shaula’s breath flowing as Shaula’s exhale touches her hand. She confirms Ajax’s steady breathing as well.

They’re alive... Thank god...

But they’re not out of the woods just yet. Christa notices students standing over Ajax and Shaula next to her, in concern for their classmates’ wellbeing. Christa knows what to do next.

“Hey, somebody, get me my phone from my desk!”

A student quickly rushes over to her desk. The phones of the students are all placed in their backpacks and (presumably) turned off for this English exam so it’s fastest to get Christa’s phone directly.

The student, Alice Simpson, a studious student council member, hands the phone to Christa.

Alice is a beautiful young woman with red hair tied into a ponytail and brown eyes. She is currently wearing her female school uniform of a white blouse, uniform tie and uniform skirt.

Her figure isn’t as curvy as Shaula or Christa but she is still very attractive nonetheless.

“Ms. Rowfield, a-are they ok? What happened to them?”

Ms. Rowfield opens her phone and starts dialling 911. She makes the call and then answers Alice’s question while waiting for a 911 operator to pick up.

“I-I don’t know, just a moment ago, they were fine doing the test and... then they both saw the same thing. D-Did you see anything? Anything that might resemble what they were so terrified of?”

“No, I didn’t notice--”

“911, what’s your emergency?”

A male voice answers Christa at the nearby 911 call center. Christa speaks frantically.

“Hello, I’m located at Cyrus Median Academy at One Cyrus Lane currently and two of my students have fallen unconscious! I haven’t been able to wake them up!! My name is Christa Rowfield. The address is One Cyrus Lane.”

“Alright, One Cyrus Lane? We should have paramedics coming to help you out over there. Stay on the line...”

Everything is going to be ok. We’re going to get through this. They’ll be fine. Jesus Christ, I haven’t had to deal with students fainting in class before… shit… What was it? What did they both see? They both saw something… It couldn’t be just nothing, right? Was it a collective hallucination or something? Whatever, whatever, it’s gonna be ok...

“Also, ma’am, what room number is your class--”

Suddenly, the lights turn off. A few surprised yelps can be heard from the students standing over Ajax and Shaula’s unconscious bodies. The students start talking amongst themselves.

“Everyone, calm down, it’s just a blackout, nothing to worry about. Settle down, I’m still on the line with 911.”

Christa gets back on the phone and hears… nothing.

“Hello? Hello?”

The call cuts off. She looks at her phone. She notices that she has no signal. It appears that this blackout also affected the cell tower for her mobile provider. Now there’s no way for... actually--

“Everyone, grab your phones from your bags quickly!! We have to get back in touch with emergency services for Ajax and Shaula! My network isn’t up right now, they were probably affected by this blackout but that doesn’t mean all networks are down. Anyone using TelQual, the network isn’t going to work...”

Students move quickly to grab the phones from their bags at the front of the class. None of them quite comprehend the coincidence of it all.

A blackout right when two students see something that only they can see? Even horror movies are more subtle than that...

No. This is still just a blackout… just a blackout… nothing more than that...

The room is still somewhat dark because the curtains are down. Christa walks over to the curtains to open them--

“Uh, Ms. Rowfield, mind if I go to the washroom for a quick minute?”

“Huh?”

“Well, we’re not going to continue the test, right and I really gotta--”

“Fine. Go ahead.”

The student who made the request to go to the washroom is Maxwell Anthony. He runs to the door. He’s a tall young man, wearing a blue uniform polo shirt, uniform khaki pants and expensive sneakers.

His hair is medium length, well maintained and slicked back currently, his eyes greyish blue.

He’s a student who’s been getting a low B grade this entire semester, so not academically challenged compared to some others. But Maxwell is still a bit of a troublemaker, particularly with the other students.

This is one of the ones who shit talk Ajax and Shaula, right? Sigh, literally gives no shit about the two of them, huh--

“Uh, Ms. Rowfield? This piece of shit door isn’t opening. Did you lock it from the inside or something?”

Huh?

Christa walks over to the door, ignoring Maxwell’s rude language. Another bad omen has appeared.

She attempts to open the door herself. She can turn the knob just fine, so the door isn’t locked. But she is unable to push it open…

The door itself is sturdy and made of metal, built to stop intruders in the event of a lockdown. It has a small plexiglass window that is currently being covered by a small rolling curtain to prevent the distraction of people walking through the halls during their English final exam.

Could there be something obstructing the door?

Christa pulls up this curtain.

“...What is this?”

The door isn’t being obstructed. The hallway itself seen through the door window is fairly dark. Not even the emergency lighting has activated. This is the lighting that should activate even in blackout conditions… that doesn’t bode well at all.

But that’s not what Christa notices--

“So, we’re locked in here? What the fuck? This fucking place can’t pay for working doors? What the hell does my dad keep donating to this school for anyways?”

Maxwell walks away from the window without bothering to look through it. Christa doesn’t pay attention to his whining. Christa is rather paying attention to the ground of the hallway.

She sees… white powder on the ground collected about a centimetre up, sparkling like snow…

Is that snow? What the hell is going on? Ok… now this… this can’t be a coincidence… right? Massive power outage, can’t open this stupid door, and now… hallway snow… all starting when Ajax and Shaula fell unconscious...

“Does anybody have a signal?”

Christa calls out to the classroom while still looking through the door window.

“No, Ms. Rowfield, I asked around and nobody’s getting anything...”

Alice, good student as she is, has asked around and isn’t able to get a signal from anyone here. Right now, they’re stuck in this classroom with no way to communicate with the outside. There's nobody currently walking through the hallway either.

Christa slowly walks away from the door, unsure if she has actually seen what she has definitely seen. The students talk amongst themselves not noticing her reaction, except--

“Ma’am, are you ok?”

“Yeah, d-don’t worry about it, Jordan, it’s just… just... check out the hallways and you’ll see something weird. I’m… really not sure what I’m supposed to do in this situation.”

Jordan Urwic, one of the nicer students in the class, walks over to the door window as Christa walks over to the curtains. A tall, physically fit young man who normally keeps to himself.

He’s wearing the same uniform combo as Maxwell, except his clothes are ironed and spotless. Jordan’s black hair is cut down to a buzzcut and he has brown eyes.

Christa doesn’t know what’s happening. There’s no signal, there’s no power and there’s no way they can open the door. Two students are unconscious.

But, she can at least get some light into this classroom. Christa opens one of the five individual vertical curtain rolls.

“There... Let’s get some light in and--”

Christa… doesn’t understand. Before her eyes are the parking lot and the school field. On a bright sunny day like this, she should be seeing a field with students playing a team sport for their physical education class.

They might even be doing something fun considering how close it is to the end of the second semester.

She sees clear skies. No clouds. Blue as far as the eye can see.

Right now, however, there is snow falling from these blue skies, painting the school field and the parking lot white.

A winter wonderland with no origin.