The Elementals

I wake up feeling more tired than ever. The spots where I hit rocks on my fall down the hill are sore and ache when I move.

“I thought you were dead for a while there, you slept so long,” Coal says.

I ignore him but my will fades when I hear the crinkling of cellophane. “You have food?” I ask and my mouth waters as Coal throws me a Hershey bar. I snatch it out of the air and barely manage not to choke as I inhale the entire thing. “What?” I demand, because Coal is just sitting there, watching.

“Nothing. I just… you eat fast,” he mumbles, and stands up.

“We don’t exactly have time, do we?” I say, challenging him to pursue the matter.

He shrinks away from my glare. “No.”

That’s what I thought.

“So,” I say, trying not to sound too eager. “Are you going to teach me to use my water powers or what?”

“Slow down, Flippers, we need to find the lake first.”

“Won’t Breeze and Terra be there? Seems like a good place to camp,” I ask.

Coal nods, thinking. “It’s worth a shot. I haven’t seen any other water sources nearby so it’s our only choice.”

“I still don’t get your problem with them,” I say as we start to walk.

“It’s not them,” Coal says, looking back at me with surprise, as if it’s weird that I assumed he dislikes them. “It’s that if we’re all in a big group, we’re easier to track.”

I’m not sure I want to know the answer, but I ask anyway: “Who wants to track us?”

“The government and people with Napoleon complexes bent on controlling the world are usually the main contenders,” he says, spouting off the words like he teaches a pretentious English class.

“Wonderful. Now wouldn’t it be harder to catch us if we were together to fight?”

“Maybe, but our signal is easier to identify.”

“What signal?” I’m getting more scared and weirded out by the second.

“I think, because of our powers, each of us gives off a sort of signal.”

“Like radiation?”

“Sure, but when we’re all together, the sign is stronger.” Coal talks a lot with his hands, waving them around and pointing as he walks.

“So why didn’t you just leave me yesterday? I mean, it should be harder to track down just one person, right?”

Coal laughs and I frown at him.

“What’s so funny?”

“You’re so practical.” He turns around and walks backwards, facing me. In a bad imitation of my voice he says, “You should have ditched me. It would have been more logical.”

“I didn’t say it like that! I was just wondering!”

That makes Coal laugh harder. Annoyed, I push past him to the front.

“Ah, come on, Flippers. I didn’t mean it like that!” he calls to me. “Look, I’ve been in some tight situations and it’s better to have back-up.”

“Great, I’m only here to save you if you fail to defend yourself.”

“Do you want me to teach you how to use your powers or not?”

I growl, because Coal is right and I slow down so he can catch up to me.