Elements Academy 1: The children of the elements

Chapter 7

As I keep my eyes squeezed stiffly shut, I still don't feel the ground. 'It must be a long fall,' I think in my mind.'Whew, that was close,' a familiar voice sounds. It is a boy's voice and surprised, I open my eyes. My eyes meet two beautiful silver eyes.'Euhm, hey,' I say a little awkwardly and look away, then brush a black strand of hair behind my ear.'Hey, are you okay?', he asks worriedly.'Owh, yeah. I'm fine. Only I euhm...,' I start, but fall silent and feel shy. 'Man, I've never felt this before!' shoots through my head.'Owh, sorry! I'll put you down already,' he says, kindly and politely. He does as he says and lowers my legs, leaving me on my own feet not much later.'Thanks, erm... What's your name?', I thank him, but don't know his name easily. Nyrah had told me who, who is who, though. Only my head didn't really store it properly.'Excuse me, Sky is the name,' he introduces himself fleetingly and bends down a bit. 'And what's your name?'
'Azara, pleasant,' I reply and smile shyly, then quickly look away and look questioningly at the other boy.'Oh, sorry! Did you ask something of me?', he asks me somewhat laughingly, with a playful smile.'Sure,' I respond only in reply.'Oh, excuse me. But what exactly did you ask? Can you repeat it?', he asks fleetingly.'So you haven't really been paying attention,' I sigh, after which I hear Nyrah tooting her horn, letting everyone know I've been found.'What's your name?', I ask him, despite only throwing him that question with a glance.'Owh! Sorry. I'm Joran,' he replies, sheepishly. 'You?'Again I sigh. 'Azara,' I reply, sighing as well, desperate that he hadn't caught on to that either.'You, had already honked I suppose?', Joran asks Nyrah.'Jeez, man! Now pay better attention. I already honked for a long time!' she exclaims irritated.I chuckle at her for a moment. 'Then why did you go with them too to look for me?', I then ask.'Because I didn't want to walk alone, I didn't want to walk with unknown people and I know them,' she explains to me briefly but firmly.'You go with them when they are already annoying?', I ask, not understanding why she hangs out with them. 'A while back, they pushed us aside so they could be the first ones outside.''True, but I just have to come to terms with the fact that they can be annoying. They can also be quite nice,' she says next.'Let's go back to Qasin,' Sky remarks and already starts walking forward.We nod in agreement and follow his lead.

After ten minutes, we walk out of the forest. Qasin is still standing there as usual in the same spot, where I found him before I walked into the forest.'That's already quick,' he immediately remarks.'It could also have taken longer if I hadn't wanted to go higher,' I respond.He apparently has to laugh about it for a moment. 'My excuse,' he says quickly afterwards.Twenty minutes later, all the other freshmen also walk out of the forest. They look at me confused and many freshmen ask me where on earth I was hiding. I chuckle and reply with:' in a tree.' Not nearly everyone gets it and asks if I was literally in a tree, but I deliberately don't respond to that. I do find it funny that everyone is spontaneously confused.'Are we doing another game?', I ask Qasin, just short of begging.He turns his wrist a beat and looks at his silver watch. 'It's three to four-thirty. Just thinking, we can have one more game. But then someone else gets to hide. Azara you can choose who,' Qasin then says.I startle and look at all the people. There were just a lot of people who seemed like fun to join in. 'You there, with that platinum blonde hair,' I then say and point to the person. The person I point at turns around in surprise and looks at me questioningly. It is a boy with bright blue eyes.
'Iskander, is the name hear!' he exclaims indignantly.'Fine, Iskander can hide,' I say, chuckling.He looks at me in disbelief for a moment, but then rolls his eyes. 'Seriously?', I hear him wonder softly.I don't respond and see Qasin turn his attention to him. He tells something to him, probably using whatever I was told.'Turn around all of you. I'll signal again when you can go look for him,' Qasin then says.We all do as he says and turn our backs to him and Iskander. Some more mumbling is heard, but then footsteps ebb away slowly.'Yes, you may turn around and start looking,' Qasin tells us. 'We'll honk when it's ten to five. Then everyone should come here immediately and we will go back inside together.'Everyone agrees or nods and then we start moving as one big group. Together with Nyrah, Sky and Joran, I start to sprint. To my great surprise, I am much faster than them. Will that be because of my element? After all, fire spreads like wildfire.'Say, Azara! Not so fast girl!' shouts Sky at me.I stop running and turn around, seeing them still running far away from me. Embarrassed, I remain standing for a moment.'My apologies,' I say next, as soon as they are in front of me.'Your element is definitely fire,' Joran sighs.
'True. By the way, what is your element? Maybe we should know that about each other, then we can track down Iskander even faster,' I suggest and see them nod in agreement.'Great plan. My element is water,' Nyrah says with a smile.'Earth,' Joran says, but a little sternly.'And I air. So we all have something useful,' Sky says enthusiastically.'Then we make a good little group!' exclaims Nyrah cheerfully.'Help!' sounds from above our heads. We all look up and, to our surprise, we see Iskander dangling from a branch, upside down. One of us immediately honks.I am the first to burst into laughter and just about roll on the floor laughing. It looks so comical. Not much later, the others also burst into laughter.'What are you laughing at? Come and help me!' he exclaims desperately.