The Fifth Element

You would think that finding out that you’re different in a big bad way would be a crushing blow to anyone, but honestly my mom was taking it harder than me. I just felt numb. I walked over to my mom and hugged her, the whole time the element teller watching us silently. She hugged me back.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you,” she whispered between sobs into my ear.

“I’m fine with it,” I reassured her. “Same thing happened to you, and you turned out fine.”

She tightened her grip on me and began hyperventilating. Well, I guess that wasn’t really the right thing to say. After she had found out, she was a magic dud she had attempted to commit suicide and had gotten pregnant from a one night stand. So, before I could say anything else that would just make her panic, even more, I shut my mouth and put a lock on it.

We walked towards the exit in silence and out of that cold building with its marble and gold. I breathed in the fresh scent of the forest gratefully once we were outside.

At first, I thought the lack of color of the Element teller’s office was the cause of what I was seeing, but the more I looked, the less I believed that. It was like a veil had been lifted from my eyes. Everything seemed to be sharper and more vibrant than it had been before, but that wasn’t the strangest part. I could see people weaving in and out of the trees that lined the path. Some of the people looked like real people, while others looked slightly distorted. One of them stopped and looked at me. I moved a little closer to my mom when I saw that they had no eyes, just black pits where their eyes should have been.

My mom began walking towards the trees, towards the people with black pits for eyes. She looked behind her when she noticed I wasn’t following her. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, and her hair was a little messy.

“Violet, are you coming?” she asked in a hoarse voice.

Even though I was terrified of those people, or whatever you would call them, I didn’t want to worry my mother anymore. I had done that enough these past couple days This was probably my mind going subconsciously crazy because it knew all along I was a magic dud. Still didn’t explain the weird dreams though and the other similar hallucinations.

“Yeah,” I called back and began jogging towards her. I looked at the ground as I did and tried to pretend that those people weren’t there.

I let a shriek when I felt an icy hand brush my cheek. My mom looked back at me in alarm. I did my best to look embarrassed. “I ran into a spider web,” I explained. My mom didn’t look like she completely bought it, but she chose not to say anything.

Once we were safely inside the sky taxi, she slipped her arm around me, and I leaned my head on her shoulder. That rest of the ride home went by in a blur. I remembered getting out of the taxi and going inside. The next thing I knew I was laying on my bed, still in my dress, and it was dark outside.

I sat up and mumbled elum. My room was instantly cast in a soft glow. I got out of bed and walked towards my dresser. I opened the top drawer and plucked my scribing mirror from its hiding place amongst my socks. I opened it and whispered Emily’s name to it. It glowed softly, but after ten minutes there was still no response from the other side. I snapped it closed in frustration, and the light slowly dimmed. Emily’s mom must have taken her scribing mirror from her.

Without really thinking things through I threw on a long cardigan and leaped out my window. I landed on the grass and took off running into the night. My ball of light lit the way while I ran through the dark forest. Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see shapes dart in-between the trees beside me and catch faint whispers in the wind. For some reason, this didn’t scare me like I knew it should. Instead, I almost found comfort that I wasn’t alone, even if they were just hallucinations.

Emily’s little yellow house almost seemed to glow in the center of the clearing where it sat. I walked around it until I came to her window. I tapped lightly on the glass. When I didn’t get a response, I knocked on the glass pane. A light flickered on in Emily’s room, and a second later her window opened. Emily peered into the night, and when she saw me standing there, she looked at me horrified.

“Are you crazy!? Get in here!” She hissed and grabbed my hand and helped pull me into her room. I landed very ungracefully on her fluffy pink carpet. She sat down crisscross applesauce in front of me and glared at me.

“You’re going to think I’m crazy when I get done telling you what I’m about to say to you.” I took a deep breath. “My mom tried to commit suicide when she was sixteen, my real dad might still be alive, I think I can bring the dead back to life, some weird guy wants me to meet him, and I’m a magic dud, and oh I like I can see dead people.”

Emily gaped at me in awe. “Wow, you have been keeping a lot from me,” she said slowly.

“Well, actually some of that stuff just happened.”

“Okay, that’s good to know I guess. I would’ve been really mad if you had been keeping all this from me the whole time,” Emily joked. “I want you to tell me all the details of everything you just said.” She tilted her head to the side and waited

When I was done, she looked at me thoughtfully. “I’m not sure what’s happening to you, but I don’t think you’re going crazy. I promise we will figure it out together!” she said simply and smiled at me.

I let out a breath I hadn’t even know that I was holding. “Thank you,” I said and stood up. Emily stood up with me. I walked towards the window.

“What are you doing?” Emily asked. She ran over and grabbed my wrist.

“Going home.” I shrugged my shoulders and pulled myself away from Emily’s grasp.

She frowned at me. “It’s a little dangerous to be walking through the woods alone at this time of night, maybe you should stay.”

“I made it here alright, ” I pointed out. I stuck one foot out the window and then heaved the rest of my body through the frame until I was again out in the chilly night. I turned back around to see Emily watching me from her window with a worried expression on her face. “I’ll be alright, do you have your scribing mirror?” Emily shook her head no. “Well, I guess that you’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to find out if I made it back.” I waved at her before disappearing into the forest.

I was halfway home before I realized that no shapes were darting through the trees anymore and no whispers. Hmm, maybe my hallucinations had switch themselves off? If that was the case, I must find a way to make that switch turn off permanently?

Out of nowhere, one of the imaginary ghosts materialized right in front of me. Its sudden appearance startled me, and I almost fell, but I managed to catch myself at the last second.

It looked at me with its gaping holes for eyes. “Run, run, run.” It whispered before fading away. From behind me, I heard a twig snap.

I spun around to see a black shape gliding towards me, the only feature I could make out of it was a pair of glowing white eyes. I turned to run away, but another one of the black shapes blocked my path.

I looked around frantically and realized I was completely surrounded by these black shapes. Somehow, I couldn’t convince myself they were hallucinations. They stared at me with their glowing eyes while they moved closer and closer to me. I sank to the ground in a ball and covered my head with my hands, and waited to die. Suddenly I felt a charge in the air and heard the sound of low hissing coming from the creatures around me. Then there was a loud crack and boom.

I slowly raised my head to see that there was a shimmering wall of lightning between me and those creatures. I watched as one of them approached the wall of lightning and touched it. There was a sizzling sound, and part of it evaporated in a cloud of black smoke. It let out a loud hissing sound before backing away and then fleeing back into the woods. The other creatures followed its lead and disappeared. The lightning vanished soon after and the forest was plugged back into darkness.

There was rustling in the bushes in front of me, and I half expected one those creatures to emerge from it, but much to my relief, a girl walked out instead.

“Are you alright?” she asked in a soft voice. I could’ve sworn I had heard that voice before, but I wasn’t sure where.

“Yeah, I think.” I stood up and dusted myself off. “Elum,” I said casting the spell to conjuror the ball of light. I was now able to see why that voice had sounded so familiar. It was Amber, the quiet brunette that sat behind me in casting class, the girl who had walked me down to the nurse’s office. “How...why are you here?”

“Henry saw you were in danger in his fires,” she said, “He sent me here to help you.”

“So you were the one that made the lightning.” She nodded. “How did you do that!?”

“I’m what you called a special elemental,” she said like it was nothing. “Lightning is a rare branch off of the fire element, so I’m still a fire element user technically.”

“Okay, then who is this Henry ?” I asked.

“He’s my brother,” She grabbed my hand and began tugging me forward. “Come on. We have to go see him now.”

I ripped my hand away from her. “Hold on; I’m not going anywhere with you. Thank you for saving me, but I’m not sure if this is all real or not, so I’m going home,” I said and began walking away.

I had only taken a few steps away when I heard Amber say, “Sorry for this.”

I felt a sharp pain shoot up through by body and curl itself around my spine before blackness overcame me.

I awoke with a start. A cold breeze was gently caressing my face. My eyes opened, revealing that I was hundreds of feet off the ground lying over a large saddle like a bag of potatoes. I let out a small gasp as I noticed a blue wing flapping up and down in the morning air not too far from me. It glittered in the morning sun. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that I was on a dragon, the actual question was why and how?

“You’re awake,” a boy’s voice said dryly from just out of my range of vision. I felt myself being tugged upward until I had my legs on either side of the blue dragon’s back. I stared at the boy’s head in front of me. His hair was black and spiked.

“You’re Henry, aren’t you?” I said.

He swiveled his head around just enough to look at me, and I saw he was the same boy who had told me to meet him in five days or else. He held a pair of jet black reins in one hand, and he was dressed in a similar outfit as the one he was wearing when I had accidentally run into him, a pair of leather pants, a shirt, and boots.

He studied me for a second with his unnaturally blue eyes before turning back around. “So I take it my sister talked to you a little before she knocked you out.”

“Yeah,” I grumbled, the lingering tingling sensation in my muscles reminding me of my encounter with Amber in the woods that was being to feel very real.

“Wait, where are you taking me?” I asked wearily,

“To a safe place,” he answered nonchalantly.

“A safe place? You know this is kidnapping!” I snapped and glared at the back of his head.

“Call it what you want, but I call it saving your life. You’re apparently too stupid to survive by yourself for more than a couple days, ” he said, and a note of annoyance dripped into his voice.

“Hey!” I yelled and smacked the back of his head.

I threw my arms around his waist and screamed as the dragon suddenly tilted to the side. I heard him mumble a curse under his breath as he straightened us out.

“Rule number one when riding a dragon, don’t suddenly hit the driver!” he yelled, his voice boiling with anger.

“Sorry!” I said wincing at the tone of his voice. Wait why was I apologizing to him? He was kidnapping me!

“Rule number one when kidnapping, don’t expect your hostage to be friendly after she wakes up, especially after you just insulted her,” I spat back in a mocking tone.

“I knew I should’ve tied you up,” he said and exhaled loudly. “Again, it’s not kidnapping. If you knew exactly what you were, you would understand why you just can’t be left alone.”

“Well, how about you tell me what I am then, and how that’s a good reason to kidnap me!?” I said and waited for his response. I actually wasn’t just saying it to be smart with him. I really wanted to know the answer. I had been lying to myself these last couple days. I never believed those things were hallucinations. I was fooling myself. I mean who wants to actually see ghosts!?

“I think you already know it, none of what has been happening to you is just a hallucination,” he said, and I groaned in frustration.. wait how did he know I’ve been hallucinating!?

“Umm, I think you might want to hang onto me a little tighter,” he said suddenly.

“Wh-” All the sudden the dragon nosedived. I buried my face into the back of Henry’s shirt as my stomach flipped and I struggled to keep the contents of my stomach. Just when I thought I wasn’t going to be able to hold on to them for a second longer, we leveled out, and the dragon gracefully glided into an empty meadow. I looked around confused. “Where’s your lair? Aren’t all villains suppose to have one or something?”

He didn’t answer me. Instead, he unfastened himself from the saddle and jumped a good five feet to the ground. He looked up at me from the ground and held up his hands.

“Jump,” he commanded. I shook my head no, and I could see Henry begin to grind his teeth together in frustration. “Jump, or I’ll get Nessie to shake you.”

I didn’t like that prospect of possibly being thrown off a dragon, so I closed my eyes and let myself slide to the ground. Strong arms caught me before I hit it and lower my feet onto the soft grass.

I opened my eyes to find that Henry was already walking away. I had to run to catch up with him. Wait a minute, I stopped half way to him, this was my chance to escape.

“Don’t even think about trying to run away, I have a dragon, and you don’t know where you are,” he said without turning around. I stuck my tongue out at the back of his head and reluctantly began following him again.

Five seconds later.

I didn’t know how to describe it, as I stared at the space he should have been. One minute he was there and the next he was gone. I walked over to the spot he had disappeared and waved my hand through it. My hand disappeared for a moment, and I quickly pulled it back, and it reappeared. Intrigued I did it again and watched my hand disappear, but this time when I went to pull it out a hand grabbed it and yanked me forward. I had just two words to say, holy castle.