Twisted Bonds

Chapter 1: Sanctuary

No One's POV

Birds chirped in the trees around a house on the outskirts of McKinley, Virginia. A young girl of the age of twelve can be seen running around in the timber behind the house. She walks towards a place she visits often. Once she sees a small, flowing creek she knows she's in the right place. She sits against the trunk of a downed tree right next to the creek and takes a deep breath of fresh air.

She needed this. A trip to her own little sanctuary. Escape her adoptive parents who expect far too much from her. She just got done with an argument with her mom. She ran out with tears of anger in her eyes. Her feet instinctually brought her here. A place for her to unwind.

Even after running all the way here, the young girl still felt rage bubbling up inside of her. This argument had been one of the worst ones she'd been through so far. Her hands balled up into fists and she squeezed her eyes shut. She was so lost in her angered thoughts that she didn't notice the ground around her was trembling. In a fit of rage, she got up onto her knees and punched the ground with all her might as she yelled out her fury.

Silence filled the space around her. Feeling a little better, she opened her eyes. There was a big hole around where she punched the ground. She looked down in shock. She made no move to lift her fist out of the hole.

Once she was done staring down in shock, she lifted her hand and examined the hole. The hole looked to be about two feet deep. She looked at her hand. It looked relatively unscathed. No split knuckles, no cuts or bruises, no nothing.

Seconds passed as she looked between her hand and the ground. The argument with her mom was long forgotten as her mind tried to make sense of what she was seeing. Is this real? Is this a dream? Her mind ran a mile a minute coming up with questions that she needed to find answers for.

Minutes passed. Once she confirmed that she was, in fact, not dreaming, she decided to run a test. Moving over a bit, she got into the same position she was in when she was about to punch the ground. Standing on her knees, right fist raised in the air ready to come barreling down onto the ground. She took a deep breath and rammed her fist down onto the ground with all the strength she could muster.

She looked at two similar looking holes in the ground. The second one was not as large as the first one, but still very noticeable. She looked at her hands in awe. Why do I have this power? Did my birth parents have powers? Is my power passed down from them? I wish I remembered more about them. I decided to brush aside the questions about my birth parents. There was no use thinking about them. They died when I was three and there was nothing I could've done about it. Besides, I wanted to know what else this power of mine could do.

A couple of hours passed by before she heard her father's voice in the distance. "Emma, where are you? Supper is ready!"

She ran through the timber towards the house. She didn't want anyone finding her hidden sanctuary. Especially now, with many unnatural holes and small chunks of uprooted earth scattered all around where she had just been.

As the weeks pass, young Emma goes to her hidden sanctuary to practice with her newfound power. In the months to follow, her power grows and she finds out that she can not only manipulate the earth around her, she can also control water, air, and even fire. When she first found out about her fire manipulation power, she left many trees in her sanctuary scorched. She was lucky that she had already found her water power. That could have been disastrous. She tested out many different things. She found that although she can manipulate the dirt and rocks around her, she cannot control or change the plants that grow out of the ground. She tells no one of her power; making a vow to herself to never use her power in public.