The Elementals

I’m beginning to hate this dumb black forest. I stomp through the silence angrily. “Who is it now?” I shout challengingly. “Am I gonna fall through the sky this time?” My patience has run out, and I’m on my last nerve. My brain needs better thoughts at night. Aggravated, I punch a tree. My hand passes right through it and I get a tingling chill down my spine.

“Tide?” Ah, there it is.

“What?” I snap, stubbornly staying put. It’s just a dream so nothing is real, right?

“Where are you?” The voice sounds completely bewildered and really, really, familiar.

It sounds like Oh’Rian.

“Over here!” I call, turning my head. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, I don’t know!” Yes, it’s definitely Oh’Rian. “Something is happening to me. I need help. I’m not sure what to do and-“

“Tide?”

I jump up and smash into Caelum, and we both fall to the ground. “I was sleeping!” I snap at him.

He backs up. “Sorry. You were twitching and kind of scaring me.”

“It’s alright.” I say, rubbing my temples.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.” I say and look around. The sun is just barely rising; the sky is still relatively dark. I glance back at Caelum and see he’s looking at me with this yeah, right expression on his face. “I had a dream. That’s it.”

“What about?”

“Why are you so concerned?”

“I just want to make sure you’re okay.” He says, looking down.

Well now I feel bad. He was just trying to help. “My friend. She was in trouble. She said something was wrong with her.” I proceed to tell him the details.

“What if it’s real?” Caelum asks when I’m finished.

Oh yes, thank you, that makes me feel a whole lot better. I chide myself. It’s a legitimate question. “I guess it could be. When I went to Stella’s town, I had had a dream about it first.”

“Yeah, but she’s magic.”

I snicker quietly. “True.”

“Well, should we go look for her?” Caelum asks.

“Right now?” I’m surprised he even cares. “We don’t even know if she’s here.”

“She could be, and if your dream was right, she’s in some sort of trouble.”

My stomach twists. He’s right. Oh’Rian could be in danger. I stand up. The others, knowing them, won’t be awake for a couple hours. “Let’s go.”

We walk into the woods. It occurs to me how stupid this is. We’re just assuming that Oh’Rian is on a random mountain side exactly near where we camped. Then I start to recognize the scenery. “You’re kidding me.” I whisper to myself.

“What?” Caelum asks.

I point to a tree ahead of us. The bark is chipped and broken. “I might’ve gotten mad and punched a tree.” I say and walk over to it. I touch the bruised wood and feel a strong static shock. For a second, everything is thrown back into the inky blackness of my dream. I hear Oh’Rian calling my name. I snap my head towards the sound.

“Um, Tide?” Caelum is next to me. I blink. The forest is back to normal.

“She’s this way.” I turn left, towards the sound of her voice, and keep walking. Caelum follows without argument. “Rian?” It’s a challenge not say “oh” in front of it. “Hello?”

“Tide?” I jump. The voice was right near me on the right.

“Rian!” I exclaim and push away the bushes to find her. She’s huddling in a slight dip in the ground, shivering from the cold. I rush over. “Are you okay?”

She looks at me and her chocolate brown eyes are scared. “Oh, no, Tide, oh not at all.” She says, voice quivering. It’s strange, because I’m the kid and she’s the grown-up. “Something is wrong with me. Very, very, very, very-“

“What is it?” I ask, trying to stay calm. She might have the chip in her head too.

“Look!” She hisses, and she sounds completely crazy. She lifts her hand and gradually, I feel the wind start to pick up. A sudden gust blasts leaves into Caelum’s face. “Sorry,” Oh’Rian whispers. The wind dies as quickly as it came.

My mouth is open, head spinning with thoughts. “Wha-when did this start?”

Oh’Rian speaks in a hushed, hunted tone. “About a day ago. I destroyed the neuroscience lab in a tornado.”

Neuroscience has something to brains. Breeze had a chip in her head. Slowly, some random dots start to connect. Oh’Rian can’t be the wind Elemental. Breeze is the wind Elemental. It dawns on me. Breeze was the wind Elemental. Now she’s dead. She died about a day ago. Her powers must have transferred to someone else. To Oh’Rian.

“What’s my problem, Tide?” Oh’Rian whimpers quietly. “Am I crazy? Is that it? Are you even real?”

“I’m real, don’t worry.” I reassure her. Taking a deep breath, I try to explain. “You’re the new wind Elemental. Breeze is- she isn’t here anymore.” Caelum nods, understanding.

Oh’Rian looks at me like a deer in headlights. “She’s dead?” I nod curtly. “And now I have her powers?”

“Yes.”

“How-“ Oh’Rian’s voice drops even lower. “How did she die?”

I stop. It feels kind of like my entire body is icing over with loathing. “Izila. Izila Franklin put a chip in her head. It messed up her brain.” I say coldly, hatred dripping off each word.

Oh’Rian’s face falls in shocked confusion. “What? But- but Izila is my mother.” I snap my head around. Oh’Rian shifts. “I’m not on her side!” She defends herself. “I-I didn’t know she was capable of that sort of thing. Of something so horrible.” She shudders.

I want to comfort her, say it’s alright, but it isn’t. If Izila even tries to do that to anyone else I will personally hunt her down and murder her. I’m going to do that anyway though, so she better start running. I glance back at Oh’Rian. She’s shivering and pale and weak looking. I ignore the slight distrust in my gut. It’s Oh’Rian. She let me out of my cell. Oh’Rian is good. “Come on,” I help her up. “Let’s get back to camp.”

She nods, looking stricken, and I start to lead the way back. Caelum strides next to me. Oh’Rian is muttering to herself. I get it. It’s a lot of information to process at one time. I stay by her side, ready for anything but hoping she won’t cry. I don’t know what to do when someone older than you cries. We reach the camp, and I run into Coal.

“Where have you been?” He snaps, after jumping. “I woke up and you weren’t there and I almost had a heart att-“ He stops talking and his eyes narrow when he sees Caelum, and then widen when Oh’Rian catches up. “Who is-“

“That’s Rian.” I say before he can finish. “We need to move.” I push past Coal, and see that the others are already awake with half annoyed, half worried expressions. The one time I assume they’ll sleep in… “Come on guys, I’ll explain on the way.” I gather everyone together, but trying to collect Maple and Sparky is like trying to herd cats. Caelum watches me with an amused expression on his face. “You could help you know.” I say to him.

“I could,” He says, smiling impudently. “But I think you’ve got everything under control.” I glare at him.

“Hi Rian!” Sparky bounces up and down, running circles around Oh’Rian’s legs.

“Hello…Sparky.” She says distantly. Maple jumps into her and Oh’Rian shivers, breaking out of a daze. “Hey!” She laughs slightly, surprised, “Long time no see.”

“We need to move.” I say and pause as everyone’s gaze flicks back and forth from me to Oh’Rian. I curse silently. Oh’Rian is in her low twenties or something, older than me. They don’t know who to follow.

Thankfully, Oh’Rian turns and looks expectantly at me, postponing the inevitable leadership issue. “Where are we going?”

I begin to move in a random direction away from the cliff face. “This way.” I hear some grumbling, but everyone shuffles after me.

“Are we going to a town?” Oh’Rian asks quietly. She leans down so she can talk in a lower voice.

“Hopefully,” I say, “I need some normal junk food. A hamburger, and curly fries…with shrimp…and chicken wings.” My mouth waters thinking about it. This healthy, vegetarian, eating only plants and berries thing isn’t quiet working for my extremely carnivorous tastes.

Oh’Rian laughs softly. “What if you could be safe and not have to run? What would you do?”

“Gee, I dunno, do you know a place?” I ask sarcastically. Oh’Rian nods definitively and I stop for a second in shock. “You’re serious? No kidding?”

“Yes, I’m serious,” She says, “My mom-“ she coughs and I try not to judge. I mean, it’s not her fault her parent is a psychopath child murderer. “My mother was going to move you to an island in the middle of the Pacific. We could go there.”

“And how exactly is this place any safer?” I ask, giving her look that says whose side are you on? She glances guiltily at the ground. God, what is my problem? I just can’t stop seeing Izila every time I look at Oh’Rian. I can’t stop picturing Breeze, slowly disappearing into oblivion, frail, weak, dead-

Stop it.

“She made sure it wasn’t on any map or anything, and she made special towers that block out any signal your powers could give off so no one can know where you are.” Oh’Rian continues bravely, even after my harsh jabs. “If we could find a coastal town we could make it to the island. She would never expect you to go to one of her facilities.”

Now that I think about it, the plan is rather brilliant. “Well where are we now?”

Oh’Rian shrugs in a sort of depressed, neglected fashion. “I don’t know. Mom never told me.”

I feel a spark of pity, then slam the door in its face, then open the door and let it back in. She never had a real mom, just a megalomaniac woman who is incapable of emotion. It still feels kind of like a punch in the gut though. I never even had adoptive parents to relate to and I’m not even sure if I have parents in the first place. Yeah, don’t wanna think about that, moving on.

“So, anyway,” Oh’Rian tries to recover. “Would you want to go to school or something?”

I laugh drily. “School isn’t really fun when you’re named after a natural disaster.”

Oh’Rian gives me a look like oh yeah? and says, “Try having a miss-spelled boys name.”

I duck my head in embarrassment. “Right.”

She smiles in acknowledgment. “Don’t you want to learn things?” She sounds so genuinely confused by my instant rebuke to schooling.

“It’s not learning that’s the problem,” I say, “It’s being crammed into a chair in a room that smells like sweat and Expo marker being forced to memorize random, useless information that’s the problem.”

“It’s not useless!” Oh’Rian cries indignantly.

Ignoring her, because I’m beginning to enjoy complaining about the horrible public schools the orphanages claimed were the only places they could afford, I continue. “Ah, yes, I’ll definitely use the formulas for surface area when I’m fighting for my life. The way I remember is reciting them while side kicking someone’s face.” Oh’Rian shakes her head in defeat, but she’s smiling.