Alternate Color

Chapter 1

Have you ever woken up, alone, not knowing how you got to where you were, not even knowing who you are? I have. I was laying face down in sand. After getting up and smacking the grains out of my black sweater and hair, I realized I was on a beach. Something moved in the grass behind me. Instinctively, I attacked it. A smooth, round ball pressed down on my hand. My arm wound up, then I threw. I didn't throw hard, since I didn't want to kill whatever was hiding in there.

"Oww! Hey, what are you doing?"
A high pitched voice called to me. I hit a person?

"All right guys, he noticed us. Everybody come out." This call came from another high pitched voice, but considerably deeper than the first.

"You know Cindy, when one of us yells Oww!, it becomes pretty obvious that we've been found. Not that I'm naming anybody or anything. Or Olivia." A young man stepped out of the water, the whites of the waves rolling down his blue, water-like hair. An aquamarine colored coat very easily defined his presence on the golden sand.

"Shut it James, that doesn't help. You're the only one who can actually change forms here. It makes it much easier to hide." A woman, engulfed in flames, descended from the sun.

"I'm just surprised he didn't notice the trees were growing out of sand." A woman in yellow stepped out from between a group of oak trees that were, as she stated, very suspiciously planted in sand. Those trees and the grass next to it shrunk alarmingly quickly to reveal yet another woman, clad in yellow and red, rubbing her head as she separated herself from the beach floor.

"Where's Green? The plants are gone, he should be here by now."

"Forget him, we should be getting the new guy."

"I'm telling you Cindy, this guy has something special..."

"...that doesn't mean he needs a trainer..."

"...showed up way too late..."

My head was getting lost in the conversation.

Cindy, the girl in yellow, nudged James, the guy who can apparently transform. He jerked his head as if interrupted in thought, then motioned for everybody to quiet. He approached me, both cautious and confident.

"Hey there. Hello. Can you understand me? Nod if you understand." And, like an idiot, I nodded. I was too busy staring at his hair to think of anything. It moved like it had its own tide.

"Great!" he continued, "Now we're getting somewhere. I am James. My ability is control over water." To demonstrate, he raised his arm. Behind him, a large wall of water rose, towering over the both of us.

A darker woman with flames emanating from her head flew in, shooting flames from her feet and hands to balance. When she landed, she introduced herself as Rachel. I had already known the name of the woman in red.

"I have ability over flames. If it's not obvious, I'm a fireball." The fire on her head shone brighter for a few seconds before dying down again. A loud explosion threw the sand behind me somewhere not in the original position it was in. When the sand died down, the smoke revealed a yellow jump-suit.

"I am Cindy. Master of lightning. Power extremist." She punched the floor to exemplify her power, causing another explosion that covered me in sand. While I was distracted by the sand in my eyes, a head composed of vines grew. At this point, I was surrounded on all four sides. James introduced the plant as Green. The girl who wore two colors had disappeared among the chaos.

"So who are you?" The display died down,
and James asked again when I didn't respond.

"Who are you? What do you do?" I couldn't remember my name. I didn't recall ever having one, so I spat one out.

"Devan. And I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Cindy's question sounded more like a remark at my stupidity.

"My abilities aren't visual like yours. I just... do things."

"You hear that? He just does things." Cindy remarked again. That was it. I held my hand up as if I was going to flick a pebble at her forehead. When I did flick, she flew back like she was hit by a pan. Much to my surprise(but apparently no-one else's) she did a backflip and recovered.

Everyone else scattered like a military drill just begun. Me, having been out of the loop, had absolutely no idea what was going on.

"I haven't had an interesting fight for so long. You're so mine." Cindy cracked her knuckles together, causing lightning to emanate and warp the sand on the beach. Pillars of sand stood where lightning struck floor. Rachel flew in, and I mean flew, with her flame ability with the equivalence of rocket boots and guided me to a ring engraved into the earth. The ring itself was sunken into the floor, more than half way. I couldn't tell exactly how large the rod that created the circle was, but it was definitely large.

Cindy approached the other side of the ring, from the sky. It was like they had a point to make. I'm higher up than you are. Having ignored what I thought about the message she was trying to get across, I instead tried to focus on what was going on.

I looked around and found Olivia, the girl who disappeared when everyone(and plant) greeted me.

"What do I do?" I yelled. Nobody bothered to explain anything to me. What she yelled back sounded like 'Bite to the neck.'
Sounded weird, but I thought it would have been for the best to just follow their rules. I really should've figured something was wrong when I heard the phrase 'bite to the neck.'