SERENA

PART II: Chapter 4 - Spiraling

After repeatedly thanking Alison for the food, the water and the clothes, Serena leaves her house. Or dorm, as she called it. Alison was even kind enough to make some sandwiches for Serena to take to where she needs to go – even though Alison has no idea where that is – and told her that she's welcome to come over by her house if she needs anything else. Serena truly doesn't know why a stranger would be so helpful. Back in Elementia, everybody always helped her and gave her whatever she desired but only once they knew she was the princess. Only once they knew they had something to gain with it. The only people who ever were nice to Serena without an ulterior motive were Nolyn and Kiana. But they were her friends. Alison was just a kind stranger.

Serena starts making her way back to her crashed and broken spaceship, tracing back her steps all the way there. She has always been good at memorizing the paths she takes, a skill that was useful to learn for someone who needed to sneak out of the Royal Palace in order to have some freedom.

On her way, she crosses the light pink-orangey building outside of which she met Alison and notices that, even though she was at Alison's house for a while and the sun is setting, there are still dozens of people walking around the area. Maybe even more than there were before.

Once she's away from the college campus, the number of people outside diminishes significantly. And the further she gets, the less people she finds. Until there is nobody out in the street at all.

The sun fully sets once Serena reaches the first road she saw when she was approaching the town, which she now knows is called Las Cruces, and she notices not for the first time how fast the days and nights are in this planet. She has been here for three or four days, but if she's timing it right, this would only have been around the time for one day to go by in Elementia.

Just as it happened during the other nights, the temperature gets considerably colder and Serena has to warm herself up, which is possible due to her core element being fire. And this time, she has to actually use the fire for more than warmth. The natural satellite that illuminated her way during the second or third night is now giving off less light. And its shape is looking different as well, so it might be just like in Elementia. If it is this planet's satellite it must be rotating around it, and the planet is rotating around their sun so it would make sense for that. Maybe things here aren't so different from Elementia after all. The air is thicker but breathable, the food is edible although different, and the water is just like the one present in Elementia. The temperature range, at least in this area of the planet, is also acceptable. The duration of the days – and, very likely, months and years – is different, but that doesn't seem to present a problem. At least, not so far.

Like she has thought more than once since she got here, Serena hopes that this planet will give her the second chance she wants.

The sun is up when Serena reaches her broken spaceship. It's still there all alone, with no sign of Nolyn's presence.

Even though she herself has noted that it has probably only been around one Elementia-day since she got to this planet, she still thinks that it would be about time for Nolyn to arrive. He was supposed to come right after her. Even one full day seems to be a lot of time for him to wait to get on a spaceship and run away from Elementia. He must have run into some complications. They must have run into some complications. Because Rakon and Kiana were there as well. If Serena and Rakon's parents found them and discovered that they had helped her escape to another planet – that they had helped her escape her execution – they would all be punished. They would all be imprisoned. Maybe they would even be executed instead of her.

No, I can't think like that. If I do, I'll lose my mind here.

Rakon has always been really good at making their parents do what he wants and believe what he wants them to believe, so why would it be any different now? Even if they had been caught, he could make them believe that Nolyn and Kiana were just helping him in trying to stop Serena from running away. She was absolutely sure that Rakon could convince them of that. The only thing that he probably couldn't convince them was that Serena did nothing wrong to deserve to be executed. That controlling the four elements was never her choice and she never did anything wrong with them. There was no hope in her parents understanding that. And that was why she could never ever go back to Elementia.

While waiting for Nolyn to arrive, Serena decided to focus on practicing her powers. Fire is as easy to use here as it was in Elementia, and the same can be said for water. Earth, she hasn't really tried, but all that's around her is sand, so she isn't about to try now. But air... Air she has tried and failed. And that's exactly what she knows she needs to work on. It was never easy to control in Elementia, but here it seems impossible. But Serena doesn't believe in impossibilities.

She waves her hands in front of her body, feeling the air that's surrounding her. Once again, she notices it feels heavy and thick and harder to handle. She focuses all of her attention and strength on that air, on trying to make it move – even the slightest breeze – but nothing happens.

Even after being at it for almost an entire Earth-day, Serena has made no progress in trying to control this air.

But, since these days are much shorter, she doesn't have to sleep all the nights. She does, however, have to spend some of her focus and strength on warming herself up during the nights. And, if with her full concentration she wasn't able to manipulate the air, she also definitely isn't able to do it when her focus is divided.

However, once the sun is up and she no longer has to worry about keeping the fire on, Serena notices a very light breeze. It's barely noticeable, but for someone who was just on fire until a couple minutes ago, the slightest breeze would be perceptible.

"I did it." Serena says to herself but without much conviction, because it truly was the lightest breeze anyone could ever have created.

So, once again, she focuses all her energy on the air particles around her. She can feel them more clearly now, and when she tries to move them, they don't seem as thick and stiff and heavy. And they move.

Serena smiles a little, and then she moves her arms suddenly in opposite directions. That creates a gust of wind that envelops her coming from both sides and raises much of the sand around her. It hits her bare arms like little miniscule daggers, but Serena doesn't care.

"I did it!" She shouts, and she wouldn't even mind if someone was listening to her. "I did it!"

She starts jumping up and down and laughing until she falls to the sand. She pants, still laughing, and waves her hands slowly in front of her. Some of the sand lifts from the ground and floats in front of her, moving in a spiral. A spiral she's creating.

She smiles much more widely this time.

When the sun set the next time, Serena did sleep. The trip to the town and then all the time she spent practicing with the air exhausted her and she needed to rest.

She wakes up with the sun high up in the sky, and then a thought occurs to her. If the days are much longer in Elementia – and consequently the nights are much longer in Elementia – and she is able to spend many days and nights awake, it's very likely than she sleeps for more than one Earth-night. And that would mean that she's been here for even longer than she initially thought. Nolyn should have been here even for longer than she initially thought.

Even though she desperately wants to stay here until Nolyn finally shows up, the food and water that Alison gave her is all gone. She needs to go back to the town or she won't survive out here.

She grabs one of the tablets of the spaceship's dashboard. The sun of this planet is, thankfully, able to charge the tablets as well as the one from Elementia, and she writes a message on it, in case Nolyn shows up while she's gone.

Nolyn,

I had to go away into a town that I have gone to once before to get food. I wish I was here to welcome you to our new home, but I know we'll have more than enough time to enjoy our lives here.

I can't wait to see you.

Love,

Serena