The Elements

Chapter 8 - The Hikers

"Woof!" Something furry whizzed across the room. Before I could find out what it was, it disappeared.

"Uhh... What was that? You sure your house is safe, Alexa?" I asked.

"It's my dog, silly. Cloudy!" A brown dog bounded into the room. It looked normal enough to me, but I did wonder: How do you get a dog in the middle of nowhere? I took a step back. That was when I actually took in all I was seeing.

The house was filled with, well, all sorts of things, but perhaps the part I should focus on is all the colours. It looked like Alexa herself: messy but of a nice shade. The many objects inside were of so many different colours that it made me wonder the same thing: Where did she get all of this?

"Wait. Where did you get the dog thing and how did you get all this stuff?" Aura voiced out my question. Alexa just pointed at her drawing pad like it was very obvious and started patting her dog. I looked at her in disbelief.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, duh. I drew it. I drew them all." Then Alexa looked behind me. She squinted her eyes at something, and I turned around to see that it was a vase. She started scribbling on her drawing board again and then the vase changed from yellow to blue.

"What?" It was the only thing I could say. I mean, it's enough that Alexa can draw things and it comes shooting out from her drawing pad, but now she can just change everything she sees?

"Uh, yeah. Wait. You don't have a drawing pad too?"

Aura's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean 'too'? And are we supposed to have one?"

"Well. I guess I'm the only one I've seen who does have a drawing pad... Okay so it's like this. When I draw stuff here, it just appears. I guess I'm the only one who can do that. 'Cus the hikers didn't have a drawing pad either..."

"Wait, wait, wait, what hikers?" Alexa's face fell.

"You want the whole story? I... actually don't have any parents... I only remember that I was born in a cave with this pen and drawing pad. When I was three, I randomly drew squiggly lines that looked like a lightbulb and it came to life. The light attracted some nearby hikers over. They were quite nice to me and brought me to their home. They didn't have drawing pads either. When I was five..." Alexa sighed. "You know what? I ran away when I was five for no particular reason. I found the cave I was born in and drew some stuff and they came to life. So I drew this house and all this. Oh, and Cloudy. So ya. That's all." For a moment there was silence. Alexa had no parents? That... sounded pretty much like me. I looked at her in pity. Nobody really understood what it felt like to lose your parents — or not even know who they were from the start. But the hikers seemed weird enough. Why did Alexa run away, according to her, for "no particular reason"?

I was just about to ask when Alexa said, "Now that that depressing story's over, can you tell me what you were doing with the man?" She listened while Aura and I recounted our tale, with Amber adding in comments about "the hardest way of starting a fire". When we were done, Alexa asked, "You actually did all that? How do you 'get' fire and water and air and plants and all that out?"

"Uhh... You don't know about elements?" Aura asked in disbelief.

"Like you said... Am I supposed to?" So we spent quite some time explaining that to her, with demonstrations from Amber (I told her to "stop burning up Alexa's stuff!")

"Whoa," Alexa said at the end (while redrawing everything Amber burned), "I think that's cool. You guys have special powers too." Aura shrugged.

"Well, since the 'people' are chasing you for some reason, I guess you can stay here for a while. Nobody really knows that I have a house here. People just pass by without really caring."