The Elementals

“Loyalty. That’s your weakness.” Shylock says conversationally, pacing smugly in front of my cell.

I ignore him, still hearing the pounding of Coal’s fists on the ice.

“You see,” Shylock gloats, “If you didn’t get so pathetically attached to every stray you find on the ground, you wouldn’t be here.”

I lean my head back against the white glass.

“I have no connection to anybody,” he says proudly, coldly. “I rely on no one.”

I tilt my head, my back to him, strangely calm. “And that is exactly why, Shylock, when I’m out of this place, have hunted you down and am ready to tear you to shreds, not one single person will stand in my way.”

No response. I don’t turn around. I don’t need to see his face. The silence is sufficient. I hear the new shift guard come in and Shylock stalks away. I smile toothily at the camera in the cell.

They had upped the security since we got out. I was now a big enough threat to require one of the high tech glass cells. Yay me. At least one guard was always positioned by my door. Shylock probably volunteered for this job. I was given small glasses of water and would only get the next one when I had drunk the first.

No one had tried to touch me which was fine. I would have torn them to pieces if they did. I’m sure they were waiting for me to do something, use my powers, try to escape. I didn’t. I tried to be as boring and lifeless as possible. I just waited and watched.

There were patterns in the facility. The same guards rotated every day. Shylock came on the 12 AM shift. Then a short, bulldog looking guy would come in. He didn’t talk to me, thankfully. The camera shut down for ten minutes every day, to turn over to new film probably.

This was my favorite part of being stuck here. Every day, at 1:45 PM it would wilt from its rigid view on me and the light would go off. I would run around sometimes, just to get the energy out, but most of the time I practiced with my cup of water. It was small, and didn’t really have any power to it. I would still play with it though, spinning it, twirling it through the air. I would freeze it into little animal shapes, then throw them at the wall and hold them in the air as the tiny shards shot out, broken.

It drove Shylock nuts. That was the best part. He wasn’t allowed in the room when it wasn’t his shift, so I got the pleasure of his glare when he came in, fuming.

It was on the fourth day that someone tried to come in. She was a tall lady with glasses. She wore a white lab coat and just struck me as a nerd. Why they sent a scrawny scientist in is beyond me. She walked stiffly up to the guard and told him he could leave and showed him a badge. After the short guard left, twig girl seemed to relax.

She put the badge on the bench outside my cell so I couldn’t get that. She punched in a ton of numbers into the keypad so fast her fingers were a blur. The door whipped open and closed just as fast after twig lady stepped in.

I growled softly. These people were learning. I moved slowly away from the wall, so I had room to run.

“Are you,” She starts in a surprisingly normal voice. I thought it would be nasally to add to the nerd effect. She checks her clipboard. “Tide?”

“No.” I say, straight faced.

“Oh,” She says, her eyes wide. “Sorry.” She starts to leave dejectedly.

“Hey wait!” I call to her, I don’t know why. “I was kidding. My name is Tide.”

She stops and looks so relieved I’m almost glad I stopped her from leaving. “Oh, okay.” She says awkwardly. I sit down. She is obviously not going to attack me. “I’m supposed to ask you a few questions.”

“Wonderful. I just love surveys.”

She blinks at me. “Oh, you do?”

“Do you even know what sarcasm is?” I ask her.

“Yes,” she says defensively. Her name tag says RIAN.

“Isn’t Rian a boy’s name?”

“No! Oh, I mean yes, but it can be a girl’s name too!” She says and I don’t push it. She says “oh” a lot.

“At least your name is an actual name, boy’s or not.” I say, trying not to make her hate me. Why do you care? I ask myself. I don’t. It’s just better not to have enemies right?

“Oh, I think Tide’s a very pretty name.” Oh’Rian- what can I say? She kind of asked for it- says.

“Thank you.”

She clears her throat, realizing she has a job to do. Reading from her clipboard, she asks, “How many calories do you need to consume after exercising your abilities?”

“What?”

She looks at me sympathetically. “How much do you eat after using your powers?”

“Um, a lot?”

Oh’Rian sighs, muttering something about insufficient data. I pause when I hear the camera shut down. A sad sort of clicking noise. I glance at it. It’s dead. It stays off through the rest of the time Oh’Rian is here. After she’s done asking her questions, which I have tried my best to answer without revealing anything, and leaves, the camera snaps back to attention.