JohnWillStab stared at the thick layer of white, crunchy snow that carpeted the ground around their base.

"What the hell..." he thought.

John looked around their desert base, everything looked the same except for the layer of white.

"Weren't we in the middle of something?!" he demanded.

He breathed a sigh, expecting a cloud of steam but nothing came out.

John turned around, heading towards the doors to their guild base.

"What the hell is this... we were in the middle of the underground thing, and now this? What is this, a Christmas special?!"

John rolled his eyes.

"I'm sure that won't be weird to read for anybody literally a month away from now..." he continued.

He looked to his side and noticed Revenberry next to the small patch of flowers left behind by Jordan.

"Sup..." he said, lifting a hand in a half-assed greeting.

No reply came.

"..."

"Ok, good talk!" John turned around and continued heading towards the main building in their guild base.

"That was awkward..."

He stepped into the room and noticed Bromy was sitting at the table, completely still, before him lay a bowl of cereal.

"Where'd everybody go?" John asked, cracking a half-smile.

"..."

Again, no reply came.

"What's with everybody today?!"

John cleared his throat.

"Anyway... I'll go see what... somebody else... is doing..." he remarked, pointing finger-pistols at Bromy before turning towards the stairs and heading up.

As soon as John reached the foot of the stairs, he noticed it.

His face grew more distressed by the second as he processed what was taking place before him.

Or rather, what wasn't taking place before him.

Alexander was frozen mid-air, falling down the stairs, Thal in hand.

"Alex?!" John rushed over to the cat-eared human and dragged him down to the ground.

"Dude! Can you hear me!?" he demanded.

He tried shaking his frozen friend, his clothes deformed where he touched them, but aside from that, Alex was completely motionless.

Overcome with a feeling of frustration, John proceeded to smack Alexander across the face.

"WAKE UP, MAN!"

Crack.

John's face was now equally motionless with the feeling of terror as he watched the unchanging head of Alexander roll to the side, snapped free from his neck.

"..."

"Oh no..."

John grabbed Alex's head and tried placing it back where it was, only for it to roll away once again.

"FUCK!"

"What do I do!?"

That's when John got an idea.

He placed Alex at the bottom of the stairs, then he placed his sword-clutching hand under his neck so as to make it look as if he decapitated himself whilst falling.

John breathed a sigh.

"Alright... we're good..."

"Still... I need to figure out what's going on..." he said, heading back up the stairs, over Alex's corpse.

When he reached the top, he was once again stricken with terror.

Bonifacius, Foxly and ♛ saw Alex falling down the stairs, they were also completely still, Bonifacius was frozen mid-charge.

"Is everyone... frozen?" he wondered.

"Hold on... if they unfreeze, they'll notice Alex just teleported to the bottom of the stairs and died!" he exclaimed.

He began to pace around the room.

"What should I-..."

John snapped his fingers.

"I know!" he exclaimed.

John grabbed ♛ and carried her to her room, tossing her motionless body onto her bed before whisper-yelling: "It was all a dream!"

John repeated the trick with Foxly.

Next, he dragged Bonifacius' still-heavy self into his room before dropping him off into his bed.

"Alright... I hope they all sleep in their clothes and armour..." he thought, taking a step back and seeing Bonifacius frozen in the sprinting position, eyes and mouth open, laying on his bed sideways.

"Hmm..." John scratched his chin.

He closed Bonifacius' mouth.

"There."

John glanced at his resting face, it looked like the human version of a " :| " face, except Bonifacius' eyes were wide open, looking almost panicked.

"...eh..."

John grabbed Bonifacius' arms and placed them down to his sides, like powerful metal springs, they jumped back to their original position.

"What the hell...?"

He tried pushing them down again, even with all his strength, Bonifacius' arms jerked back to their original position.

"Damn it!" John pushed the arm down as hard as he could only to be met with a loud snap.

John's eyes jolted open as he lifted the severed arm he held.

"..."

"..."

"Oh no..." he squeaked.

Several minutes later...

JohnWillStab was covered in snow as he entered the base after his long journey, carrying a large bag under his arms.

"The whole world, everybody is frozen still..." he thought, dragging the bag up the stairs and into Bonifacius' room.

"Alright, I need to make this believable..." he thought, undoing the bag and pulling out the frozen Curstl.

"Here goes nothing..." he remarked, placing her beside Bonifacius' bed, next he moved her arms and legs to make it look like she was sneaking.

John grabbed the bag and moved to the doorway as if to see how the scene would look to somebody entering the room for the first time.

"Bonifacius was just sleeping, glaring at the ceiling as he always does, when Curstl snuck in and stole his left arm."

John nodded to himself before closing the door to Bonifacius' room.

"Alright, that'll work... now the others..."

John rushed downstairs, accidentally tripping over some part of Alexander's body.

"SHIT!"

After falling to the ground, John stood back up, seeing that Thal was missing.

He looked over and noticed what it was he stood on, it wasn't Alex at all, he stood on Thal, then fell backwards, kicking Thal across the room and right into the centre of Jordan's brother's forehead.

After releasing another guttural scream, John rushed over to the leech that refused to leave their base for about a month now.

He just lazed around the couch, reading, sleeping and occasionally talking if they were unlucky.

John tried to remove Thal from his skull to no avail.

"COME... ON..." he demanded through gritted teeth until the blade eventually left the man's skull and flew outside, smashing a window in the process.

JohnWillStab's head kept switching from looking to the missing Thal to the trepanated brother.

That's when John got an idea.

He rushed back to the main room, grabbed Bromy and dragged him over to the couch where the brother sat.

John lifted his arm and placed Bromy's signature scalpel in it.

"There," John remarked.

"He's just doing surgery!" he explained with a satisfied nod.

With his cover still maintained, John rushed outside and spotted Thal, laying in some freshly-fallen snow.

"Phew! Alright, crisis averted!" he remarked, heading towards the blade.

Despite the stillness of the entire world, the snow kept falling, albeit slowly.

As John approached the sword and tried to pull it out, he found that it was stuck... again.

Confused, John cleared the snow from around the sword, revealing that the sword was now lodged in the chest-cavity of the thief who was seemingly in the process of making snow-angels before being coated in snow.

"..."

Wordlessly, John yanked the word out before placing the snow back over the probably-dead thief.

"I need to figure out what the hell is happening..." he thought.