The Story Teller

Are we safe yet?

Elena watched him stride angrily away and thought to herself that she was sure she would never see him again. She smiled as she watched him go, though at the back of her mind she knew she would have liked him if she had given him a better chance. Though this registered with her, she knew one thing for sure, she would have never let herself give him a chance if her parents were involved and (more importantly), as long as those children were in her life, as long as she was a Storyteller...

The kids! Elena realized.

She ran gracefully to the big hall where she had instructed all the children to gather. It was a big concrete hut with cracks on the walls and spiders hanging daintily on the ceiling. Why it was shaped like a hut, Elena never knew, but it had become such a known place to her that she barely noticed how failing it was. But she would soon...

Elena didn't notice how the cracks from years had suddenly multiplied, and neither had the children as they had been intent on watching Elena with the man in the red coat. She had known this, as there would have been no other thing to satisfy their curiosity as it had grown. She watched them with a raised brow as they feigned innocence, until a blonde boy from the rich sectors named Kelvin screamed 'We saw him scream at you! We'd made weapons to attack!'

All 10 of the children glared heavily at Kelvin, and Elena finally noticed what a tight ball they were all in.

'Can I see?' she said, not really asking.

There was a rumble overhead in their hut that they just didn't hear, and if you asked me, I wouldn't be able to tell you why. The children didn't move, and so Elena continued to wear a straight face. 'Well?'

She sighed, exasperated, as the children moved away to reveal wood slabs and rocks of concrete. It took her mind a while of staring at it, both eyebrows raised, her hand rested heavily on her head, her consciousness tearing her apart for her to even understand what she was looking at. Why would these children carry or even want to get weapons?

Or what looked like weapons anyway.

In my opinion, this was a quite beautiful act of bravery, independence, and probably justice, considering how satisfying it would be to have that Ricardo fellow hit upside the head, but Elena seemed to be concerned that there was a problem with this prospect. She knelt so she was in the children's eyesight and pointed towards the cluster of weapons, not wanting to look at them.

'Whenever you are in a dangerous situation, do not resort to weapons and violence until absolutely necessary. Understand me. Absolutely necessary.'

The children began to protest. 'But he was screaming and...'

As they're tiny voices began to roar at their teacher, another web of cracks grazed the ceiling above them.

'Why do you think we are given gifts, children?'

There was a silence, but Elena did not answer her question like she usually did, but instead waited for them to answer themselves.

Eli, surprisingly, raised a hand to speak, but Eliot, standing suddenly, yelped, 'To crush our enemies!'

Elena frowned at him. 'No, Eliot.' She turned to Eli. 'Eli, you wanted to tell us something?'

The stares seemed to swallow Eli whole as he opened his mouth to say 'To...to protect?'

Another crack. Another. Sand spilled to the floor a few inches from where Elena stood.

She smiled choosing to ignore it. 'No, not that either, but you were close. Anyone else?'

A crack, another. 'Ok then.' Elena sighed.