The Keeper Exams

Chapter Five - So Much Fear

Crysalis

Fear. So much fear. It rises up inside me like a snake, swallowing my senses, enveloping me in its deadly embrace. I strain to gain consciousness, clawing my way up from sleep. Opening my eyes, I stare around me. Tall stone walls rise up and run into the distance, the end of them obscured by a faint blue fog. Why am I here? What happened? How did I get here? I search my mind frantically for anything that I know, but I find nothing.

A faint word flickers to life in my thoughts. Crysalis. I seize onto it eagerly taking it on as my name; it helps a little and I don’t feel so naked anymore.

Another word flickers. Elemental. Frowning in confusion, I turn it over, and over in my head trying to fit it to something, and at last it clicks into place. It’s my gift.

Stumbling to my feet, I squint into the vague blue light. One flick of my fingers, and a small flame sparks to life. My footsteps echo hollowly around the corridors, and I wince, my imagination drawing up monstrous creatures stalking in the shadows. I have to find the exit. I know I have to. 

As I walk, my fear continues to rise, even my own footsteps sound eerie. I gasp in shock as I see an opening in the fog. I don’t dare to believe my luck, had I found the exit already? I race forward, but suddenly, I realize I’m not alone.

A searing heat passes over my head, and I fall to the ground rolling aside as the fireball slams into the opposite wall. A wild eyed girl, with a waist long braid and bangs stands behind me holding what looks like an armful of fire. A name pops into my head: Serena. My brain tells me she is an enemy, and is a danger to me. I can’t explain how I know, but it’s undeniable. I leap up in the air commanding the wind to carry me up. I plan to leap over the wall to escape, but instead I am horrified to find that there is no end to the wall.
I land a couple hundred feet away from the girl, and sprint in the opposite direction but another girl comes running at me from that direction as well. Teresa.

I watch the other two girls, adrenaline pulsing through my veins. I’m aware of their every action, their every step.

“I have to kill you know,” Teresa says. “It’s the only way.”

“Not unless I kill you first!” Serena replies with fearful menace. She raises her arms and a fire blooms at her feet. It swirls up around her enveloping until we can only see a faint silhouette of her inside the fire. Her voice rises high and powerful. “il fuoco , il fuoco , bruciare” It’s in italian to strengthen her spell. It must be her power language. Every hybrid has one to create more solid and reliable effects.

Her fire is scorching, almost too hot to bear now, and she sends it rolling towards us. Fighting away my fear I imagine myself instilled with ice. My necklace feels cold against my skin and I hope it is enough to protect me from my flames. I plunge my fingers into the fire willing it under my command.
“Mae fy nghariad , fy tân, yn dod i mi, ufuddhau i mi,” I whisper in welsh.
My Love,my fire, come to me, obey me.
It burns, and shocks of pain run up my arms, and I can feel Serena fighting me trying to keep control, but at last, it’s mine. Gathering the flames up, I toss them into the air changing them as I do into a flaming, hot ball of air. I direct it towards her, and she screams as the hot air touches her skin. It flings her against the wall and she slumps to the ground. A moment later, she groans in defeat and limps off disappearing around the corner. I know she’ll try to find the exit another way, but also, I know she’ll fail.

Turning back to Teresa, I spread my legs in a solid stance, my hands raised. Her emerald eyes are in slits now. Then suddenly, she explodes into action. Cartwheeling towards me, she splays her fingers and a whirlwind of ice shards lash at me, slicing my skin open. I have no time to conjure a shield and frankly, I don’t know if I have the energy left. Trails of blood run down my arms and I tug a bleeding piece of ice out of a cut. Throwing it aside, it clatters to the floor.

Leaning against the wall, I breathe heavily considering my options. Neither of us will last much longer, but our fighting is getting us nowhere. We have the same powers, the same strengths, same weaknesses. Only something unpredictable, something completely different will win.

“You won’t win,” Teresa spits.

“Maybe.” I shrug.

“Give up now.”

“Never.”

“Looks like I’ll have to make you.”

Her hair swirls around her face in the wind giving her an ethereal quality. Her emerald eyes seem to glow, and her aura of power seems to strengthen. She’s going for the final attack, and so will I.

I press my fingers against the wall searching for the earth that I know is there. The element is warm and solid; comforting.

 Then Teresa’s storm explodes around us. Lightning cracks fill the air with electricity. I hurl a tornado in her direction but she sidesteps it and replies with a flood of water.
 It washes over my head choking me, but I shake it off. Stomping my feet, the ground shudders. Cracks spread with each stomp and chunks of rock cascade down. One catches her on the head and blood streams down her face, but still she stands. Shakily, yes, but still standing.

The exit is right there, waving invitingly at me. I’ll be safe there. No more overwhelming fear. No more darkness. A newfound surge of energy shudders through me. I feel the solidity of the earth beneath me, the ferocity of the fire within me, the freedom of the air around me, and the deadly power of the water in my hands.

I conjure a wall of rock pushing Teresa backwards toward the wall. She tries to fly, but everytime she tries, a wall of air pushes her back down.  The adrenaline of equilibrium is back. I leap over the wall knocking her down,my hands on her shoulders. She fights me, calling on fire, then wind, then earth to push me away, but I am in balance, in equilibrium. My necklace lies cold, too cold, against my throat, warning me think. I shudder wincing, and cringing at the thought of my next action, but I think of the exit, and I know it’s necessary.

“Only one can survive,” I whisper. Her eyes widen enormously as she realizes what I’m about to do, and her struggling increases, but it is too late. “llifo gwaed, dŵr y bywyd , gan fy nerth, rhewi."
Flowing blood, water of life, by my power, FREEZE.
I know from a very vague science class that over 60% of the human body is made of water. And I also know that water can freeze. A silvery, blue sheen spreads from my fingertips down her arms and her chest, growing until her whole body is ice.

Her struggling stops, and I know the exact moment when it touches her heart when the lights in her eyes go out, and soon they too, are covered in ice.

I sit back in horror at what I had done. I am a murderer. I am an evil now, an evil that must be destroyed. I let out a scream of misery, of regret, of fear, and of sorrow. I may know my name, but I truly do not know myself. I had thought I was innocent, convinced that to kill was the right thing to do, but now I am not so sure. I had killed someone who could have been my friend, someone I could have laughed with and played with.

Tears swell in my eyes. I don’t know if I am crying for her, or for myself. Closing her eyes, I whisper the elemental burial rite.

“Goodbye, and may you go in happiness. You came from earth, born by fire. You live in water, and you leave by air. Farewell.”
She had a family. People, who would feel her loss as sharply as I would feel the loss of mine. I hadn’t just stolen her life, I had stolen her from people who loved her. Now those people, people I had never met, would hate me forever.

Tapping the earth with my toe, it sinks down, taking the body with it. I feel like I am burying part of myself with her. The part that was pure, innocent and true. The part that believed I would do the right thing. Now it’s gone because of her. No. Because of me. I didn’t have to kill, but I did. It’s my fault.
My shoulders hunch, weighed down by all my thoughts and I step forward into the gap of the blue fog, but I see nothing. Absolutely nothing. No safety, no escape. I had killed for no reason, twisted my soul for nothing.

Sink down onto the ground, I beg for darkness to take me, and just this once it takes pity on me. I fall into sleep with only one thought. Fear. So much fear. Fear is the reason she’s dead. The reason I’ll never smile again. Fear.