The Fifth Element

The school was floating above a large body of water, and its image reflected upon the water’s calm surface. The schools’ field of invisibility was still up, but only partially. Frog had done some apparent damage to it. I could make out a couple of its towers and walls, including the wall Frog, had just torn through. Even as I looked on from Frog’s back, the wall had already begun repairing itself.

I’ve always wondered what made the school the way it was. I knew that the school was not just an ordinary building, but a living thing. Not in the way we were living, but alive all the same. What other building could heal itself, and but also create doors when asked? I bet it had something to do with that creature I had caught a brief glimpse of, back when Violet had almost got fried by one of the Halfmoon twins.

I had grown alarmed when the walls had begun to move like the walls were made of mud and hands were beating at them from the other side. And when a skeletal leg had poked out of the wall beside me, I had known that Violet was behind it and was in danger. She was summoning the dead within the walls for help, and, by the way, the walls were reacting, there was a staggering amount of dead within them.

“So where to Henry?” John asked, pulling me away from my thoughts.

“Greta’s office, she’s there,” I told him. At least that’s where she had been in my vision.

“What, your girlfriend?” John asked, sounding amused. “She’s cute, but I would never peg her as being your type.”

I felt slightly annoyed by John’s comment. “I guess you can call her that,” I said indifferently. I could almost feel John’s eyes on me, and I knew if I looked up I would see that they were burning with curiosity. I had never been one to express a lot of interest in romance, and when I rarely anybody knew about it.

“The office is over here,” John said suddenly, and a troubled expression bloomed on his face. ” Henry, I don’t like whats going on in there, we need to move in fast!” John’s special elemental was the ability to see through stone. It was pretty useless most of the time until it came to situations like the one we were in currently.

I tensed up, “What the hell do you mean by that?!” I demanded. Was Greta doing something god awful to Violet even as we speak!?

“It looks like she opened some portal up.” I thought of the black hole crackling with blue lighting, “Frog, ram!” he ordered the dragon, then looked over his shoulder, “Hold on Henry, this is going to be rough!”

Frog flew at seemingly empty air and began clawing at the space in front of him. There was a loud sound, like claws scraping against stone, and gray and blacks rocks with gold swirls began to fall away under his talons, revealing an ugly jagged, gaping hole in a once flawless clear blue sky. Frog made the hole bigger and bigger until it was big enough for a person to fit through easily.

John lowered the massive brown dragon until his back was level with the hole. I stood, found my balance, and made the leap into the school. I turned around expecting John to join me, but he only smiled at me. “I”m afraid I’m not going to be able to join you,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I had expected his help for what was waiting for me beyond the two golden doors.

“I mean I have company,” he gestured to the sky behind him. For the first time, I noticed it was filled with other dragons and their riders. I should’ve of figured. You couldn’t poke the hornet’s nest, without expecting a couple of them to come out and try to sting you.”

I clenched my teeth, “Son of a banshee!” I swore loudly, “John, do you think you can take them all on your own?”

John’s blue eyes glowed, and he smiled, “Don’t worry about me, I have the advantage of intimidation and size. They’ll be too afraid even to get close enough to land a single good attack. Besides, some of my men are loyal to me above all else. They should arrive here shortly and help me fend off these guys,” he gave me a thumbs up.

I nodded and turned towards the inside of the school. John had placed me just down the hall from Greta’s office. “Thank you and good luck,” I said climbing over a couple of loose stones in my path. I took a single deep breath, before taking off running down the long hall towards the two golden doors.

I was almost there when someone grabbed me by the back of my shirt and forced me up against the stone wall. I felt the cold metal of a blade being pressed up against my throat. I stared into two very determined, yet familiar brown eyes.

“Vivian,” I breathed, and she lowered the blade, her eyes filling with instant recognition. Beyond her, I spotted Neeva, Violet’s father, standing behind her looking very agitated. He was mumbling to himself in an ancient language, the likes of which I had never heard before.

Vivian noticed me looking at Neeva, “He’s been like that since about an hour ago, he keeps saying something about the souls being in agony, whatever the heck that means?”

I nodded absently, “She’s in here,” I said to Vivian, pointing to the golden doors. I smiled to myself “Oh and I roughed up that ex- fiancé of yours,” her expression soured at Hampton’s mention, “He’s still alive though, I saved the pleasure of his demise for you.” Vivian’s sour expression turned into a wicked smile.

“Thank you,” she said, then turning towards the doors to Greta’s office, “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m ready to kick a certain sixth element’s users teeth in!”

“I’m more than ready,” I replied.

Violet’s POV

Fireflies danced around me in a field gray grass where a large tree with gnarled branches loomed over me, and the light of a full moon shifted through its branches. But these fireflies were different from the other fireflies I knew. These fireflies whispered to me. The told me of all the pain they had gone through, their hopes, their failures, and most importantly of their longing to return. To return to their side of limbo.

I felt their longing like it was my own.

“How can I help you?” I asked them. The only thing that mattered was helping them.

“Go to a place where magic and that woman can’t reach you and without the pull of your magic we can return,” a thousand voices answered in unison.

“The woman” I guessed was probably Greta, “I don’t know a place like that,” I said regretfully. There was no place on earth that didn’t contained magic.

“But we know a place, follow us.” All at once I was surrounded by a million firefly lights. I noticed that even with all this light surrounding me, I didn’t cast a shadow on the gray earth. They tugged lightly at my hair, hands, and clothes and led me steadily forward. “We’ll hold off the woman until you can reach the place,” they whispered into my ear. “And right when your body enters through the portal, we will bring you to the other world.”

“Where is this place?” I asked. A cold wind lifted my coal black hair around my face, and a black shape materializes in front of me. It was perfectly round and had blue lightning crackling across it.

Again in unison, “It was our home until the woman stole us away and brought us here, and where we want to go back to.”

“And what happens if I just go through it now without my body?”

“We will be free and you won’t be able to be used again.”

“Alright I’ll go now,” I said, and reached my hand towards the portal to gods knows where. But I just wanted to help them so badly.

“Violet, don’t!” Danny appeared in front of me, blocking my path to the portal. He looked like he had the last time I had seen him alive, except for the two gaping holes where his eyes should have been.

“Danny!?” I cried, stepping forward to throw my hands around him, but at the last second, they passed right through him. “Why can’t I touch you?” I looked down at my arms and hands in confusion, of course, I knew the answer. It was because he was dead.

He smiled sadly at me, “Because you are only half here since your soul is still attached to your body, this is purgatory. Remember when I rescued you from the school?” he asked.

How could I ever forget that!? He had come charging into the cafeteria, almost killed Henry, then turned into a giant lizard and rammed through a wall, “Yeah,” I answered.

“We passed through purgatory to get to your father and mother. I didn’t understand it at the time, but now I do. Too bad I couldn’t slip into it before Greta caught up to me,” he said bitterly.

My eyes watered, “Danny I’m so sorry-” he held out a finger to stop my apology.

He waved me off “Don’t worry about, I died protecting you, and that’s okay with me,” he smiled “I just wish I was alive enough so I could go on protecting you in the living world. But now you have to wake up, or you’re soul will be trapped in a place worse than hell.” His brown curly hair swayed gently in a breeze I could not feel. “And I can’t stand that thought.”

“No!” the lights around me shouted, and began to yank me towards the portal again, but this time harder. I realized that the lights were the souls Greta was pulling from the other side so that she could bring an army over. The air filled with a sense of panic.

“Don’t worry about me,” I soothed them. I smiled sheepishly at Danny’s ghost, who frowned unhappily back at me. “Sorry, I have to go,” I couldn’t let all these souls suffer, even if I died to help them. Danny would understand the urge if he felt their pain. I closed my eyes and stepped through him when suddenly two arms snaked around my middle.

I blinked, and there was no more talking lights, no more gray fields under a full moon, no more trees, and no more Danny. All that remained was the portal, and the two arms wrapped around my middle. I was once again in the room with the horrible orange vines again, and the half dead kids.

“Violet!” Someone shouted into my ear.

I recognized the voice. “Henry!” I turned towards him, and he kissed me. At first, I was startled by it, but then I accepted it and leaned in and kissed him back. He cupped my face with both hands when he was done.

His electric blue eyes scanned my face, “Are you hurt?” he asked, his relief turned to concern.

I shook my head and reached behind him towards the portal. The orange vines were still wrapped around my wrists, slowly draining me of my magic “I have to go, they want to go back home. Did you find Amber?”

Henry frowned at me and pulled me closer to his chest “Yes, Vivian is taking care of her, but what do you mean by they want to go home? If you think am going to let you go in that portal...”

“She must go if she doesn’t have a choice anymore. Her element has already been tied to the portal, and the only way to close it is if she goes through ” My father said from the doorway. I peered over Henry’s shoulder at him, and Henry turned his head to look at him. My father looked pained. His violet eyes stared regretfully at us. He knew the pain of the souls, so he knew why I must go.

Henry scowled at him, “Go where?” he growled, and his arms tightened around me.

I put both hands on his muscular chest and pushed away from him. “The other world,” I kissed him on the cheek and looked into his electric blue eyes., “You need to let me go.”

“No! Don’t let her go.” Greta shrieked. My eyes darted around the room until I found a crumpled gray form lying on the ground next to the orange ball of light. Her gray eyes were wide with desperation and pain. I could see the soul swarming all over her, like fairies on a cube of sugar. They looked like they were hurting her, and that made me happy.

“He doesn’t want me anymore, and it’s your fault !” Someone sobbed and all the sudden the room was filled with a blinding wind. Shirley appeared in the center of the room, and I gasped when I saw her face, half of it had disappeared beneath the charred and blistering skin. “It’s your fault,” she said pointing a finger at Henry and me, and without warning she charged at us, her red hair flying wildly behind her. Both of us were too stunned to move, and she slammed into us hard, sending Henry and us toppling backward towards the portal. The last thought I had, before we were both swallowed up, was I’m falling again.

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I emerged from the darkness when a bright light shone onto my face. I blinked in confusion and gazed past the light at the face beyond it. The sudden shift from light to dark caused stars to dance in front of my vision so that I couldn’t make out any of the face ’s features, but I could tell it was a man.

“She’s awake Rick,” the man said in a voice heavy with a strange accent to someone behind him, and turned off the light, He looked over his shoulder at Rick. The sky was a dark navy blue above him.

I was lying on some kind of hard surface, and when I went to sit up it felt like my head was about to explode. Groaning, I slowly laid back down. The man looked back down at me, and I could now see his face. He had a beard on top of a square jaw, with a pointy nose, and bushy eyebrows.

Something about the air wasn’t right here, I noticed. It was like it lacked something, “Where am I?” I mumbled groggily.

“Kansas.” The man replied in his strange accent. He motioned for his friend to join him, and a new face appeared above me. He was almost identical to the first man, except he wore a funny hat on his head. It almost looked like the bill of a duck.

“Where’s Kansas?” I asked the word felt strange coming off my tough.

The two man exchanged looks, “The United States of America,” Rick replied, “Are you, alright sweetheart? I think you hit your head pretty hard.” he looked at me with concern then at his friend, “I think that we need to take her to the hospital, Glen.”

“The-” The image of Shirley charging at me flashed before my eyes, “The other world.” The other world, I was in the other world! No wonder the air felt so strange!

The men exchange looks again, “Yeah, we need to get her to the hospital Rick,” Glen said.