Chapter 191 "Undercurrent"

A few months ago, if someone had told Jim McGuire that there existed a mysterious power in this world, he would have dismissed them as lunatics.

"What a joke, I'm a staunch materialist!" Jim would have retorted. "All those weird and mysterious things are nothing but deceptions from children's fairy tales. Does anyone truly believe in evil spirits?"

In such debates, Jim consistently emerged victorious!

Jim worked as a weather announcer.

His daily duty involved forecasting the upcoming weather for the public, a simple and enjoyable job he'd held for over a decade.

However, everything had turned chaotic in the past few months!

A bizarre hurricane in southwestern Wales had nearly leveled a city and resulted in significant casualties.

Unprecedented forest fires in the highlands continued for over a month without abating.

The skies in many surrounding cities had reverted to the bleakness of the 19th century, with reports of meteor showers coming from Kent, Yorkshire, Dundee, and elsewhere nearly every week.

In the past few months, the UK had experienced more meteorological anomalies than it had in the past century.

As a consequence, the Meteorological TV station had received countless complaints, and the public's frustration had grown.

This added considerable stress to Jim's daily routine.

However, the disturbances weren't limited to the UK alone but seemed to plague all of Europe.

Monaco suffered a once-in-a-thousand-years super tsunami during the holiday season, resulting in heavy casualties among both residents and tourists.

Prague's Charles Bridge inexplicably collapsed in broad daylight, causing more than a dozen cars to plunge into the river.

A strange and highly contagious virus emerged in northern Italy, rapidly spreading throughout Southern Europe.

Reports of unexplained disappearances became frequent in Northern Ireland.

All these occurrences pointed to a year filled with unprecedented abnormalities.

If a higher power existed, it seemed to wish for humanity's destruction.

Or perhaps...

...

Beyond the strange natural phenomena, what puzzled Jim even more was the response of the official authorities.

In the face of these frequent anomalies, the government took little action.

Even the final rescue efforts following the Welsh hurricane were initiated by private individuals...

The most controversial move made by the Prime Minister in recent months was his call for comprehensive disarmament in all sectors.

Frankly, Jim thought the Prime Minister might be losing his mind.

Jim found it baffling that such a swift and drastic disarmament plan had been approved by parliamentary resolution.

Was the Prime Minister insane? Or were the hundreds of Members of Parliament in the House of Commons all equally mad?

Then there was the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

He had been the Prime Minister's staunchest opponent, and Jim expected him to put an end to this madness.

Yet, inexplicably, the Chancellor of the Treasurer, who had always opposed the Prime Minister, seemed to have joined forces with him to support this absurd resolution.

All in all, everything seemed far too bizarre not to raise suspicions.

Adding to the confusion were some sensational rumors in the news, claiming that the Prime Minister had peculiar and questionable tastes.

According to secretly taken photos, the Prime Minister had spent the past few months in the company of a man cloaked in dark and eerie attire, their togetherness never breaking...

Initially, these reports were seen as absurd...

Yet, the news about them was swiftly seized, which seemed to lend some credence to their claims from another angle.

This world had gone mad!

Jim found it impossible to discern any reason behind these developments, and he could only offer his comments.

...

Until one Sunday, half a month ago, while attending a local church service, he experienced an unexpected turn of events—

The church's pastor became unusually emotional during the sermon.

He fervently informed the congregation that all the recent anomalies of the past few months were the work of one group without exception: wizards!

According to church records dating back hundreds of years, a powerful and mysterious force existed in the world – wizards.

For millennia, they had engaged in a life-and-death struggle with humanity, hunted and killed in countless witch hunts.

Wizards, in turn, had suffered the loss of many of their own...

It wasn't until three centuries ago that wizards gradually faded from existence, and knowledge of them slowly became the stuff of legend...

But now, they were making a resurgence!

According to the pastor, they sought humanity's destruction.

The pastor's impassioned speech, while compelling, didn't entirely convince the congregation...

Despite the recent string of unusual events that cast suspicion, attributing them all to "wizards" seemed preposterous.

Witch hunts from history had long been condemned as medieval ignorance and superstition...

Jim was no different; he couldn't bring himself to believe it.

Until three days later, he came across a news article in the local newspaper—

The impassioned pastor had suddenly passed away in his residence!

When the autopsy report was released, it sent shivers down spines.

A team of doctors had examined the body and determined that the pastor hadn't been harmed by poisons, sharp objects, firearms, suffocation, or strangulation.

In fact, he appeared perfectly healthy – except for one detail, he was deceased.

Furthermore, the doctors noted a look of sheer horror marred the pastor's face, as if he had been frightened to death while still alive!

Concurrently, the physicians observed that similar "sudden death" cases with identical symptoms had been occurring with alarming frequency...

Over a dozen cases each week in the UK, sometimes even dozens...

...

Jim was terrified!

He also began to doubt his "skepticism"!

He couldn't accept such a "coincidence."

Based on what he knew about the pastor, the man had always been healthy and an avid marathon runner.

Such a sudden death seemed utterly irrational.

The only plausible explanation was that the pastor had disseminated certain "truths" that led to some organization killing him in a peculiar manner.

Those organizations, were they the "wizards"?

For the next week, Jim was tormented by nightmares. Mysterious figures would break in and silence him, someone who knew the "truth."

But fortunately, such an ordeal never materialized.

It appeared that the perpetrators had no interest in small fry like him...

Finally gathering his courage, Jim began contacting his neighbors who had also attended the church that week—

They convened a small "meeting"...

There was no denying that everyone was frightened; the pastor's "accidental" death had put them all at risk.

They were eager to uncover the truth...

During this meeting, a woman who appeared somewhat eccentric cautiously shared that the church's pastors had been suffering a disproportionately high number of casualties lately, most of them ending in "sudden deaths" without any apparent cause!

Even the Pope himself hadn't made any statements about it.

In fact, he hadn't been seen in public for months. Reports of "sudden deaths" among pastors had never made it into the newspapers.

It seemed that the top echelons of European governments had become shrouded in mystery!

"Could it be real?" Jim asked incredulously, "that they exist..."

Just before he could utter the word "Wizards," the woman urgently silenced him.

"Don't say that word!" she whispered. "I've heard that anyone who mentions that word meets a dreadful fate!"

Jim knew well what "dreadful fate" entailed, and he obediently closed his mouth.

"Could there be individuals who are unmentionable..." he cautiously inquired, "What's their objective?"

"They aim to dominate and enslave us..." the woman explained patiently. "They've infiltrated the government and can manipulate minds... All the media outlets are under their control. Anyone daring to speak the truth faces 'punishment'..."

"What... what should we do?" Jim stammered. "They seem incredibly powerful, and we appear utterly helpless..."

"We must unite!" the woman declared, her expression grave.

With that, she produced some flyers from her pocket and distributed them to everyone present.

The content of the flyers closely mirrored the pastor's speech that day.

They briefly introduced the existence of wizards, their intentions, and the high-level government manipulation that had gone unnoticed...

"Thank you so much!" Jim carefully tucked the flyer into his pocket.

"Remember to share this news with as many people as you can..." the woman reminded them. "Only when more people learn the truth will we have the strength to rally against them together!"

"I understand!" Jim nodded.

As a weather broadcaster, his job was well-suited to spreading news to a wide audience. Although it carried significant risks to speak out directly, Jim felt he could find a way to subtly convey the message...

The gathering slowly came to an end.

"By the way, ma'am, what's your name?" Jim asked as he was leaving, curious about the woman.

"Dursley... You can call me Mrs. Dursley," she replied with a smile.