Chapter Eighteen
The next morning passed by in a detached blur. Only small snippets of it seemed to seep into my long term memory. Hopping off of the helicopter. Entering another building. Going underground into a small bunker. Somehow managing to find a bed and pass out on it. Using my powers for so long and for such extreme reasons had knackered me. The emotional drain of having to escape the base, and then fight and kill people who were trying to harm my siblings and myself didn’t help either. I was a wreck, and the first thing I had to do was get a proper sleep, in a real bed.
What seemed like only minutes later, I opened my eyes. I felt groggy and dirty. My mouth was dry and my eyes stung. I rubbed them hard as I sat up. For several seconds I didn’t know where I was, or what was happening. When it finally sunk in, and I remembered the battle we had fought seemingly moments before, I felt sick to my stomach. Malik was injured, possibly dead. Sigwald and the rest of the staff could have been killed too. I had been seriously battered, and my brother and sister could have been kidnapped, or worse. And there was a mole who was giving information to our now apparent enemy. My head spun and my stomach gurgled. I jumped off of the hard mattress and stood up straight, hoping to keep the bile down, but it continued to spurt up through my gullet. I threw my hand over my mouth and tried my best not to retch. My eyes darted around, looking for anything that I could find to vomit into. It was too late. The burning puke exploded out of my mouth, spraying through my fingers as I heaved forcefully.
I looked at the mess that I had unfortunately contributed to the shiny tiled surface. It made me want to heave again, but this time I held it back. My head was spinning and my stomach churned. I never wanted any of this in the first place, and now my siblings and I had been thrown into some kind of civil war, one that dated back thousands of years. I just wanted to explore the ocean, which is all I had ever wanted to do. I didn’t want to fight people, or kill them. I just wanted a nice, normal, quiet life. But that would never happen.
I sat onto the edge of the bed, at the end of it, trying my best to ignore the foul smell that engulfed my nostrils. I took my handkerchief out of my pocket and began to wipe my face, mouth and hands with it. I needed to find a sink to wash myself off, and I also needed to find something to clean the floor with.
I stood up, and moved slowly through the tiny bedroom bunker to the small metallic door. I wrenched it open, and stepped out, into a long, thin and narrow hallway. It felt as if I was in a submarine. The walls and floors were metal and the entire hall was very dingily lit with small gas lights. It looked exactly like an air raid shelter from the Second World War; I had seen one a few years ago at the Imperial War Museum for a school History trip. It made sense that we had been taken to a tiny bunker in the ground: they had to do their best to hide us from our enemy.
My chest rose steadily. I didn’t like the idea of presumably being far underground. It made me feel as if I was trapped, or buried. It was a horrible thought to know that there was tons of dirt sitting above my head, pushing down, with just a thin strip of metal holding the weight of life and death on its shoulders. I remembered Sefarina’s nightmare, her words repeating over and over again in my head. I call out, but they’ve all gone. Then I try to escape but the doors are locked, and I’m trapped… I suddenly realise that I too could be locked down here, all alone, living Sefarina’s nightmare…
Almost instantly, there was a loud clang, and a door slammed shut. My eyes spun around with my body as footsteps made their way heavily towards me. The noise echoed off of the steel surfaces and thudded through my skin. The shape of a rather large man in camouflage gear steered himself towards me. His stern face and broad shoulders darted in and out of shadows as he drew ever closer. It was then I had a sudden sinking feeling. What if we weren’t in the Elementus Populas base at all? What if we had been diverted to an Inimicus base, and were being held as prisoners? Or worse, what if Valeska had betrayed us? Right now, we could be hostages. If the Inimicus were clever enough to break in to the Ventus base, what would stop them from knowing about this one?
My legs trembled as my head felt even lighter. The military looking man was now only a few feet away. I tried to grab the air around me, just in case I needed to use it as a weapon, or to defend myself, but every time I made an attempt to feel the air molecules my head pounded painfully, and I began to collapse towards the floor. As I was falling, unable to do anything to protect myself, I felt strong hands catch me underneath my arm pits, and tug me upright. He held me in his arms, and pushed me against his firm chest as he lifted my feet from the floor. He carried me back into the room I had woken up in, and lay me down on the bed. My vision blurred and my stomach churned. Had they poisoned me? Were they killing me? They must be keeping me locked away, so that I couldn’t find my brother and sister. Together we were stronger…
The man sat behind me on the bed, and dragged me upward. My limp body sagged against his as he pulled me so that I was now sitting upright, leaning against him.
“Here, drink this,” he commanded, his deep voice booming through his chest and into my spine.
Even though I didn’t want to do as he said, I opened my mouth and swallowed the cool and refreshing water. I gulped down gallons, and almost instantly felt better. My head stopped spinning, and within minutes I was able to pull myself away from him, and sit up straight under my own strength. He handed me another glass of water, which I guzzled fervently. I tipped it down my throat, and once I was finished, exhaled loudly through my mouth. My head was not as light, and my stomach felt much better.
After a few moments, I turned.
“Thank you,” I uttered quietly. My voice was hoarse and dry, despite the water I had just downed.
“You’re welcome,” he answered as he stood up. The firm mattress sprang up as his heavy body lifted from it. He walked towards the door quickly, with a determined and powerful stride.
“Wait a second!” I hollered. He stopped immediately in his tracks, turned, stomped his right foot on the floor and pressed his hands against his side.
“Yes ma’am?” he asked sternly, his eyes gazing just above my forehead. He was acting as if I was his Commander. I smiled, hoping that maybe I wasn’t a captive after all.
“Where are we?”
“I’m not allowed to divulge that information, ma’am. What I am authorised to tell you is that we are in a secret barrack owned and operated by the Elementus Populas, and you and your siblings are safe here. We will be monitoring you while you recover, since you received some serious trauma from the battle.”
He stopped. I expected him to continue, waiting for him to say something else, but he didn’t.
“How long will we be here for?”
“Until you recover and it is considered safe for you to leave.”
I began to feel uneasy. Even though we were supposedly safe, I was once again starting to feel like a prisoner. I thought that we agreed to be trained voluntarily? I thought that it was our choice to work with the Elementus Populas? If I wanted to leave, and if they tried to stop me, then they would be the villains after all for deceiving us!
“And what if I want to go, right now?”
“Although we would advise you not to, you are free to do as you wish.” It rolled off his tongue with such ease, as if he had prepared the answer, as if knowing that I would ask it. His eyes darted down, and locked onto mine.
“I would urge you not to leave. You are not fully recovered. You were very badly dehydrated.”
I raised my upper lip scornfully. That didn’t make any sense. My secondary power was water: how could I become dehydrated?
“It seems that when you use your powers to such an extreme level, you absorb some of the water within your own body,” he answered for me without me even asking the question. I furrowed my brow. That was obviously something that I needed to work on. At the next training session, I would bring that up, and see if…
I rolled my eyes, sadly. Training might not ever be the same again. Th
e people that I had been working with for months now could be gone. They might have been killed… I wiped that thought from my mind. I felt too tired to even contemplate the repercussions of the attack against us. I knew that deep down somewhere in the darkest folds of my brain, there was a feeling that we shouldn’t trust anyone. Perhaps it was time to go it alone, just the three of us.
“Can I get you anything?” the man asked firmly. I shook my head.
“No thanks. I think I just need to go back to sleep.”
He nodded. Just as he was about to depart, I stopped him in his tracks. Again.
“How are Niyol and Sefarina doing?”
“Your brother and sister are both fine. They are recovering well; your sister the best.”
“She’s tougher than everyone expects,” I said to myself. He laughed, and nodded, which was completely unexpected. His hard face disintegrated into an almost warm, kind one.
“The quiet ones always are,” he added.
I didn’t know whether to laugh along with him or be frightened. How much did he know about us? How long had he been monitoring us? I shook my paranoia away. He was just being nice. He was comforting me.
I looked at him again, this time more closely. His square chin and firm jaw were now loosened. His dark narrow eyes now smiled along with his tight cheeks. His broad frame and thick arms hung confidently as he relaxed. Now that I was really looking at him, I realised that he was incredibly attractive. I grinned, flirtatiously.
“Who do you work for again?” I enquired, leaning closer to him.
“The Elementus…”
“No,” I interrupted, “You work for me.” His eyebrows lifted upwards in surprise. “The Elementus Populas work for the Elementals,” I explained. “That means they work for me. And since you work for them, you also work for me.”
“I guess,” he mumbled, unsure.
“That means you have to do whatever I tell you to,” I informed him as I stood up, and walked towards him slowly.
His frown immediately switched to a smirk. We stared at each other provocatively, and I stopped next to him, our bodies almost touching.
“Perhaps,” he answered, as he began to leave the room.
He stepped through the door frame, his expression transforming back into a robotic glare. He held the door ajar while he looked down at the floor where I had vomited, and then looked back at me.
“I’ll get someone to clean the mess,” he told me, as he slammed the door shut.
Ventus Page 18