Chapter Three
Everything seemed to be happening so slowly… as if it were all a dream. I was lying on the floor, looking up at a fat, round man’s face who was smiling down at me as he strangled me. In the distance I could hear people screaming, but Zeina’s voice was louder than everyone’s and she was calling my name…
Shasa.
Shasa…
I was dying, and I knew it.
But I wasn’t going to die. I could easily stop what this man was doing to me. But it would require me to use the powers that I was terrified of. The powers that haunted me, to the very depths of my soul… The powers that were not a gift, but a curse…
And I was going to have to use them. Not only for myself, but for Zeina and Obono and Matias and the entire village. I couldn’t let these men continue to do what they were doing.
It was at this point that everything changed. I suddenly snapped back into the present. I felt what was happening to me. The rage within me began to bubble up to the surface and I knew I could no longer contain it. I was going to boil over, and this man was going to feel the full force my powers.
I looked up at his sweaty face. He seemed almost joyful in his attack. I felt his strong hands, still wrapped around my neck, and I could hear Zeina’s screams. I looked at him with revulsion, and then looked again, but this time, inside of him. I saw and felt every single network of blood as it circulated through his veins. I saw his lungs inflate and deflate with pleasure. I saw the neurons in his brain firing, and I felt his heartbeat thundering in my ear as if it were my own.
One reason Babajide had wanted me out of the city and away from the general public was because of what I could really do. The swimming, the deep sea diving, moving water… they were all useful powers, but they weren’t necessarily dangerous. My real power though, was so dangerous that it frightened everyone who knew about it, including myself. I was usually able to control it, unless forcibly provoked, or full of rage. And right now, I was both of those things.
Most people forget that humans are almost entirely made up of water. Every organ, every fibre, every molecule… There’s a reason why we must drink water all the time. And as the Aqua Primus, I don’t have a secondary power. I am entirely Aqua: the only Elemental to be completely one element. And that gives me an even deeper insight into the human body… As the fat man was about to find out.
Just as I was close to passing out, I honed in on what I wanted to manipulate. His beating heart. It was still thumping at a tremendous pace, and I could feel every single sinew and artery and molecule of his thick, fat organ. And since it was almost entirely comprised of water, that meant I could control it. So I began to shut it down. I reached into the fat man’s chest- with my mind- and squeezed it with all my might.
Instantly, the fat man’s heart beat became slower. I watched it die down. It was beautiful in a way. I could see all of the blood flowing between the interconnected networks of veins begin to stop. I felt all of the blood within him grind to a halt, because I commanded it to.
The fat man inhaled sharply, and I felt his hands drop away from my neck. I inhaled deeply, trying my hardest to recalibrate my own body, as well as focusing on destroying his. He gasped and gawped, and his body weight fell back, so I pushed him with all my might. He dropped backwards, clutching at his chest, and then hit the floor, his body convulsing like a dying beetle. He began to scrabble out of the house backwards.
I watched him leave the building, but continued to stare at his heart, commanding it to beat even less. I rubbed my aching neck. It was incredibly painful. As I stood to my feet, I swayed from side to side and my head spun. But that didn’t stop me from what I was doing. Even with my thudding head, I could see and feel every single molecule inside of him, and I continued to grip onto his heart. It was like I was looking at a moving X-ray, except it wasn’t his bones I was seeing, but his blood and organs. Once I got my bearings, and took a few more deep breaths, I walked out of the house and stood over him. He looked up at me in terror, as his companion dropped to his side, desperately trying to help him.
The fat man pointed up at me. “Please…” he pleaded, but there was nothing he could say to stop me. I had given him a chance to leave. I had given him a chance to escape. And now it was too late. I was no longer in complete control of myself. I was in survival mode, and that meant I was going to kill him, even though I didn’t want to. Even though every single fibre of my own body screamed at me to stop, I continued. This process was too beautiful and important to be left unfinished.
His heart, still pounding in my own ears, was almost at a complete standstill. His eyes drained of colour as his torso slid backwards, hitting the ground with a sickening splat. His stout stomach moved for the last time as I gently released his heart, allowing it to come to a complete halt. Finally, he was dead.
I let go of his heart and snapped out of my trance. I was no longer looking inside his body; I was looking down as his lifeless corpse. I inhaled sharply, trying to stifle the wail that wanted to burst out of my mouth. I wanted to surge into tears, but did everything I could not to. I had done it again: the one thing I had promised myself not to do. I had used my powers to kill someone.
“He had… he had a heart attack!” Matias called out as he stared down at the bloated body. Some members of the crowd gasped in shock, others in delight. Zeina, now being cradled by her mother, looked up at me in terror. She knew that this was no accident.
I trembled in fear. My hands shook and my knees quivered. I wanted to sob, but I couldn’t. Not here. Not now. I had to get out of here. I had to get back to the island. A part of me wanted to stay so that I could try to sort this mess out: I dreaded to think about what was going to happen to this small village if the fat man’s boss came back to investigate. This was all my fault. Babajide was right: I should never have left Aqua Island in the first place. I was too dangerous. I shouldn’t be around normal people.
As I began to rush away from the corpse, a strong hand grabbed my right arm and spun me around. It was the gunman, and he wasn’t going to let me leave. He craned his small head next to mine, and whispered: “Witch”.
I gulped in fear. He was right. I was a witch. I had come to the mainland and killed someone with my supernatural powers. He knew it and so did everyone else. He thrust my arm up into the sky and screamed: “Burn the witch!”
The villagers seemed mortified, and looked to one another in shock. They didn’t understand what he was saying. As he began dragging me towards the fire in the centre of the village, I tried desperately to pull away from him. But he was too strong, I couldn’t fight him off. He glared at me; such murderous hate filled his stare, that I knew there was only one thing I could do to escape this madness.
It only took a second, but he probably didn’t even realise what was happening to him. I scanned his body, looking into him like I had done with the fat man, and reached into his chest. I caught and commanded the water molecules within his beating heart. My trap was set, and he was caught. With one swift movement, I tore his heart in half. I told every single sinew in the myocardium to destroy itself, and felt it shred in two. I wanted to be sick.
His grip on my arm was lost forever as he dropped to the floor with a loud crunch. Before I could even react to what I had just done, I found myself running as fast as I could down the dirt track out of the village, towards the sea. The ocean was so beautiful, it was so kind. It was the only thing that could never hurt me. It would take away all the pain, all the worry. It would give me peace, solace.
I was bawling the entire time I ran. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. The emotional weight of what I had done fell onto my shoulders like a sack of bricks, and I was sobbing uncontrollably.
Salty tears licked my cheeks as I dashed down the sandy beach and threw myself into the crashing waves. As I dived underneath the water, I felt a calming presence envelope me. The water… the ocean… the sea…
I may still have be
en a swirling storm of emotions, but now that I was in the sea, those feelings where tempered. They were pushed deep down within me so that I could enjoy the calming waters as they flowed over my skin. I felt safe, warm and cool all at the same time. I dived down, further into the briny deep, where it was calm. I watched the fishes once again swim past me, and I moved the current so that it hugged me tight. The tiny atoms held me in place. The sea was still and tranquil. I was at peace.
Aqua Page 3