Tag: Writer’s Wednesday!

Writer's Wednesday!

WW Elementals Finale Part 4–Abyss and Anarchy

AutumnB17
Image from Medium

Artemis looked awful. Singed. Slightly smoking. Blackened with shocks, hair somehow equally frizzy and wet, matted to her scalp with rain. But that was just the problem…she should look perfect.

Goddesses were the essence of perfection. Shiny hair. Bright eyes. Lithe yet ample figures, dressed to the nines in luxurious silks–how Artemis always had looked. Until now.

She was torn to shreds…and more human than ever before. Because of the Huntsman.

Artemis had saved him. For no gain of her own. For no discernible reason other than true affection; was that even possible for an immortal? True affection for a human–not even a king or noble: a human distinctly beneath her status, one more love-sick mercenary blinded by devotion. She hadn’t just changed…I looked into her eyes and saw a true metamorphosis. 

Yet the perfect symmetry of her cheekbones reminded me of her alienness. And my memory reminded me of the friend I had never known, dead in the road. Zara.

“I don’t know what’s changed in you, Artemis. I can see–but it doesn’t change what I have to do. I think you know what I mean,” I stated. A final invitation of mercy. Artemis didn’t waver; I sighed with resolve. So it had to be said. 

“Surrender Olympus. Or we will have no other choice.”
Our chain of power unlinked, each girl raising a palm to the clouds. Elements exploded into the air, bonded by an invisible force. It was like a row of fireflies igniting at once–flame, water, starlight, storm. Even the earth groaned, dirt kicking up in flurries around us. Watching the dust clouds twirl up from the soil, a phenomena I would have previously attributed to wind became a sign that Zara’s spirit lived on. Somewhere in the great beyond, she was on our side.

Artemis seemed to consider the scene. Orion, healed, just barely stirring the soot. Our line of glistening power, banded together like a strand of stars.

And all the while, I saw her shoulders rise and fall in a way they never had before, just one more inhuman detail I had missed before. Artemis was breathing now. Like me, or Daria, or any other living person.

But even I would not confuse the presence of humanity for a lack of pride. Before she even said the words, I knew. 

“Olympus will never be surrendered.” 

My mercy condensed into anger. I beckoned starlight down from the heavens, opening myself to accept the surge. Bitter as frost. Hot as fire. Intensely painful and blissful, coating my veins and burning my tongue with a buzz I could only describe as transcendence. I was higher than the sky itself, whirling in a sea of energy, soaring on the wings of a cosmic beast.

And then I fell.

Snatched back down through the bliss. Reality crashed in. My hand caught on a ledge as my feet slid out from underneath me, swinging forward and smashing my body against the cliff. Cliff? Shrieking, my pinkies slipped on the grass, roots sprayed dirt into my eyes. 

“Selene!” Kenna cried out. I couldn’t think to respond. Looking down, I saw a gaping maw of darkness, descending through the bowels of the earth. Dirt morphing from light to dark to stone, down and down into the abyss. 

I clawed out, screeching, throwing my right shoulder to gain purchase on the ground above. My nails scraped the ashy dirt–there was nothing to pull myself up. And no one to help me. Artemis’s face appeared above me, sarcastically grim. As though she couldn’t effortlessly help me to safety. As though my life couldn’t be spared, as though she couldn’t simply bend over and lend a hand.

“You disgust me,” I spat, gritting my teeth. A few more fingers slipped, catching on jagged rocks. Blood trickled down into my eyes along with the dirt, fat, viscous drops warm as they splattered my forehead.

Another face appeared. Orion. He drew his bow, arrow pointed directly at my forehead. I refused to conjure an innocent expression. Beg for mercy. Weep and cry. There was no point, just as there was no way out of this…so how did I get into it at all?

Artemis may be incredibly powerful–maybe even omniscient–but the earth wasn’t her domain. She couldn’t split it any more than I could. So who did? 

I didn’t have time to ponder the question. A figure flew over my forehead, tackling Orion to the ground. Fire erupted across the grass. I was yanked up by two strong, tan hands. Kenna. Turning to the ravine, I saw Daria leap across the impossible gap, boosted by a gust of wind I assumed was Talia’s doing. She herself flashed across, flying so deftly it seemed like a second nature; in fact, I guess it was her undiscovered first nature, one she could have been using since she was a kid. How helpful that would have been during the chase…

A few figures emerged through the gloom, fog dissipating as they came into view. It was impossible to ignore them. Impossible to fight. 

Kenna’s flames dissolved where they had been scorching Orion’s hair. Talia dropped unceremoniously to the dirt. Daria’s water projectiles splashed uselessly back into puddles. 

The Olympians were here. Suddenly it became all too clear to me who split the ground as Hades himself stepped forth, black robes trailing in the rubble. Zeus, tanned, donning a gold and white toga. Apollo clad in a laurel crown, hyacinths tucked in his buttery hair. Demeter, beautiful, draped in vines, Poseidon hefting a silver trident. Hermes with winged shoes. Aphrodite, the vision of perfection, shifting through super model forms in a dizzying display of beauty. Hera. Athena. Ares. Hephaestus. Dionysus. 

“I hear word that you challenge the Olympic thrones,” Zeus’s guttural voice boomed, crackling on the air like electricity. I quivered as the shockwave slammed through the ground at my feet—it took every drop of my will not to fall to my knees. “I would suggest you abandon your plight. It would be a shame if such potent talent was wasted.”

Kenna was the first to snap out of our collective trance. Here I was, gaping at them like an idiot, and she was already stepping forward. Vigor lit her eyes. Fire licked her shoulders. 

“You sicken me. These earthquakes and wildfires devastating our cities, tsunamis that rock the waters, storms that slaughter innocent children…all your fault. Under your control! Whether you’re enraged by some helpless servant who drops your dinner or just bored while sitting on your throne, human people die. 

Mothers. Fathers. Sisters and brothers. Future doctors. Your own children lose their lives for your enjoyment! In a fit of your petty rage!” Kenna screamed. The flames on her shoulders shifted from red to orange, lighter, brighter, hotter and hotter. The smell of burning cloth filled the air, mingling with the ash—

Something flickered white among their ranks. Apollo was on the ground in a flash, gold body slammed from behind. Hyacinths crushed on soot. Laurel wreath flung off into the ravine. A lithe figure kneeled on his back. He thrashed. Other Olympians swarmed the form, but it clung on even tighter, ripping at bare skin, thrusting a dagger forth with reckless abandon. 

I shot a glance at my friends. Each wore a mask of confusion. All were accounted for. Then what–who–was attacking? 

Impossible.

Impossible…

Yet I saw it, the willowy build concealing strength as it pocked Apollo’s skin with holes. 

Artemis was attacking her own brother.

I didn’t have time to question it. This was my shot. I surged forward, tackling Demeter. Her head slammed a rock and bounced back without cracking. Vines sprouted from the earth at my feet, entangling my ankles and circling my torso. I was trapped.

The harvest goddess lunged at me. Faster than I could summon the starlight to blind her, she was struck down by a crack of lightning. Breaking free of the plant’s thorny grip, I saw Talia sweep her arm towards the abyss. Demeter’s blackened body swept over my head in a monstrous gust of wind and rammed the cliffside. 

The Olympic goddess fell. Spiraled. Clawed at empty air. Down she plummeted into the milky black, ink hair and singed dress melting into nothingness. 

I waited five seconds, ten. No figure emerged. The pit was deathly silent. 

Silent…and begging for more food. 

Shock struck even more powerful than Talia’s lightning: we could use Hades’ own weapon to dethrone them.

I surveyed the chaos. Apollo was unmoving, face a mask of shock; betrayed by his own sister. Immobilized by her dagger. Talia was simultaneously locked in a war of lightning with Zeus and trading blows with Dionysus. I couldn’t see Kenna or Daria in the blur of figures. I prayed their disappearance was because they were in the throws of battle, not lying in the ashes. 

I bolted for Apollo. Artemis’s weapon stuck out on his back like a poison thorn. Powerful enough to incapacitate the sun god…I was certain it would incinerate me if I touched it. As for the god himself, I wasn’t sure I could lay a hand on him without devastating burns. So I didn’t. Calling back that icy-hot light, I let it fizzle through my fingertips and materialize in the air. A lasso of white-hot starlight snaked around his toga. With a flick of my wrist it pulled tight. 

The god stared up at me in horror. His life was in my hands…yet I felt no guilt when I searched his face. The stunning perfection which had enchanted so many mortal girls showed me inhumanity. The scorched earth I saw in Kommetjie showed me disregard for life, carelessness with his all-important task. Crops had wilted. Families had starved. And it was all his fault.

I wound up the rope and cast him into the ravine. Before I could watch him fall I was knocked off my feet. My tattered dress was immediately soaked through by a tide of rushing water. 

Sputtering, I righted myself, suddenly floating in a rising river. Floundering for a hold, I found a crumbling tombstone and latched on, fighting the hungry current. A body shot towards me as a new wave crashed over my head. Dionysus–purple robes soaked black–fumbled for a grip on the grave.

Two fingers latched on. Side by side, we struggled with the suction of the abyss. I shrieked, lashing the spike of my heel at his calf. With a yowl of pain, he disappeared over the frothy edge.

Squinting into the roiling water, I saw one more form devoured by the pit. She was beautiful as she fell, perfectly coiffed hair somehow unwetted by the tide. The despair in those bright eyes wrenched my heart. My gut grew suddenly warm, a fever dawning over my head. In the millisecond that my squinting eyes locked with her amber-gold gaze, I was entranced. 

So I let go. The tombstone rushed away in a haze of sea spray, my body thrown back into the racing current. Aphrodite’s spell was broken at once. What have I done? I thrashed in the water, but the tide was too strong. My gut was cold with the nearness of impending death. She wanted to take me out with her.

Writer's Wednesday!

WW Elementals Finale Part 3– Soul and Saviors

AutumnB17

Screams. Deep, throaty, bellowing groans in discord with the silence of the graves. That was what the goddess wished to hear as she approached the crypt. This spark in her deadened soul, this wisp of something…an emotion? An impulse? 

A fire in the eyes of the devil.

  A bitterness on the tongue of a critic.

A harsh word on the ears of the deaf.

What would someone call that? Not a feeling, the goddess decided. She was not wistful for the sound of screams, not hopeful. She was inconvenienced. Inconvenienced by an impulse–the hard metal heart rotting in her chest was incapable of the experience “hope.” So, perhaps, Artemis was experiencing distraction. Irritation. 

Niggling at her gut, the annoyance disguised as hope for her Huntsman collected her soul together again. As a goddess, it was simple to fracture herself into various forms and disperse them throughout the Earth and heavens at the drop of a hat. But it required the lack of emotion–no, distractions, she reminded herself–that she could not currently obtain. 

It was a cosmic lift from her mind: the weight of all the monitored realities condensing into one form, a merging rather like mixing the ingredients of a pastry; after all, it is easier to carry a single cake than all the flour, eggs, and milk that went into it.

Whole again, the goddess moved with renewed vigor, cautious to monitor her speed lest she overshoot the crypt by a mile at sonic pace. It felt awkward to run again; she hadn’t truly run at a human speed since she ruled the Hunters of Artemis, back when tracking down boar and overconfident cougars was the task of all tasks. 

Finally at the cusp of the leering concrete structure, she took a moment to examine it with cold, calculating eyes leering in the anxious light. It was a beautiful tomb: carved with the intricacies and care of craftsmen from a time before. A time of refined workmanship and gentle, deliberate chiselings and chips. 

Not like today. Cheap plastic. Mass produced goods. Hasty assembly lines–the festering mortal laxity disgusted her. She was born from the cosmos into a world of art. Beauty. Grace. And–consequently–meticulous hours of work behind each vase and script.

But craftsmanship passed with the years and without note, of little matter to an immortal and even less to a human. The true reason why she trudged through this graveyard was infinitely greater than the tomb.

What lay within. Who lay within: the cause of this annoying distraction of hope. Because despite herself, a shrapnel shred of her iron heart held fondness for him.

Orion. Orion, who once upon a millenia she had loved against her will and against her better judgement. Orion, who was destined to be a mortal, who’s scorpion sting should have seeped toxicity through his arteries and stolen his breath. Orion–for which the goddess had rewritten the stars themself.

She allowed this annoyance to broil in the silence, regarding the stone with daggers in her eyes and shoulders defiantly broadened, despising the silence. Her name did not reverberate from within. No prayers echoed dimly through the crack in the door. This wasn’t good…not at all. There should be screams; that fact, and that fact alone, decided it.

The goddess charged violently at the door, lashing a bolt of crisp white light crackling towards the cement. From the silence the burst of power rattled the air into a frenzied hum. Her gossamer hair lifted and spiked from its sheen, frazzled by the static and the door exploded at once. 

Shards of stone and rock thrashed violently against her skin, assaulting the paleness and careening off like a pebble on a bulletproof window. The atmosphere thrummed with the blast as a cloud of suffocating dust billowed from the decimated crypt.

Unmarked, clothes artfully disheveled and hair frizzed, Artemis stumbled forward through the clouds of soot and sucked in a breath. Panic overtook her glass eyes: the rubble was immense. Cradling her thin hands close to her chest, an unexpected regret fizzled through her fingertips in the place of the power she had come to know. Tightness seized her chest. Too much. Too much, I used too much, what if…? 

“No,” she breathed, eyes roving the debris, the annoyance of hope rearing strong in her gut. Shiny, platinum hair. Strong hands. Cloth. An arrowhead. Something, anything, to show her she hadn’t…but what if… 

What if I killed him? What if he was suffering? What if my flicker of effort crushed him, what if? What if Orion is dead? It shouldn’t matter to her. Another feeble-minded mercenary, blindly following orders on the chance that Artemis will show them love…wasn’t that all he was?

The goddess, clutching her arms against her heart, scrambled to comb the rubble. She flung aside rocks with the frenzy of a starving hyena stumbling upon a fresh kill. Minutes screamed by and thousands of shards spiked the earth where she had thrust them from the debris. No sign of him. Drawing back in fright, the goddess examined her work in terror. 

“What am I doing?!” she sobbed to the hazy clouds of ash, to the sky, to the unhearing wind. Dread pooled in her gut.The sky was darkening.  Pressure squeezed her brain. Shivers trembled down her spine: what is happening to me?

Artemis had no time to ponder the question when her vision scattered in a crack of light. Lightning burst from the sky, forking a fiery tongue down directly into her aching chest and bursting her conscious thought into shrapnel. Thunder rumbled in the sky, a crescendo like a bowling ball hurtling down the lane. They stepped forward, emerging from the haze like phantoms floating on the fog.

Four girls wrapped in glittering light, angels gliding through the dim cemetery with elegant strides like a young queen at her coronation. Another burst of lighting struck the goddess. She fell back, back arching with the electricity, fighting to condense her being back into this moment. A girl rose her hand and flame emerged, climbing the silk strands of Artemis’ hair and licking down her simple, threadbare clothes. Rain came pounding in then, icy cold and blistering heat ravaging her skin in a torrent, the charge still buzzing along her body.

The Elements overpowered her one by one, pummeling her figure with bolts of energy and wind and gasps of fire so sweltering her skin burned red. Moon dust choking her lungs, stuffing the delicate trachea full of toxicity and smoke. Lightning sizzling her arms. Fire drowning her eyes. Sea spray whipping down on her head like gravel lashed from a truck tire. 

Artemis clawed at the earth, reaching for a stone to throw, something to cease this pain, a pain like she’d never felt in all her existence.

Instead, her groping hand found skin. Skin. 

The world came back into focus. All the fragmented particles of her essence raced back together in a surge, solidifying in a burst of raw emotion so intense she rocked on her side and screamed. The barrage stopped at once. The four girls were thrown back like rag dolls in the path of a tormenting toddler, thrust on stone mausoleums, bones cracking against graves. 

All the millennia of her life suddenly focused, each minuscule moment notable or worthless jamming themselves into her mind, and suddenly Artemis felt like a human. Frazzled, lying in a pile of rubble and soot, desperately clinging to the hand of her long lost love.

Orion. 

Orion. A romantic love, perhaps, or a friendly one, or maybe not love at all so much as a mutual liking…but whatever they had, she suddenly could think of no happier moment in all her life as when she felt her fingers on his.

Paying no attention to the moaning Elementals behind her, she sat up and drew the warm skin of his hand against her face, gently cradling it against her cheek. A pulse fluttered weakly through the veins there, throbbing in time with her flooded head. All the memories, all the years flurried through her brain, a great burst of humanity ravaging her soul. And there was a soul. She felt it now, festering inside her, thrumming and glowing as bright as Selene’s moon.

Dusting the debris from his body, Artemis pulled him close, golden hair splayed across her lap like a sunburst. Willing a morsel of her mind to focus, the power burst eagerly to her fingers and streamed into his broken body, knitting tissues and mending bones. The years of hunting experience coalesced into a healing energy, one she wasn’t sure she had ever used–not on the dying leper during the plagues or the wounded huntress she had taught since youth. Never would she have thought to try. Never, except for him.

When she was certain Orion had healed, she delicately lowered his head onto the stone, brushing the ash from his lids. Turning her head to face the four powerful girls, she was met with a pair of beseeching midnight eyes.

“Selene,” she whispered. The teen girl stood not far from the goddess, legs twisted at disturbing angles and fingers trembling. 

“Artemis.” The words were cold, doubtlessly intended to ring with strength but quaking with weakness instead. Kenna the fire girl, Daria of water, and Talia of storm gathered themselves and stood, each bloody with the impact of the cosmic blast. 

Stumbling forward, each flashed each other meaningful looks, striding to Selene’s sides and linking arms with her. A row of four girls, meant to be five, full of enough power to rock the universe from its foundation.

There they stood, eyes trained on one lone goddess, the huntress, the eternal maiden. A sense of cumulation permeated the scene, a sense that every instant in their lives, as unique and different as they may be, had been building to this moment. This hour. This minute. This very instant in time.

 The final fight was about to begin.

Writer's Wednesday!

WW Elementals– Finale Part 2

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Thank you to Jennifer Brutyn for commenting on my last post! (: This is part 2 of the Elementals finale. Find the rest in the archives!

🌧️ Talia Thorn

“No, no, you don’t understand, I think she can…” I trailed off, eyes tightening at the corners, my old distress over interacting with strangers creeping in. There in front of me was a smart, assertive woman with degrees in so many areas of medicine that it made my head spin just thinking about all the years of college it took. And I was…what?

A shy girl with rain  powers? A frail little London teen who could make some thunder rumble if she tried hard enough? A pathetic human sprinkler?
The IV was hooked up. Nurses began to scramble for A-negative, and I just stood there, stomach rumbling and roiling at the presence of needles and blood. I had to stop it before I risked damaging Selene’s power with human fluids. But how?

What did I have to say about her? 

That she could heal herself if they got her off these pain killers? 

That she didn’t need any human blood? 

That it might take away the potency of her powers if she received normal fluids?

I slumped into a rigid seat, holding my head in my hands. What was there to say? The doctors insisted that Selene was rapidly losing blood; I couldn’t use my powers to heal her; Daria was somewhere in a different wing of the hospital. Zara was dead. I had seen her body myself, crumpled in the street, with an aura of absence emanating from her so unlike Daria’s that I didn’t need to feed myself false hope. 

I felt a hand fall on my shoulder. I looked up, expecting the doctor or the matronly nurse with the full, dimpled cheeks. No. The eyes that met mine were a strange, otherworldly gold. 

Jolting out of my seat, I wrapped my arms around Daria, the friend I’d barely known or talked to at all. I hadn’t been on the ship with her and Kenna and Selene. She’d been shot before I could talk to her on the rescue boat. We’d been fleeing from the mercenaries on land, she’d been presumed dead in the alley, and yet, her inviting embrace felt like heaven: a warm hug from a long-lost friend.

“Did they clear you?” I asked, stepping back. The wounds in her gut and her back seemed to have disappeared into thin air, the tattered swimsuit traded out for a fresh white hospital gown. Kenna stepped forward and gave me a hug too, answering for Daria,

“Yes, they cleared her. I had to do a little bit of persuading for that–you know, it isn’t everyday that a girl with suspiciously-healed mortal wounds gets let off easy.” 

I laughed, taking them both in at arm’s length, for a moment wondering how in the world my life had come to this. Not so long ago was I back at my London estate, avoiding my father at all costs, toying with my mother’s earrings before school.

 Now I had a strange set of friends: two of which were mortally wounded by arrows, one who had burned alive a school shooter, and one more–Zara. I couldn’t think about her too much, not then, not for a long time after. 

“We have a plan, Talia. We know what needs to be done to stop all this.” Daria gestured vaguely to the world with a sweeping arc of her hands. Kenna nodded, gripping my hands in hers so tight I could feel the heat burning along her palms, scratching at her skin to be released. I was glad my power was more docile.

“What is it? What’s the plan?” I glanced at Selene, prone on the bed, deep in sleep. “I’ll do anything.”

 Anything at all, I thought, staring at Kenna’s constantly shifting eyes and Daria’s calm, centered ones. These were my friends now. I would never cease to fight for them, I knew, and I was alright with that.

“Zara granted us one final gift,” Kenna said.

“We know where the gods and goddesses will congregate in their Earth-dwelling forms. Artemis and all the others. We can take them down with our combined powers.

“We need to find the crypt of Inara Nightlock. And we need to find it before midnight. It’s the only shot we have.” I nodded, sorting through the information silently, pushing away all the unanswerable questions cropping up in my head. Finally, lifting my chin, I responded.

“Let’s do it. Let’s set this world right.”

Part 3 of the finale is coming soon!

Writer's Wednesday!

WW Elementals–Finale Part 1

AutumnB17

This is a continuation of the “Elementals” series. Comment which power you would like to have below for a shout-out in the next post!

“Her color is too pale. She needs a blood transfusion immediately.” 

Color, I thought, I remember color. My lips curled into a droopy smile. The sedatives were acting fast, rolling me gently into sleep, sliding me deeper and deeper into the calm, dark sea. The sea, the gentle sea, the sea that reminded me of Daria, who reminded me of gold, then of yellow by comparison.

Yellow. The dopey smile dripped off my face. I’d never liked yellow like others. Never liked how it felt, so…fake. Like it was trying too hard to be cheery. An artificiality, a toxic positivity that growled at you “everything is alright,” when everything was far from it. Yellow was sickness, negative thoughts masked by a bright facade. 

Toxic, jaundiced, and yet, a memory drifted to me then, a very mixed memory of my time as a human. A memory that I wasn’t sure was even real or a figment of my drowsy imagination.

“No, please, we can wait, just give her five more minutes!” A frantic voice. What were they doing there in my memory? I let the echoes drift into the oblivion, settling deeper into the recollection, welcoming the fragments of speech as they lazily wheedled their way into my mind.

A school day. My lashes grazed my cheeks again, ever so gently, feeling so downy and soft as clouds, so soft that I let my eyes rest with them. The white, beeping world was gone, giving way to the replaying of a moment in my mind. A moment the world would not long remember; a single flicker in any other person’s life, and yet, a precious instance all the same, one I would find pivotal to my life even lying there in that blank place. 

That place–wherever or whenever that was, that place. Somewhere with a bed. And a blanket. And white walls. And Talia, and Kenna, and Daria, all my friends, and a nice lady with sky-blue uniform and soft brown eyes. 

Yes, I would let myself rest my eyes, let my feathery lashes trail kisses on my cheeks. So I did. I rested there, then–whenever and wherever that was–and remembered an instance about color.

A school day, in autumn, when the Ohio breeze swirled and eddied and the leaves patterned a carpet on the earth, dancing in a breeze I could see but not feel. Inside, the cool wind could not tickle my nose, could only gust outside the window as I wistfully watched.

English class. My favorite class. I was Mira Casse, a student, a relatively normal girl with strange features and an even stranger set of parents. Parents no one mentioned, or was quiet about if they did. An unspoken agreement: the Casse family was not to be discussed; there was something wrong about them and their ‘daughter.’

“Okay, for this assignment, we are taking a break from our text analysis for a while,” the teacher announced, eyes wandering to the window, just like mine. I had the thought that she and I were very similar. We were both far away in our minds, both in a place beyond here, somewhere in that wide open expanse of sky and field and forest. 

A few students exchanged satisfied looks. Others outright cheered, chucking their books below their desks and tittering excitedly with their friends. Wide eyed, pleased to move on from endless compare and contrast, baby birds preening and squawking for a chance to leap from the nest.

The elation faded into a softer buzz as the teacher explained we were doing some free association and connotation work with colors. She would call on a few people with the first things that come to her mind when they named the color: emotions, objects, abstract ideas like freedom and wealth. 

“Blue.” The room shot up with hands, arms waving and protruding like blades of grass shooting from the dirt. Sky. Ocean. Water. Calm. Peaceful. Sad. Happy. And the responses bubbled, and tumbled, and crashed in with superficialities. The typical answers. 

The entirely unsatisfying answers that everyone else seemed to accept as their own personal truth–as though thinking that blue meant happiness was a personality trait. Something that made them special.

I returned my gaze to the window, thinking, wondering what blue really meant. Yearning, I decided. It was yearning, a soft yonder blue in the distance, painting the sky with hope. The promise of something greater beyond the horizon. 

As I thought this, a girl poked her fingers up and said, matter-of-fact, 

“Blue is bubbles!” 

 I sunk lower into my seat, frowning.

“Green.” Earth, eco-friendly, gentle, leaves, nature, envy, and I sunk even lower, frown deepening. Analyzing the yellowing grass beyond the glass, a great discomfort gripped my stomach as I felt something new grappling inside my body, twisting me all up inside, yanking at my core and tearing my being. 

Because I knew what green meant. 

Green was wistfulness, nostalgia, a warm, inviting tug that leads you to the meadow or the pasture or the forest. A reminder of a simpler time, an instinctual time when your heart knew the way through the winding path of life and guided you onward without hesitation. Purity. Instinct. Life. Nostalgia.

Yellow was even worse–happiness, sun, beach, I tightened my fists–red about the same, purple made my eyes squeeze shut and when it came to brown I finally raised my hand. Maybe I couldn’t explain the other colors, but I could explain brown, black, deep, dark shades. They seemed to me to be the most simple: pure and natural as tilled earth underfoot.

“Yes, Mira?” The teacher called. I drew in a deep breath, rethinking if I should answer at all, when I finally decided I had to. No one else could do this shade justice; no one in the school or the class or the world.

“Brown is humanity. Brown is the rich, dark earth that coddled our crops, the pools of honey that gifted us sweetness, the decadent truffles we extracted from our simple ingredients and harnessed into a unique experience of texture and flavor. 

Brown was when Prometheus granted us fire and lit the sepia kindling with flame, brown was when we smeared umber mud across our brows to protect us from mosquitos, brown were the feathers and fur of our game, brown was the mahogany that we built into thrones and homes and settlements. Brown is the reason we survived and the ways we thrived. It isn’t just a color. Not to me.”

The room was silent. Every set of eyes was staring at me in awe or disgust or confusion. But the teacher removed her gaze from the world outside the window and beamed at me, eyes sparkling with approval that loosened the knot in my core. 

“Brown is humanity,” she echoed. And with the kindness of her voice brimming over into the silent room, I recognized the twisting that had yanked my gut into knots. It was difference. Difference from the rest of my class, my grade, all of humanity.  

I realized, for the first time in my life, that perhaps I was not a normal school girl, couldn’t be a normal school girl. I was something more. And my gut knew it, my brain knew it, my heart knew it. I was something more. Something…other.

“We have to start the supplementation immediately, ma’am, we can’t wait any longer!” I startled from my memory, the fragments falling away but the tone of the reflection remaining. A mixed tone. Prideful. Bitter. Uncomfortable. Freeing. Overwhelming, and I…supplementation? Curiosity stirred within me, a feeling I wasn’t sure I could act upon. I was so, so tired, bone-tired, Atlas-with-the-sky-on-his-shoulders tired.

“Please, she can heal herself, just don’t give her any blood! It might hurt her!” Talia. I knew that voice. I had to come back, had to know what they were doing to me. A dull ache re-formed in my chest and I remembered the arrow, where I had ripped it from my skin. What were they trying to do to me? What was happening?
I tried to force my eyes open, but they were weighed down like a branch bending under snowfall. A prickle in my forearm–an IV. What was Talia fighting? What were the doctors trying…

“I can assure you, this will not hurt her…” 

The weight of sleep washed over me like a tidal wave, and I struggled for a moment, hearing Talia groan with exasperation. For a moment, I hung, suspended between the waking world and the unconscious one. 

Sleep overcame me at once and I drifted away into the deep, dark sea.

    Part 2 of the Elementals series finale is coming soon!

    Writer's Wednesday!

    Writer’s Wednesday! 🌎⚡Earth 1- Storm’s Quest

    AutumnB17
    Image from ColourBox

    *This is a continuation of the Elemental Series! You can find the rest in the archives. Comment below who your favorite Elemental is and why and I will give you a shout out in the next edition!

    Blood stained her black swimsuit, gushing steadily from the torn flesh of her gut. Her incredibly wavy hair was soaked with sticky crimson that took over everything in an unforgiving tide, strong as the sea that lurched beneath the deck and twice as merciless. Seeping into the gnarled wood, the ropes that bound her wrists, the other girls’ clothes. Life flickered weakly, in and out; a grim reaper hovering just out of reach, ready to pounce. Salty ocean spray nipped at her pallid cheeks, the bronze fading into white like a waning moon.

    Daria’s dreams were plagued with visions that danced across her mind like a rambunctious squirrel leaping into the road to interrupt the endless black of unconsciousness.

     A girl with ebony skin and the greenest of eyes, eyes that held a million memories overflowing with life. A green as deep as glinting emeralds far below the surface, as glittering as dewy wildflowers under the morning sun. A sheen of black hair dark as craggy mountains silhouetted in the dusk. The fiery sun lit up her bottle green eyes so they glinted like shattered glass. 

    What she was standing in was the exact opposite of the life and warmth she exuded. Dead. A dirty, desolate landscape as far as the eye could see; the only sign of life were the sparse patches of dying yellow grass dotting the ground and the weak, spindly fingers of leafless trees clawing the sky. Everywhere you looked life was being quenched like a fire doused with water: cracked earth, remnants of animal bones scattered across the dirt, flurries of dust suffocating the dry air. 

    The girl raised her hands in a beckoning motion. The earth shook, thrumming with power as grass emerged in waves, green spreading over the dirt like the sun leaching darkness from the sky at dawn. Trees sprouted up, growing and aging in seconds, the skinny shoots expanding into gnarled trunks under a single, delicate touch of her fingers. 

    A horde of dark figures rushed across the rapidly growing field like the tide creeping up the shore in front of her house, leaping flames punctuating the ends of their torches like a crackling exclamation point. A blonde girl with eyes like raindrops thundered ahead, pushing through the mob and screaming at them to stop. Clouds coalesced, darkening the sky like a gray stain. Boom! Crack! With one sweep of her dainty hand, lightning split the sky, sending the green world spinning into blinding white.

    Daria awoke with a gasp, sucking in air like a fish out of water. She tenatatively pressed a hand to her aching stomach, lips light with a prayer that this had all been a dream. The boat. The pain. The woozy, chemical smell of chloroform intermingling with the metallic stench of blood. Her hand came back sticky with red. Daria’s breath hitched in her chest, panic rising as she jerked her wrists wildly, watching the blood-stained rope darken as her skin chafed away to blood. 

    “Hello. You must be Sea,” someone said airily with a sing-song tone like a flute’s song. She whirled at the voice, cautiously eyeing the pale black-haired girl that sat straight backed with her hands bound.

    “I don’t- how did you know about my powers? Who are-” Daria paused, wincing and touching another careful hand to the torn flesh,”you? Other than the night girl from my dreams.” The girl raised a precisely trimmed brow.

    “I wasn’t aware that I was in your dreams, Sea. All you need to know is that I am Selene, and that is Kenna,” Selene said, gesturing to a tan, dark haired girl thrashing against her bonds. She stopped to wave to Daria before throwing herself back into a wild fit. 

    “You are one of five goddesses that control the Elements. I am Starlight, crazy over there is Embers- fire, if you prefer- and you are Sea. Now… what did you see in your dream?” Utter confusion and a wave of exhaustion rolled over Daria as blood seeped between her fingers, the flow slowing slightly under the pressure. At this point, there was no point in questioning it. She tried to recall the lapping of water on her toes. 

    “A girl growing things,” she inhaled shakily, pinpricks of pain spiking all along her bronzed skin, “A mob. It looked like trouble- a big mob calling her a witch. She was a witch. But then a blonde girl made a storm and then everything was over in a flash of light.” 

    As soon as the sentence was over, she sighed. Heavy lidded eyes fluttered shut just in time to see Selene smile. As she dozed off Daria heard Selene’s beautiful voice in fluent Italian,

    “Storm did it. We have hope after all.”

    🌧️ Talia

    Dust rampaged through the dry desert air, caking peach sand over my pale skin. Hot wind carried the cries of the townspeople, venomous words floating on the breeze like a hungry vulture gliding on the currents. They were words I could understand in any language, words I’d heard countless times over the last few days. Witch. Unnatural. Threat.

    I tore through the small, decrepit village, the dirty huts and collapsing buildings flying by in an indistinct haze. The journey from the beautiful, colorful coast of Italy to the dry expanses of the African savannah hadn’t been easy. 

    Days upon days hitchhiking and trekking across the desolate land from dawn to dusk. Matting my hair into dirty strands, clogging every pore with dust that floated thick on the air like smog in the London streets, sand clinging to my clothes. Exhaustion was setting in with each time I used my powers, sprinkling myself with cool rain and beckoning the northern breeze to combat the brutal heat. Hiking over miles of cracked land with no guide but my instinct and a niggle in my gut to urge me on.

    Image from English Stack Exchange

    Through the sweltering streets, I could see the blazing torches of the mob swinging wildly like drunken fireflies. Cutting through a shadowy alley, I rammed into the crowd, shoving forward. Malnourished children clawed at me, some shouting at me in a language I didn’t recognize, others screaming in choppy English. Bodies pressed in on all sides. Hot. Sweat-slicked. Tense with anger and fear. Clamoring through the masses, dodging swinging torches and children hurling spears. Trampling feet. Pounding heart. Trembling hands. Angry people wide-eyed with fury. Writhing masses. Guttural screams that split the air like an arrow piercing an apple.

    Over the dark tide of people I caught a glimpse of the goal. All I could do was stare with wonder at the sight before me. 

    Trees were rising out of nowhere, the cracked earth crumbling into dark soil that sprouted grass. Waves of green crashed over the dusty landscape, life springing up in seconds. Wildflowers rose up, dotting the carpet of lush grass like fireworks bursting in a dark sky. In the middle of it all, trembling with the effort, was a dark girl with long black hair cascading down her back. Earth. 

    I pushed forward, tearing through the hordes of people. The girl cried out, her thin frame convulsing under the ratty dress. Breaking free of the pulsating crowd, I kneeled beside her. She looked up at me, starry green eyes glimmering with terror before glancing helplessly at the oncoming tide of citizens.
    “Can you speak English?” I asked. She nodded meekly, tears streaking down her dirt-stained cheeks. Even as she convulsed with the fatigue, I could feel the earth below me thrum with power, renewed life coursing through its veins. 

    “My family- my people,” she gestured towards the mob, thin hands shaking with the effort. “I just tried to help undo the damage of the years. They call me a witch. Please help. Please. I can’t do this much longer.”

    “Stop using your powers. It’s okay, I can help. I’m a witch too,” I said, clasping her hand in mine. The earth rattled and she rose, the tide of people edging closer and closer. I had to save her. I had to let it rain. Raising a hand to the sky, I clenched my fist, pulling it down with all my force. Thunder boomed, the roar of a vengeful beast crackling in the heavens. Clouds swirled overhead, the endless periwinkle sky splashed with ominous gray. Rain began to drizzle, pouring down faster and faster. Drops splattered the new leaves, the small canopy sheltering us from the worst of it. Flames were quenched, plunging the world into darkness. 

    “What’s your name?” I shouted over the din, thunder rumbling like a bowling ball striking the wood. People shrieked, raging on as their torches died out one by one, rain pounding the newly grown grass.
    “Zara!” She shouted between cracks of thunder.

    “My name is Talia. I’m going to make a distraction, and then you have to run as fast as you can in the direction of the nearest port,” I yelled, gusts of wind howling like a banshee. Pelting rain came down in torrents, stinging my skin. The heat still clung to the now humid air, each lurching breath pulling in the suffocating air. Zara parted her lips as though to ask a question, staring at me in wonder as though I was the strangest girl she’d ever seen. I probably was, actually- it’s not everyday that you see a pale Londoner in the middle of Africa starting a storm with nothing but willpower. 

    With a deep, rattling breath, I squeezed her hand. Bites of rain nipped at my skin, cool and stinging like a blizzard’s icy kiss. The mob of people crashed over us, tearing at my clothes and ripping at Zara. I held on, squeezing my eyes shut as hands raked my skin. Vicious. Merciless. Just like the storm.

    Summoning all my power, I raised my hand towards the sky again, forcing my mind to go blank. The cacophony of thunder and pounding rain, of screaming children and guttural yells, the warmth of Zara’s calloused hand in mine, the pain itching in my veins- all of it melting away. With everything I had, I brought down my fist. Lightning cleaved the sky, striking the earth with a bang! The world was lost in blinding white. Screams erupted. Feet scrambled. Smoke tinged the humid air.

     Everything was lost as Zara pulled me away, my feet stumbling across the terrain. We separated from the panicked horde of people, sprinting through the lush grass as rain pelted the world furiously.

    Through the chaos, I could imagine Selene smiling at me, Kenna joking with a playful grin, Daria filled with hope (though I had never seen her face.) Thunder roared, the storm raging on as the power drained from my body little by little. Stumbling through the torrents, trembling with adrenaline, all I could think was, you did it, Storm. You saved her from her death. Saved Earth. There is still hope yet.

    Writer's Wednesday!

    Writer’s Wednesday! Storm ⚡🌀

    AutumnB17
    Image from KOMO

    “Get out!” His angry voice bellowed through the room, echoing off the austere walls. The world blurred as tears brimmed and swirled in my eyes, my vision a haze of the angry red of my father’s face and the blank white walls.

    “I’m sorry! Please, don’t make me go!” The words came out in a jumbled slur, cut in by gasps of fear. Here I was, begging for mercy, standing hunched and frail before him. Everything was clear for a split second, the blurry clouds giving way to a focus so intense my head throbbed. Every smell, every sight, every texture was amplified a thousand times, like looking through a microscope on full power. The rank stench of beer on his breath, the fury that reddened his face so deeply it was almost purple, flushing away the creamy white paleness of his skin, the mini leaf-cyclones swirling on the lawn. I could feel it in my bones. A storm was coming. His green eyes looked like shattered glass in the lights, a fractured soul hidden beneath a cloud of alcohol and pain.

    I barely had time to register his hand coming towards my face. A blur of fingers flying and my own swirling blond hair whipping past. I hardly remember the actual moment his hand connected with my cheek, slapping me back so hard I collapsed. The first thing I recall is the raw stinging pain that rocketed through my face, sending reverberations down my spine. Falling backwards, I crumpled to the floor, lying helplessly like a torn up rag doll.

    Sobs racked my chest, and I choked out the words,

    “I’m so sorry, Dad! Please, I swear! I’ll never go out without your permission again. I’ll never see him again, I promise. Just don’t make me go.” Dark anger and pain eddied and swirled, muddying my thoughts. All I could think about was just how much I hated my father… and just how much I loved him. This was the man that had held my hand in the aquarium, rattling off facts about the fish and smiling as I squealed in delight. The man clapping lovingly in the audience as I stood in the shining lights at my choir concert, beaming with pride. But the same hands that had cheered me on that winter night had slapped me a thousand times over in drunken rage.

    Fury roiled hot in my blood, but I was so weary. Tired of him. Tired of the constant throbbing in my cheeks. Tired of being made fun of at school, tired of the constant questions about the chain of dark bruises that blossomed along my face. Tired of life. Distantly, I noticed a pitter-pattering of rain against the huge picture window, the little rivulets streaming down the glass. I had always loved the rain, the smell after a thunderstorm and the tappity-tap of drops hitting the roof. I couldn’t enjoy it now, not with the despair seeping in like a dark cloud rumbling over a blue sky.

    Every fiber of my body wanted to do what he was saying, to leave and never come back. But here I was, weak on the floor and begging for mercy. Begging to stay in the one place I didn’t want to be. You’re too weak… my mind whispered, and I was infuriated with myself, at just how helpless I was. I clenched my fists so tight my knuckles went white. Thunder clapped, turning the sky an angry blue-gray that was the same shade as my mother’s eyes.

    “You pathetic brat!” He laughed, a cruel sound like a feral dog ripping into a harmless hare. “Get out! You think you can disobey me, go on a date? With some boy? As if anyone could ever love you.” My heart convulsed; the storm brewing outside whipped violently with each ragged breath I took.

    Tear strewn, covered in bruises, I looked past him to my mother standing in the arched doorway glaring at me. Giving her an anguished stare, I longed for her to wipe that cold facade away, to run to me and tell me “no.” That she did love me. That she didn’t agree with Dad. That I wasn’t just Talia Thorn, a rich pretty-princess blond with daddy issues that was only good for the diamonds around her neck. I wanted her to protest. I wanted… I wanted her to love me.

    We locked eyes, hers beady gray and mine a large, vibrant blue. The wind quieted for a moment, as though I was the storm and the world was holding its breath. But she didn’t protest. And as she turned away, she pulled out… no. A bottle of whiskey. My breath hitched. And all hell broke loose.

    All my bottled up anger and desperation unleashed, and the swirling vortex of wind hurtled over the house! Gusts of ferocious air plastered leaves to the window and hell descended from heaven. The sky opened up, black clouds taking over the last blue patches of sky like the devil’s chariot riding through the world, turning blacker and darker with my rising fury. Rain pelted the lawn viciously, pounding harder and harder with my rising despair.

    Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice whispered, You’re the storm! You’re Talia Thorn, with a shock of blond hair like lightning that is ruffled and wild as the wind, with sky-blue eyes shaped like raindrops. You! Are! The! Storm!

    As my Dad struck me again, grabbing me by the scruff of the neck, lightning struck white-hot outside the window. Thunder beat in tune to my racing heart, rumbling and growling, a beast uncaged. My heart throbbed as he shoved me up against the door, pinning me down and fumbling drunkenly for his keys. But he didn’t need them. The grand mahogany door flew off its hinges, tossed violently across the rolling yard as if it were a plastic bag and not a mass of heavy, expensive wood.

    My mother, a frail blond woman, had even joined the fight to drag me out the hole in the wall. Even as every heirloom and antique we own is being sucked out of the house, they still want to get rid of me. To them, I’m just a mistake, a roadblock on their path to blissful, mindless drinking. Tears burned in my eyes; my heart throbbed. But I held on. It was as though the wind was pushing me back into our manor while still sucking everything else out.

    Dad struggled and groaned under my weight, his purpling face strained. The green eyes I knew so well were narrowed with hatred and clouded with alcohol.

    In that moment, I wanted nothing more than death. To have everything, everyone disappear in a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder. My stupid necklaces, all the sapphire earrings that had only been half-hearted attempts to make up for drunken attacks. My parents, flying away and being battered around like they battered me, dying in a bar the same way they lived: drunk, angry, and not caring about their own daughter. Even me. The girl that never fit in, that was dressed in the finest clothes so that the elegant satin covered the bruises. Gone. Never having to suffer another day. It seemed almost like a fantasy as the storm ripped through the house… my storm.

    I closed my eyes as lightning struck the house, the roof collapsing and rubble raining from the sky. The last thing I saw was blinding white light and my father’s shocked green eyes staring off into the abyss. Then everything went black.

    ***********************

    “Who is she?” A feminine voice called out into the darkness. It was a passionate, edging-on-sultry voice, one where the words were so intense they came out too fast. Was I dead? Visions of the lightning strike and the storm flickered weakly in my mind as I struggled to remember.

    “This must be Storm. The third element already! Heaven must be calling them to us one by one, somehow.  You are Embers, Kenna, I am Starlight. This simply must be Storm. Why else would the whole world be taken over by clouds and lightning rain down from the heavens? Why else would some random girl appear in a flash of light?” Another feminine voice said. This one was high and clear, and sounded regal but not haughty. It was the most beautiful voice I’d ever heard. I yearned to see what she looked like, but my eyelids felt like weights. I’m dead. Is this heaven, or hell? Everything was dark, there was no angels except the beautiful voices.

    “The Elements. You keep talking about those as if I understand a word you say,” the first girl said. I felt her warm fingers on my throat near my pulse point, and I twitched. She jerked her hand away abruptly, but stayed silent, lightly pressing fingers to my neck again. This time, I lay still, pretending to sleep.

    “I know it’s confusing, Kenna. But we’re the lost goddesses! You are fire. I am starlight. And she must be storm.” The regal one paused. Her voice was taut with annoyed tension, like a cord about to snap. I needed to see this.

    With all my power, I forced my eyes open. Staring down at me were two teenage girls. One was tan, with coal black eyes and wavy tendrils of dark brown that tickled my forehead. She smiled, an expression that lit up her whole face. The other was a beautiful girl, wreathed in a halo of golden light. Everything about her radiated night sky: the cascading black hair flecked with gold, starry midnight blue eyes, creamy moon-dust skin, and a gleaming silver dress. She smiled serenely, angelic voice flowing over my ears like lovely flute music.

    “Hello, Storm. You are the third elemental goddess. Are you willing to join the rebel cause and fight back against the corrupt gods of Olympus?”

    I blinked, bewildered. Was I… in the desert? Flailing in the sand, I sat up. The dark haired one laughed: she had been the one with a passionate, sultry tone.

    “C’mon, Selene! I know you haven’t been in the human world for a while but… well, I was called to join the–well, whatever we are, in my most pivotal, stressful moment. So take it easy.” The moon girl, Selene, shrugged apologetically.

    “No… it’s okay… I mean, I just,” my voice broke, thinking back to my father and the storm. “I’m sorry. My name is Talia Thorn.” I tried to stand and collapsed back, my cheeks reddening in embarrassment. The sultry one, who I assumed was Kenna, helped me up.

    “Talia. Do you know what your name means?” Selene asked sweetly, her midnight eyes soft. Everything about her screamed “warrior queen,” the regal air and the lithe form, the silver wreath on her head that was threaded with colorful planets and the gleaming silver knife at her belt. Yet somehow, she still managed to seem like a normal teenage girl, straight out of high school.

    “Um… no?” I asked. This must be a dream… I’m in heaven. I must be dead, I must be…

    “It means ‘rain from heaven.’” Selene said softly. My breath hitched. As I stood under the cooking sun, the only thing I could think was:

    You are the storm. You are more than a rich girl with daddy issues. You have always been more because of the storm inside. You are the storm.

    I couldn’t deny it. There was nothing logical about it, and yet all made sense, a thousand shattered shards of glass glued neatly together. How it always seemed to rain when I was sad, thunder when I got angry. How I was somehow never wet after a rainstorm, the drops seeming to fall in a perfect circle around me. My shock of blonde hair like lightning and striking blue eyes, clear as a raindrop and vibrant as a summer sky. In that moment, standing in a desert with two girls I had never met, I felt like I knew myself more than I ever had.

    My name is Talia Thorn, and I am the rain from heaven. I am the storm.

    Writer's Wednesday!

    Writer’s Wednesday! Home at last

    AutumnB17

    *This is the seventh edition in the Kate Paxton series. Find the rest in the archives!

    The world blurred around me as I sailed through the open air. It was so right. It was so wrong. It was just so… different. Something about it felt wrong. But, in the same way, it felt better than ever before. Crack! I collided with the branch, a sickening crunch and crackle of the wood bending echoed in my ears. Frantic shouts drifted through the window, and deja vu hit me like a hurricane.

    “Come back… Kate, come back!” a student shouted after me. The same thing that someone had screamed after me the first time I’d run away, the first time I’d given in. Their sheer force slammed down on me like a ton of bricks. Tears brimmed in my eyes, my heart crumbling with each beat. Those words that I had heard before pounded my brain, indecision flooding in before I could even begin to scamper down the tree.

    It had been so much simpler last time. The woods had called. I had answered. Simple. Not easy, but simple. But now? My heart sang for the mountains and the trees, beat for the feeling of my feet against the mossy ground. Each step I took in Sapphire Peaks felt like a step wasted, each thought was a yearning cry for freedom. Every night since my capture I had dreamed of that beautiful wooden bowl drifting away across the lake, a reverberating echo of the pain of that day. A small water dish that had fragmented my heart. It was like I was Tom Hanks in Castaway, watching Wilson be pushed under the waves over and over each night as the earth cried out to me.

    Boom! The branch I had been climbing down on snapped, and I tumbled the rest of the way down, hitting the grass with a thump. Pain ricocheted through my bones, my knees throbbing from the impact. Some small part of my rational mind was still trying to saw away my will, saying, Stop. You could get better. The counseling will help, you can learn to be normal again! You could live your life, have friends, find a way to stay connected with the wilderness…

    Leaping up, I felt the fire burning in my soul, ignited by the hopeless attempts at reason my mind had conjured. My feet flew across the ground, so fast I could barely feel the grass beneath them.  Clouds of dirt and grass billowed behind me as I whipped across the yard, sprinting for the woods that lie just beyond the clearing. I felt more sure of myself with each dismissed doubt.

    Why? Each speculation, each hope of my rational mind was easily debunked by what I knew in my heart. You could get better. My mind insisted, but deep down I knew it wasn’t true. The only place for me to heal had always been nature, the mountains, the crystal blue lake on the shore. My feet hit the earth faster and faster, a drum beat wildly increasing tempo. The counseling will help, you can be normal again!  It cried desperately, and I almost snorted at the thought. The only thing Emilia Pavledes had done was 1) drag up the past, making me sink deeper into despair and 2) singled me out for running away, trying to make me feel guilty so that I wouldn’t do it again. Even the reasonable half of my brain was being silly at this point.

    Quickly, I made a split second decision when I came to a crossroads. I could either book it for the woods, like I did last time, with nothing but the clothes on my back and the fire in my heart. Or I could do a quick run past my house, grab some supplies and do a more strategic plan that would hopefully limit the chances of the search teams finding me.

    A bang erupted off in the distance as the school’s front doors swung open. There was no time to think. If I didn’t choose soon, a horde of teachers and School Resource Officers would see me, and then I’d have no chance at all. Visions of being dragged to the police station flashed through my mind, visions of wailing red sirens and my mom’s cold blue eyes coming alight with fury, snapshots of a future where I was under constant scrutiny. A future where I was never allowed near the forest, years going by without the dirt beneath my bare feet and the soft, springy moss beneath my hands, where I could never sink into the cool blue water of the summer lake or watch the golden grains glimmer on the shore.

    Perfect job, perhaps, a decent living and a family further down the road. But at the cost of my freedom. At the cost of the feeling that nobody could ever restrict you, the glow when you realize that you are one with nature and that you lived a life of complete independence.

    I shuddered at the idea of it, and without another second of thought, I took off down the trail towards my house. Sticks and branches cracked and popped beneath my feet, like an exclamation point on every step. Wind throttled my ears, hair coming loose from the ponytail and cascading around my shoulders in wild waves. Run! My heart cried. Stop! Some small part of me insisted. But my heart beat for the woods and the mountain stream, and I would always listen to my heart first. Run! My feet hardly seemed to hit the grass as I sped down the winding path.

    After a solid minute, my cabin-like house came into view. The cozy wooden home was nestled among oaks, barely visible in the sea of leafy green. Rusty, our new red bone coon hound and my “therapy dog,” was baying in the front yard, his howls echoing through the silent woods. I’ll unchain him before I leave, I thought, eyeing the small silver chain that tethered him to an oak. Smiling, I sprinted past him, knowing that this time around I would have a companion.

    Throwing open the screen door that was never locked (despite my mom’s insistence that I “needed to be more responsible” and actually click the lock), I ran to the linen closet. The kitchen was just a streak of sparkling black tile in my peripherals as I opened the door, wasting no time in yanking down the hatch to my attic bedroom.

    Sunlight streamed through the windows, illuminating my small twin bed and the wooden desk in the corner that was strewn with papers. My mom had always called it a “loft” before… before the accident with Dad. Fine. Before his overdose, before the heartbreak, before the cold, heartless Mae took over.

    “Loft.” Ha! She had made the cramped space sound cozy and homey before, always crawling through the hatch with a tray of cookies to leave on my bed as I read a book, smiling and asking how I was enjoying my “own personal loft.” Ever since Dad, she never came up anymore. She called it simply, “the attic.” Lately when something would creak and I would look over, half-expecting to see the Mae Paxton of before opening the hatch, with a tray of warm cookies in hand and a grin spread over her lips. But there was nothing there but empty space and the ache of loneliness deep in my gut.

    Shaking away the thought, I walked over to the corner, crouching beside the desk and pushing it away from the wall. A smirk lit up my face at the sight of it, though I knew it would be there. My secret spot. Now, when I say secret spot, I mean just a small crevice in the wall, big enough to fit your arm into but not much else. Though so much had changed through the years, that never had. Wiggling my sun kissed fingers into the hole, I had a flashback that struck like lightning, sending waves of shock through my body.

    Deja vu bubbled in my soul and my vision swam, remembering a similar moment almost a year before. It was a chilly November evening and the dust danced in the dull gray light. Rain pitter-pattered against the panes, dozens of droplets streaming over the glass. The instant I heard the click of the lock, signaling my mom had left, I practically ran over to my desk, straining my weak, thin arms to pry it from the wall. Shaking with effort, the small crevice finally appeared. Shoving my hand into it, I pulled out the supplies. Today’s the day. I have to do it today! I thought, producing a tiny flashlight, a plethora of foods, an extra pair of shorts, undergarments, and a shirt, all neatly stuffed in a blue string bag. In that moment, I heard the lock unclick and the screech of the screen door. “Kate?” A voice called. My mom. Crap! I thought, desperately fumbling to wedge the bag into the hole. Just as the hatch began to open, I slammed the desk against the wall and flung myself awkwardly onto the bed. Today was not the day to run away. I was beginning to wonder if there ever would be that day. I sighed, watching the droplets drip down the dull glass. Not today. I thought. Not today.

    Blinking hard, I opened my eyes. It had gotten darker while I was having the flashback, and the sky was filling with bruise-colored clouds so much like the November day so long ago. The same blue string bag was clenched in my hands. The bag was the same. Everything was the same, down to the tiny rip in the bag and the small silver flashlight. The only difference was me. I had easily, confidently slid away the desk, feeling strong. The pale, weak arms of the past were now finely toned and sunkissed to a brilliant olive/gold. Wasting no time, I slung the small pack over my shoulder and slid the desk into place.

    The rest was a blur. I don’t remember going back downstairs or opening the door. All I remember is that one moment I was in my old room and the next I was outside, unhooking Rusty. I didn’t look back. Rain began to drizzle, little drops peppering my shirt. Rusty was silent, bounding at my side as I took off at a sprint, blowing past the trail. Where I was going, there was no trail necessary.

    Hours and hours passed, the sun inching lower and lower on the horizon. From my house, the mountains were just a blue smudge in the sky. Now, finally, I was right below them, looking up at the rocky peaks that jutted from the Earth. It was new, far from the lake I had loved and the cave that I had called home.

    Would I have rather returned there? Absolutely. What I wouldn’t give to see the bed of pine needles tucked into that alcove, or the little wooden bowl I drank from everyday… but life interferes. That would be the first place they searched for me.

    Slowing to a walk, Rusty yipped, running around me in circles. I laughed, patting his head and feeling the soft fuzz of his copper fur against my fingertips. Pulling out his favorite red rubber toy (which was already marred from days of constant chewing), I chucked it as far as I could, watching it disappear in the thick foliage.

    A minute or so passed as I waited. I was starting to get worried, for Rusty was the fastest dog I had ever seen, and pretty obedient too. But he was a coon hound, and they were hunting dogs. If he saw a raccoon, he would take off in an instant, leaving nothing but a trail of dust and scattered strands of red fur.

    “Rusty?!” I screamed. Silence. The woods itself had gone utterly still, the sweet bird song ceased and the air still. My feet pounded the grass, seeming impossibly loud against the quiet of the forest. No. You can’t lose Rusty too. You’ve given up so much for this, but you can’t give up him. A tear threatened to trickle out, but I blinked it away, cursing myself. How could I be so tough on some things, but crumble at the smallest moments? Just when I began to shout his name, I came to a clearing. And in the middle? The most beautiful lake I’d ever seen, crystal clear with a sandy shore. Rusty barked when he saw me, running back and forth along the sand until paw prints littered the beach. It was a lake, backed up almost directly against the mountains. And, embedded in the sheer rocky face was a cave opening.

    My jaw dropped. This was it. Rusty had found our new home. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any better, I saw it. My heart stopped. I’d failed to notice before, but a little, tiny rivulet of a stream trickled into the lake. It must have been connected to my old lake, because, lying abandoned on the shore, was the bowl. Rusty seemed to notice it, and he picked it up by the rough-hewn rim, setting it in my hands. Hugging it tight to my chest, I cried for the first time since my capture. Tears of joy. Tears of memories. Everything in the world seemed to center around this right here.

    My name is Kate Paxton. First, I’d been a girl who longed for the woods, a girl with a heartless mother and a dead father. Then, a runaway, completely free and loving life. After that? Just a girl who’d been captured, forced back into society even when she had changed so much, even when she knew that she could never live that way. Now? I was a runaway again. Funny how life comes full circle like that, isn’t it?

    Maybe I’ll get captured. Maybe I won’t. The only thing that mattered was that I was in the woods, surrounded by the majestic mountains and the lake with a loyal, adorable dog I loved with all my heart. My name is Kate Paxton, and I am finally home.