The Elementals

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The Elementals Page 13

by Thorne, Annalynne


  "Era, we can figure something else….”

  "There's nothing else," Bryne argued flatly. "This is the only way. You heard my grandmother."

  Terra clenched her teeth together, her right hand running through her tresses.

  "He's right," Era said and the stone illuminated a heavenly blue.

  Terra put Bryne's stone around her neck and accepted Era's. As the energy of Air floated lightly in her palm, it flowed in her veins in a way that Fire had, except she felt light, free, and purposeful.

  "Now all you have to do is take Water's."

  Take from her own sister. It wasn't right. It all felt wrong.

  "This is the only way," Era told her, the lightness still in her voice as if it had never left. She was too drained of her color, looking much like an old woman than ever with her white hair. It was unsettling though the voice was comforting, to know that the taking of a power didn't have an effect on their personality.

  It was true then, that Era was right. The power wasn't their personality; it was simply that, a power. It just seemed to match, as if a higher existence knew what they were doing. That was good, because they didn't, no matter what it was that Bryne said.

  "Will you two be okay?"

  Era nodded, but held her head, and her eyes for a moment became unfocused and tired. Terra had never seen her tired and it was unsettling to witness. "We'll be fine, go see Marissa, she needs you."

  Terra left reluctantly, her sights shifting from Bryne to Era who looked too sick to have been sitting up the way they were. Each second that ticked past, their eyes became more dull and lifeless.

  When she knocked on the bathroom door, Marissa opened it up and turned quickly back to the sink, her hands on each side of the basin, her head hung low over it, her hair a curtain shielding herself from her older sister and the teary eyes that Terra had seen.

  "Issa..." She tucked the strands of her hair, so similar to her own behind her ear. "Aw, Issa..."

  She sniffed, wiping her nose viciously on the sleeve of her new gown, her mismatched shorts underneath. "I'm just... I'm so..."

  "Let it out," Terra encouraged lovingly.

  "I'm so angry." Marissa wheeled to face her, her expression livid. "She was our mother! She was the prophet! And all this time Aunt Gwen never bothered to tell us! It was our right! We're the ones saving the world!"

  Terra brought her in her arms, holding her tight, feeling the exasperated breezes, the gasps, the hot soaking of her shoulder. Marissa felt thinner, she could feel her ribs, and that frightened her. How much had she been eating? She should have been paying more attention to her diet. Marissa had been handling things so well; it should've been a red light that something was wrong. Marissa never dealt with bad situations well and something had to lack. In this case, it was apparently the amount of food she had been eating, or lack of.

  "How much have you been eating," Terra asked as she thrust her sister at an arms length away from her. "You look... Sickly."

  Indeed, she did. Her outfit of dark blue was baggier, thin and useless on her. Terra touched her rib and could feel the contours of it sticking out of her thin flesh. It turned her stomach.

  "Oh, Issa. Let’s get something to eat, please."

  "No. I…I'm... I'm not hungry."

  "You're worrying yourself sick."

  "You're not worrying at all! Why do you seem fine with this? You have to take on everything by yourself. Why? Why can't we help? What if all of this is a plan to overtake us? Bryne might not be what he seems, him and his grandmother. She could be just acting ill….”

  A headache threatened to pound her brain into mush, and Terra lowly and firmly ordered, "stop. That's not true, and you know it better than any of us."

  Tears flooded her kind and terrified eyes. "Yeah, I know it. But... I'm sorry, Terra... I'm sorry that it's taken me this long to use my visions and feelings. I feel that I've wasted all this time and haven't gotten us very far. Maybe….”

  "No, no maybes, Issa. Please."

  Savagely, she pulled her necklace off, and held it in her hand as she gathered the energy, like one would gather a stream of water in a vase. A gorgeous deep blue lit up the small room.

  Terra took it in her hand, and it flowed into her. It was overwhelming, to feel what she was feeling from Marissa. Depression of worries and fear. It was a literal punch in her gut and it winded her. She shakily put it on, the stone clinking with the three others, but she didn't have time to direct it and learn to turn the ocean and crashing waves into small controlled lakes, for Marissa turned a pale green, and suddenly, she collapsed right into her arms, the dead weight of her forcing her down to her knees.

  "Issa?! ISSA!" She peered at her flimsy little sister, like a ragged stuffed doll, she was making no vital signs to show that she was alive. She felt her chest, placed her finger under her nose. She didn't feel the slight movement of her chest or the small puffs of breath from her nose and urgency came over her. She had to find someone, anyone to help her. Marissa was dying, if she wasn't dead then. She yelled again at the door. "Someone help!"

  No one came. Gently she laid her onto the freezing tile and hopped to her feet and out into the living room where she stopped very abruptly in her tracks at what she saw. Bryne and Era, lying on their sides, looking like death itself. It sent chills through her. Their eyes sunken and their skin yellow.

  "Bryne? Era?" She shook them but they were ice to her fingertips. Try as she might she wasn't able to find a pulse on Era, not on her wrist or her neck. She tried Bryne but he too seemed gone. She thought "seemed" as if it couldn't be. How? Why? They couldn't be dead, she was just talking to them.

  She felt the gemstones against her chest, and she had a sudden idea. She took them off and put them in their hands. When that didn't stir them, she tried to put their power back into them with their gemstones. Their power. It would never be hers. But, that didn't work either.

  It hit her, like a ton of bricks crushing her heart, it hit her. They were dead. Just like that. Terra began hyperventilating; her arms over her stomach in protection, to keep herself together, and she curled on the floor and screamed, a blood curdling scream at the nothingness that took her only family away.

  Her sisters. Her love. Her family. They were gone.

  Chapter Twenty - Two

  Waking Up With the Dead

  It would've been easier to go into the final battle she would face knowing that she was going to die, and see her family soon. Her fear was winning, and living.

  The beautiful morning sunshine blazed through the window, lighting the spot where Terra laid, still curled into her ball. She stretched, her bones complaining with creaks and pops. Her muscles ached, but not as much as her heart. It beat, once, twice, filled with hope that the memories she was conjuring out of nightmares, was simply a horrible nightmare. However, if that was true, why was she lying on the floor? She hoped that it was simply because Marissa had a tougher night than usual, and she kicked her (literally) out of bed and onto the floor, but when she looked up, there was the mattress, empty.

  Her heart plummeted - that - and everything else inside of her. It fell into the floor, past the floor, into whatever was beneath, but the point was, it was no longer with her. Her eyes burned, and stung all over again when tears fell. She shook forgetting the body pains that she had put herself through, her hands linked with her eldest sister and her love.

  She heard soft footsteps, a different kind of creaking, that of floorboards under the stress of weight. She turned and saw Bryne's grandmother standing at the corner of the room, her hand gingerly on the wall for support, her nightgown sweeping the floor. She stared right past her to her grandson.

  "Judy..."

  There was a terrible sadness in her that was almost as bad as her own sadness. "I knew," she told her quietly and hoarsely. "I knew this would happen. It wasn't in the prophet, dear, but when you rely on such heavy powers, having them taken from you - even given - is a huge risk."

  "Why?" Terra
hissed angrily, it overcoming her. She saw red, for the first time in her life. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "Because this was what had to happen. You are meant to destroy him on your own. When Bryne told me what you did with Hadrian, trying to save that human boy... Well," she said haughtily, "you four were lucky to be alive."

  "I killed them. You let me!" Terra complained.

  "Calm down, control those waters. I will explain it to you."

  She tried, it was the greatest effort she had ever given, but she turned the ocean into a rushing river. It was strong enough to take over its rocks and into death, and as tempting as it was, she controlled it, keeping her eyes from the bodies that lay on either side of her.

  Slowly and carefully, Judy walked to the couch, sitting herself down on its mattress, bouncing a little. She groaned, but settled. "I love my grandson, don't ever doubt me on that," she told at once. “But he had a duty. It's like sending your child off to a war. You don't want them to die, but you must support them in what they had to do. He had to defeat his father. It's not good and I regret it every day, wondering what I did wrong with him. Hadrian is my son and there is that instinct to protect him, but not at the price of millions of other people. Not at the price of my grandson….his son. It does not matter what Bryne felt he was responsible for. It was Hadrian who killed his family.”

  Terra came back to herself, the feeling of depression drowning her. “Do you want to step outside to talk? I know this is killing you.”

  “I'm better off than you, dear. You lost your parents and now you lost your sisters and your best friend. I had many years to get used to the idea of losing Bryne, and there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't wish that I would die before him. I have practically let this cancer take me, but Bryne has been so stubborn about it all, not letting me go a day without my specially made herbs. I meant so much to him, it was selfish of me. He needed a reason to go on. I believe you became his reason.”

  Terra looked to her hands, holding theirs. They were cold and stiff, but she didn't let go. Not then, not even as she sat up. If she let go, she might never hold them again.

  “He loved you.”

  The tears were burning hot, and they trailed over her cheeks into their designated paths set by the tears the night before. "What do I do?"

  "You go after my son. It's all up to you now, dear."

  "How can I do this without them? They were everything I had!"

  "They knew what they were doing. You were asleep one night when they woke to speak. Marissa lied about her vision. She did not just see you dead, but them. She told them later what the vision was. They knew... They knew that if you did too, you would not let them do it."

  That was right, but Terra didn't admit it.

  "Don't let their death be in vain."

  Terra didn't want that. She didn't want them to have died without a cause. They did it for her, to make the way they only knew how. She wished there had been another path for them, and at the end of that road they could have been a true family. Terra could see it in her minds eye. The holidays, the ordinary days, being together, laughing and arguing, crying and smiling. They would never have that, and she was not sure she could have that without them, but if she succeeded, there would be time to dwell on it. That was what scared her most. It would've been easier to go into the final battle she would face knowing that she was going to die, and see her family soon. Her fear was winning, and living. She had to. For them, she would, only for them.

  Trembling, she stood to her feet. She dried her tears on the sleeve of her shirt and looked at poor Judy. She was frail, nearly as skinny as Marissa was. She looked to be as close to death as they were moments before they had...

  "Can I do anything for you?"

  "Kill my son. He'll be at Bryne's house. He'll be waiting for you there. In his head, that's where it all started, the birth of the first element." She smiled painfully. There was the squirming feeling inside of Terra that knew that Judy blamed herself for how her son turned out, and the future it gave to her grandson, the deaths of his mother and brother. She felt it all started with her. "Don't feel like you have to make him suffer, just do the job," Judy finished gravely.

  "Era, Marissa….”

  "I'll call that boy, the geeky one." She winked. "I'll get some of the Kin over here to help. I will not bury them without you. We'll wait."

  "Thank you." Terra replied sadly.

  "Any place special?"

  "Here would do..." It was common for their kind to be buried at the place they died, unless there was a more important and sacred ground. In their case, there wasn't one, and so they would be buried there. In a way, it was appropriate. It was the single place they had felt safe, that Hadrian hadn't known about.

  Terra bent and embraced Judy. There was the scent of anonymous medications. "Thank you again."

  "Just do this for all of us. If you need a family, you have your Aunt Gwen. She means well. If I'm here in the morning, you can come home to me. There are plenty of places you are welcome to. We are never without family."

  Terra made one stop in the bathroom to see her sweet little sister. She was frailer than she had been when Terra was feeling her ribs. There was no life from her, nothing flowing through her veins. She was really gone, and the weight got heavier. She knelt next to her, and kissed her cheek. "For you. I love you."

  It went the same with Era and Bryne. She whispered the same sentiments into their ears, though she was aware that they could not hear, but perhaps on another planet they were receiving the message.

  Memorizing the creases and cracks, she kissed Bryne's lips one last time. There wasn't the heat, the ice replacing the warmth of him, but she couldn't have expected otherwise. It wasn't Bryne, just a glove without the hand and their last kiss remained to be back at his home, the one she was destined to go to.

  Without another backwards glance, she took the keys from the hook beside the door, and went to the car. The engine roared, it vibrated, and there was a switch in her that was flipped up to "autopilot." It was the same as any other drive, except that the drive she was in then was void of her family. It was rare when she had driven by herself. Marissa had been insistent on going everywhere with her and Terra wasn't much on complaining like other elder sisters. Then again, they grew up with different ideals than most other children, even those of their own kind.

  On her way to Bryne's old house, she stopped by the drug store and bought a small bag's worth of makeup. She would attempt to bring them with her, their stones and all. She would not be fighting the battle alone, she refused. They gave their lives to fight with her, and she would not forget that.

  Chapter Twenty - Three

  Where It Begins So It Ends

  "So eager for death, are we?" He chuckled, so much like Bryne it turned her stomach. "I guess you are. I apologize ahead of time for the pun, but after all, you're dying to be with your family. Tskk, tsk, tsk, they're all dead now, aren't they?"

  Opposite of the house overgrown with weeds and plants, the dirt clouded windows, and the broken shingles on the roof, she parked. In the review mirror she positioned to put on the makeup she bought, getting ready to begin. She had all of the colors she needed, and with a steady hand, she drew, sliding the smooth tip of the dark green pencil from the corner of her right eye and upwards. It was not nearly as good as Era had done, not nearly as realistic, but it was better than anything Terra had done before.

  There were the steams that grew from her eyes towards her hairline, the flowers blooming along it, drops of rain from the clouds blowing overhead, lightening erupting in fire. She touched it up with other colors, taking one pencil at a time, swiping it over, giving it definition. She tried to recall all those times that she had seen Era drawing on her canvas, or the last time she had seen her, drawing flames on Bryne's neck.

  She incorporated all of the elements into one drawing, earth, fire, water, and air. It was her way of showing that she had them with her. She always would, and in the mos
t important (and only) battle that had been fought for Elven and human kind, she carried them with her then.

  She revisited a few of the memories she held of them. It may as well have been the last few moments of peace she would have, and in those moments she wanted to truly remember them for who they were, and what they held dear.

  "Five... Four... Three... Two... One... Ready or not, here I come!" Terra dropped her hands from her face.

  The first place she searched for her little sister was in the boxes that had yet to be unpacked. She checked the empty rooms, the closets, and under the newly put-together beds. Her eight year old legs ran all over the house looking for her.

  "Am I hot," she called out to nothing in the middle of the kitchen, her hands on her hips. Then the sink, which she hadn't seen had water in it, suddenly formed her sister, sitting in the basin, her knees to her chest, giggling madly.

  "Here I am!"

  Terra stomped her foot in anger. "You weren't supposed to use your powers! This is Hide and Seek; it's a human game, Issa."

  She kept giggling, and Terra helped her down to the floor.

  "You're such a cheat."

  Marissa stuck out her tongue and ran. "Catch me if you can!"

  Era peered up at her new home, a gray three story Victorian mansion. Dirt smeared her skin and crusted in her clothes. She smelled of cigarettes and sweat. She had been alone for too long.

  "This is it," she asked in awe.

  Eagerly, jumping on her toes, Marissa questioned, "do you like it?"

  "I love it. It's much better than the street."

  Marissa and Terra looked to each other in sympathy. It was unfair, that they had the great life they did, and Era was suffering. They never imagined finding another element in an art supply store, looking for warmth and dreaming about another future.

  Terra lifted the huge thin folder filled with a couple of canvases, tons of brushes, colors and a pallet. There was the easel in the car waiting to be brought in. They wanted her to feel at home, and she seemed much attached to the idea of painting, saying that she drew on the streets with thrown away and broken crayons. Terra couldn't wait to see what she could do, and even if it wasn't much, at least she would be happy and with her family.

 

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