The Universe Of Tomorrow

tales of Zachery Joseph Knight

If I was asked to describe myself with one word, I would definitely say “Venturesome”. I always loved the idea of going on adventures, achieving difficult tasks, crossing deadly bridges, bungee jumping from the tallest buildings in the world, skydiving, you name it, I've done it. 

I was 25 years old when I thought I had gone through every adventure and did everything fearless there was to do. But boy, was I wrong. It was a quiet evening of July, a beautiful breeze blowing, we were having a family dinner, me, my mom and dad. I was their only son and they loved me very much. They never encouraged me to do all these daring tasks as they cared for safety, but they thought that it was my passion and the thing that makes me the most happy. 

My phone suddenly buzzed and it was a message from a fellow adrenaline junkie and my best friend, Tazz. He had sent me a Facebook link which I clicked and it opened a post about one of the most dangerous trekking mountain trails in the world and how only few people were able to complete it. I remember getting that rush of adrenaline just seeing that post and I immediately texted Tazz “Get everything ready, that's where we are going next”. To which he had immediately replied “Already on it”. 

By then, my mom had discreetly coughed one or two times as a signal for me to put my phone away at the dining table but I was so engrossed in the post that I did not contemplate the whole situation. Not less than a minute had gone by when a branch from a nearby plant extended and snatched my phone away from me, reaching it till my father who was sitting there with a huge scowl on his face. 

So yeah I should probably mention now that we are called the Element manipulators. All of us could control one specific element from the four elements that are earth, water, air and fire. As you may have already guessed, my father had the ability to control the earth or plants. My mother could control fire, yeah she was dangerous when she was mad, you wouldn’t want to be on her bad side. And me? I had the ability to control water. However, I was not very expert in that at that time. As my father used to say, the craze of field trips had not let me enhance my power. 

“Zachery Joseph Knight, how many times do we have to remind you that no cell phones during dinner”. I remember feeling ashamed, I had been very engrossed so I uttered a quick apology and let them know about the hiking trip I planned on leaving within two days. They just sighed, they knew nothing they would say or do would have stopped me. 

The day we had to leave for the flight to Peru had arrived and I had packed all my hiking/trekking gear. Tazz had come to pick me up and we bid my parents goodbye. I was very pumped and excited for this new adventure but something in my gut was making me feel a bit uneasy. I remember feeling that twisted feeling in my gut but of course me being me at that time, I ignored it. 

We were now on our way to Peru and from the corner of my eye, I saw Tazz drinking water. An evil idea popped in my head and made the water go towards his mouth with full force just as he tipped the water bottle to take a sip. He had ended up in a coughing fit and getting strange looks from people around. “Dude, I don't know what happened to that water, '' he said while still coughing. He was a normal human so he did not know about any of the powers I had. It was forbidden to reveal them in front of normal humans. 

As the flight was landing, I went to the bathroom to take a quick peek at myself and adjust my hair. I had silver hair, almost white, with striking blue eyes and a very pale skin tone. I was very well toned, with a great jawline and a six pack abs. I was around 6'2. I would say was a pretty good looking guy back then. Girls had approached me on several occasions but I just was not interested in being tied down at that moment. 

Well fast forward to the time when we reached the base camp for the trekking of Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. The scenery was so outstanding, I could have stared at it for days. Tazz and I started our Trek journey and everything was going smoothly, we understood why it was the most dangerous trekking place in the world. The paths truly were deadly. We had trekked for almost three hours when there came a cave-like opening in the mountain.