The Elements

Chapter 15 - Memories

"Aura!" I shouted. Bubbles gurgled out from my mouth. She didn't reply. I had a sinking feeling that she couldn't. But of course that wasn't true. She was just... You can see the pointlessness of it all when you're trying to convince yourself that what you know is not true is true.

But there was only one goal in my mind. I knew I had little air left. Barely even enough to sustain the swim upwards. But I had to try. Aura had to survive. And with my last bit of energy, I kicked my legs, pulling Aura with me as we neared the surface of the water. Soon, my lungs were completely devoid of air, but my every movement was propelled by grief, and pure determination. I couldn't let Aura die.

As my head broke through the surface, joy burst through my heart. Not for the fact that I received some long-due air, but for the chance that Aura would make it. I pushed her head to the very top, ensuring she had a constant and continuous supply of oxygen. I looked at her anxiously, desperately praying that she would regain consciousness.

But no matter how long I waited, nothing happened. And though I had sustained so many scratches on my swim upwards, though the water did nothing but make it worse, I could feel no pain at all. But there certainly was pain, another kind of pain, that was much more unbearable.

It made my heart weigh about a thousand times heavier. It was my fault. I knew it. I never thought of the waves so strong. I didn't know. But I was the one who had wanted to go in the first place. Now I understood why Aura was so reluctant about going.

I could only stand (or float, as it is) there frozen like a statue, thoughts racing through my mind. The pain edged its way into my heart, slicing into it. "I'll get revenge for you... I promise." I gritted my teeth as I said it, my heart paining even more. I remembered a familiar pain. That aching in my chest, the hole in my heart, had always been there. I had just grown accustomed to it. But this time, it was torn wider.

My parents. Their faces came into view, a blurry shape in the water. I knew it wasn't real, but it was nice to see them for a while, imagine they were still there with me, going through every phase of life as per normal. My mother's dark brown eyes were set in determination, her mouth pressed into a thin line, ready to make her last stand. My father's greyish-blue eyes and spiky blonde hair still stood out before me. My parents, before they were swept away. The hole in my heart was only temporarily healed, and tore open again, wider than before, as their faces melted away.

Aura appeared, wearing her typical wispy white dress. "Now you know what I mean. But you inflicted quite some damage on Amber." Her voice rang through, loud and clear. From my memories.

"Okay, Pearl, I guess I owe you some explanations."

"This bookworm has tens of thousands of books in here."

"So, something happened, so somebody wanted revenge on somebody else, and that first somebody went to build something that was a machine in a hidden door in the library that only some people could see, and the machine shows you this picture of a random girl opening something?"

"If you wanna die, then, sure. "

I didn't want it to stop. I wanted to keep pretending that everything was fine. But that last bit. If you wanna die, then sure. I had known it was a joke, and Aura had said so herself. And it wasn't me who... But somehow that made things much, much worse. Aura's face melted away, too, and the hole in my heart tore open a little bit more.

I opened my eyes, and I realised with much surprise that... there seemed to be something floating at in the sky. Aura? I thought, hopefully. But I realised very soon that Aura was still floating next to me. She hadn't woken up at all. But what I saw was even worse than that. It made my heart sink to the very bottom of my stomach.

It was them. Those I wished I had never met. Two of them, both females, and with Amber and Emerald and Alexa. One of them I easily recognised. She was the one who could control water who was both nice and evil to me at the same time. She pushed her hand in a downward motion, and, using her overly-powerful powers, held the waves down. The other one was definitely the one who was making the cloud and bringing them across.

At seeing them, my emotions mixed into a blur. Confusion and grief and sadness. And anger. So much anger. I could feel it pumping through my veins. They were the ones who killed Aura. What were they trying to do, capturing us, fighting us, doing random things with no explanation to us? I could actually feel the power pulsing in my hands as I gathered my emotions.

The waves roared up below me. It rose higher and higher, with me urging it upwards. The woman that could control water seemed to see me for the first time and looked at me surprisingly. She pressed her hand down in a single gesture, and I felt the waves pushing down at me. But it was nothing compared to what I had done. I didn't have time to be surprised by the fact that I merely shrugged off her push.

I made the waves rise higher still, until it was higher than their cloud. Then I crashed the wave down onto them. It was so similar to what had happened to Aura and I previously that I wondered whether someone had done that to us. And if someone had, they would be dying the same way. After crashing down the wave, I realised the cloud was still there. Next, I realised the two people were floating in the air back onto the cloud together with the other girls. How could they be so powerful?

I pushed my hands up again, rising the waves again and again towards them. But only the same thing happened. They didn't seem to feel drained. But neither did I. The same anger fuelled me. Suddenly, just as I was pushing the water over them a fourth time, I realised this was doing no use. I couldn't help Aura any further just by trying to push them down. We had been trying to help our friends. I would finish what we had started.

When the water rose this time, I rode on top of it. I reached what felt like the top of the world. If my mind hadn't been so clouded by everything, I would've realised the view was beautiful. But I focused on them. I lifted my hands and the water lifted my friends up from the cloud. This made the two people even angrier. The wind-person shot a gust of wind at me. I wasn't prepared, and tumbled off my wave. But the water bent and caught me, bringing me back to my previous position. I brought the girls up again, but the wind-person pulled them back with wind.

I was so frustrated I cried out. The wave rumbled below me, and I made it tumble onto them again just to relief my frustration. But suddenly, I saw fire. It lit up on the cloud, in the exact direction I was pointing my hand at. The water person doused the flames quickly, but the flames only rose upwards again. I was so shocked that I stopped aiming my wave at them. I squinted at the cloud. Amber didn't look like she was causing the fire. Where had it come from?

While they were busy with the fire, I used it to my advantage and once again lifted up the girls with water. But as soon as I lifted them up, the fire died down, and they were pulled back again. I tried again, failing miserably. Suddenly, the wind-person shot a ball of wind at me that I didn't see she had been forming. The impact knocked me off my feet, and when I tried to get up, I realised I had sprained my ankle. Cursing my luck, I slowly pushed myself upwards, but then I realised they were gone.

I looked back into the water. Not the water that was my element, that was my power. The water that had taken Aura.