Christa looks outside, dumbfounded by the snow. She blinks a few times and rubs her eyes in exasperation at the sight before her.

This… this isn’t a coincidence… this isn’t a coincidence--

“Oh my god! Hey everyone, look outside, it’s snowing!”

That voice comes from Alice who looks at the white scape before her eyes, standing next to Christa, whose dread grows deeper and deeper.

Alice and her female friends quickly bolt to action and open the other curtain rolls, adding both more light and more confusion to the atmosphere of the classroom.

The windows of Ajax and Shaula's English class overlook the school parking lot and the school field.

The parking lot has six rows of parking spaces, and today, about forty percent of the spaces are occupied with the cars of the school staff, including the teachers, administrative staff and janitorial workers.

The empty spaces would normally be filled when athletic events occur and on parent visitation days, like when parents come to see their kids play on the school field.

The school field itself is an athletic event ground including a football field enclosed by a 400m running track.

From the viewpoint of the students looking through the school window, one set of goalposts are placed to the right and the other set of goalposts are placed to the left.

Past this field is a long row of bleachers where spectators, such as parents and students would sit down to watch highschool varsity games like intercollegiate soccer and football.

This setup for the athletic field is especially efficient because students in the school can see the game from within the school building looking through, for example, the windows of Ajax and Shaula's classroom.

Anyone who wants to get up close to the players can also see the game from the bleachers, on the opposite side of the field.

Additionally, on the far left and right sides of the football field, past the goalposts on each side are two lines of trees which go up and down the entire school field.

This field has a well-designed landscape for many students in the school and when it isn’t in use for physical education or for varsity games, students can walk and hang out on the field during lunch, or even before and after school.

However, right now on this mid-June morning, this field, the running track and the bleachers are covered with snow that is still falling, the field itself devoid of any human presence.

"How does this make sense? There are no clouds in the sky..."

A student named Jacquelyn Trinfeld remarks this as she looks at the environment before her. This young woman is perplexed by the field before her eyes.

Normally, she is a quiet student who doesn’t like to make waves or interact with her classmates, but in times like this, it simply can’t be helped.

She is a beautiful girl with long brown hair going down to her shoulders, kind, light-brown eyes, a large waist, wide hips and prominent rear, with smaller breasts than her female classmates. She is wearing a polo shirt, blue track pants and fashionable white sneakers.

"Holy shit, this is... fucking amazing..."

Maxwell Anthony makes this remark. He looks at the environment in awe. Maxwell is a young man who has been handed many things and seen many interesting phenomena throughout his life on a number of continents.

A snowstorm in mid-June in the northern hemisphere is not one of those things.

All of the students have already been able to turn on their phones. None of them have any signal from their mobile providers. Regardless, they all stop their current activities and idleness to take photos and video of the falling snow from this clear blue sky before them.

To them, it really looks like the snow is materializing out of nowhere. The snow is falling outside their window, but oddly, it isn’t collecting on their window sills or even touching the window pane or glass.

A male student named Harold Darmouth looks in awe at the snow falling; just yesterday he had walked through the field in front of his eyes and admired the cedar and maple trees with his friends Arthur Jameson, Juliana Cassidy and Alice, the plucky student council member.

Harold is a tall, athletically inclined male student with dirty-blonde hair combed to the sides and blue eyes. A popular student who is part of the dominant clique in their English classroom, even in the 12th grade overall.

Alice stands in awe of the environment before her eyes. Majestic splendor. Then, she snaps back to reality for a moment and starts moving her eyes around the white backdrop to gain any insight into their current situation.

Nothing is without its consequences, right? Perhaps she can see something that can explain this situation if she looks over the area, particularly to the sky. She has some thoughts on the matter.

Is this like… a global warming thing? Like some kind of odd temperature extreme phenomena?

Alice notices the cars in the parking lot. There are layers of ice already condensed on the windshields of multiple cars. She sees several small and a few large cracks already forming on a few of the car windshields. Jacquelyn and Christa also notice this.

Meanwhile, Christa looks past the falling snow in the parking lot towards the field.

The parking lot and the field have already collected a lot of snow compared to the school hallway she had just examined. Currently, Jordan is looking through the door window with some of his classmates.

About two centimetres of snow have packed onto the school field covering it entirely in white.

The bleachers are also covered in snow and the cars in the parking lot are already packed with snow, on their car hoods and roofs.

Alice asks a question to her classmates standing beside her looking through the window.

"Hey... where are the students who normally have gym class outside in the mornings? Shouldn't they be, like, on the field playing something?"

Some of their classmates nod in agreement, feeling confusion at the barren field. Jacquelyn also notices the fields. Harold concurs with Alice, saying,

"Oh, yeah. I think for the past few weeks they've been running around the track and then playing soccer until the first period ends. I guess... they ran back inside when the snow started falling?"

"Yeah, that makes sense..."

Alice accepts his conclusion; obviously, if they didn't have the weather gear to handle the falling snow then they wouldn't stick around outside.

But Jacquelyn doesn’t agree. Wouldn't they stay outside even without the gear? At least a few of them would still be there taking video of it, wouldn't they? Just like the kids in the class here...

Also… Wouldn’t there be a school announcement before the power went out about unseasonal snowfall?

Actually, that’s odd… how recently did the snow start falling?

“Ms. Rowfield, when do you think the snow started falling? The curtains have been drawn since the beginning of the exam, right?”

“I… I don’t know, Jackie.”

Christa does have a weird suspicion that the snow started falling only after Ajax and Shaula fell asleep, about five minutes ago. After all, if snow started falling before the blackout, there should have been a school wide announcement, right?

But… that doesn’t make any sense either… How could that much snow come down in just five minutes?

Christa doesn’t understand this… at all. But, she has a slightly insane suspicion that it all has some relation to Ajax and Shaula’s unconsciousness. Too many coincidences...

Then, Jacquelyn notices something while examining the field. The field is slightly far from her line of sight so she isn’t able to see it in very good detail, especially with the snow still falling in the parking lot, reducing visibility.

Jacquelyn thinks to herself,

Isn't there something scattered over parts of the field? The snow is starting to completely cover it but it... looks like dark colored rocks with some traces of... blue?

She thinks over to herself about what those could be. Has there been any janitorial maintenance? Any new cultivation of the athletic fields? Anything that could explain the scattered piles of rocks here and there?

Another student in the classroom, Arthur Jameson, notices something,

"Hey, Harry, look over there... do... do you see the trees over there?"

Harold looks at the trees on the left side of the football field. Arthur continues,

"That one right at the end there... it just... fell over and... shattered..."

Arthur had noticed a vertical crack form in the trunk of that tree causing the two halves of the tree to fall side by side, left and right on the ground. When the two trunk halves had fallen on the ground, they had shattered like glass from the impact.

"Harry, isn't... isn't that tree frozen solid?"

“Yeah… like it’s been… dipped in nitrogen or something… Hey, does anyone have any binoculars or anything?”

“Oh, actually, there should be some in my purse.”

Christa walks over to her table to grab her binoculars to look through her purse.

Arthur and Harry continue to observe the trees as another tree on the row of trees on the other side of the field also collapses.

Jacquelyn, who has been eavesdropping on their conversation, notices the frozen trees herself.

Frozen trees... so then, it must be dangerously cold outside. Then... then... how come we can't feel it at all in our class... wait... wait, no...

Jacquelyn’s eyes open wide. She gets goosebumps on her body as she considers a horrific possibility.

The frozen trees… the rock piles… the cold… the… windshields… the… blue… oh… oh my God--

“Ah, found them. Anyone want to take a closer look? Whoa--”

In a flash, Jacquelyn grabs the binoculars from Christa and runs back to the window to examine the school field in closer detail. She stands next to Harold and Arthur. Harold tries to probe her behaviour,

“Wh-What happened? What did you notice?”

“What’s wrong, Jackie? What do you see?”

Christa asks this simple question as sweat starts to drip from Jacquelyn’s face while looking through the binoculars. Fear permeates Jacquelyn’s body. Her consciousness flickers slightly at the realization that her hypothesis is correct.

Jacquelyn hands the binoculars to Harold and hurriedly runs to the trash can located near the door of the classroom. She kneels over it and vomits.

She has seen something horrible.

No one is prepared for the reality of Ahura Mazda’s summoning ritual. The ritual of water will soon conclude.