The Ripple Effect

Anomaly

The day started as expected. The date as expected. The point of view as expected. Acacia Taylor woke up just like the days before, and while everything was exactly like before, something felt off. She had moved to this new town days ago as a new student. While she personally knew that as fact, and knew it was due to her father moving offices, something inside felt like it was a lie. Something was telling her she had lived there her entire life. However, Acacia dismissed the doubt and remained lying there in her bed. "It's probably nothing," Acacia whispered.

"Acacia!" her mother said, raising her voice, "It's time to get ready for school!"

"R-Right!" Acacia said, sitting up, "My apologies, mother..."

"What's gotten into you lately?" her mother scorned.

"Come again?" Acacia said, turning to her mother with a confused look on her face.

"Why're you acting all delinquent all of a sudden?" her mother explained, "You were late when I picked you up two days ago, you were acting depressed last night, and now you're not waking up on time. What's up?"

"Sorry I just..." Acacia started before stopping herself, "Wait, I was late?"

"Yeah, you kept me waiting at the front of the school for ten minutes," her mother explained.

"No, I could have sworn I told you to pick me up at the proper time, and I know as soon as my last class ended I headed out to the front of the school," Acacia defended, speeding up her speech as she spoke.

"I know you told me to pick you up at that time, but don't lie to me young lady."

"Mother, I swear I'm being truthful! The second the class ended I went out to the front of the school! You must have heard the bell ring!"

"There's no need to raise your voice Acacia, I'm right here. I did hear the bell ring when I arrived at the school and I watched all of your peers leave before you arrived late."

"I-" Acacia started.

"Acacia, please! Just get ready for the day."

"Yes, mother," Acacia unwillingly agreed.

On that note, Acacia slugged out of bed and took a look around her room. Something felt off. Everything looked right, but something in the area was pushing her and she couldn't tell what it was. Knowing she had little time to spare, she quickly picked out her outfit for the day and changed into it. After this, she rushed into the kitchen and made herself breakfast-which she ate at record pace-before brushing her teeth and gathering her school supplies which she had left out after doing her homework the night before. As she gathered her supplies, she noticed that the pencil she was using was gone. For all she knew, she had misplaced it and now she was having a difficult time remembering where it was, but from what she gathered it was gone.

This primarily wouldn't be too grand of something to arouse suspicion to a normal person, however given how Acacia conserved her pencils this was something big to her. Acacia always bought a pack of six mechanical pencils the day before school and expects those six to last her all of the days of the school year to follow. Acacia does so by taking all six and putting all but one of them in her desk; in a place she calls her "pencil reserve." The one she excludes from the batch of "reserve" pencils is deemed as the pencil she is currently using. This way, she never carries too many with her and never loses a mass amount of them. When she loses the pencil she is currently using, or it gets put out of commission by something (or someone), she then takes one pencil out of the "pencil reserve" and declares it as the previous one's replacement. Before Acacia had moved to her new school, she had only lost one of her six pencils. Then, not even three days after moving to her new school, she was cut down to four. Overall, this wasn't a particularly huge issue for her, other than the frustration of losing a pencil, because she still had her reserve and all this meant on a grander scale was that she would have to be more careful about misplacing her pencil. Even with this said, she couldn't help but wonder where the previous pencil had gone due to her reputation of being so on-top of things regarding the matter.