The Elementalists

Chapter I

     A/N
Hey, thanks to all my lovely readers! I will try to keep the A/N to a minimum, so you can get straight to reading. Just to let you know, I am TERRIBLE at regularly updating, so it will be entirely random when I update the next chapter. I am so sorry!!
Enjoy life! (Or death, if you're dead and reading this;D)

Blaire
I feel myself becoming more conscious, laying down, eyelids glued shut. I don't know where I am, but I here muffled voices, so I lay still.
"Mitch! You missed the turn, you dumbass!" a robotic voice says.
"You really should change the settings on the GPS, Mitch. It's going crazy, and really? You had to put the cursing settings on it? But as long as it's cursing at you instead of any of us, I'm good," says a male voice.
"Shut it, kid, please. I would rather be in other places than this place," an angry voice, who I presume to be Mitch, snaps at the other person.
"On another note," a girl's voice interjects, probably trying to distract Mitch from his rage, "when is the other girl going to wake up? And what about the boy?"
"I dunno, you and Michael woke up first. But chill out, you woke up only half an hour earlier. They just might be sleeping beauties," Mitch says.
"Hey! I am not—" I say, sitting up quickly, then I hit my head against something and black out.
>>>>>>>>>>
Cade
I feel a thump below me, and I wake up. I open my eyes, and roll out of bed. And of course, I was sleeping in a bunk bed, which is just my luck.
"Ow," I mumble, face in the floor.
"He's awake!" a short, black-haired girl says. She runs up to me and helps me up. She has strikingly light blue eyes, and she has bangs swept to the side of her forehead. She looks at me.
"My name is Lena," the girl tells me. "What's your name?"
"Uh, Cade," I answer, a little hesitantly. "Where exactly am I? I thought—No, never mind, it's crazy."
     "You remember dying? I'm not sure if I could call you lucky, because I was knocked unconscious when I died so I don't remember actually dying, but—" Just then, another guy comes in. He is tall with dark skin and wearing a blue t-shirt with black basketball shorts.
     "Pardon her rambling, she cannot stop talking for the life of her—" he shoots an annoyed look in her direction— "At least, that's the impression I have got from the twenty minutes of knowing her. She's also extremely impatient. I haven't introduced myself properly. My name is Michael," the tall guy says.
"Cade," I say, holding out my hand. He returns the handshake.
I look around me, and finally register my surroundings. It looks like we are in a huge RV, and I had fallen from the top bunk of a short bunk bed.
"Two questions. One: I didn't just imagine dying? And two, who is that girl that is passed out cold on the bottom bunk behind me?" I inquired, pointing to the bed. "Oh, I lied, one more question. Where the heck am I?"
"Shut up, kid! Trying to drive here," a grumpy guy barked from the from the driver's seat of the RV.
"Sorry about Mitch, he's awful," whispers Lena. "Legend has it, he was raised by trolls, which explains his temper."
"Legend has it, he's the reincarnation of an old town prospector," Michael adds.
"Forty minutes with me, and you're already spreading rumors through the place! You ungrateful little kids," Mitch grumbles.
"Okay, back on track. Answer one. Simply put, you didn't imagine dying, that's why you felt the pain of it. But I presume it is actually more complicated than that. Answer two, that girl is another person."
     No dip, Sherlock, I thought.
     Michael continues. "We don't know her name, because she knocked herself out when she sat up and whacked her head on the bunk, and answer three, I actually have no clue. Mitch, you care to explain?"
     "No. Simple as that. I don't have time for you little crazy brats. I will tell you all at once once crazy pants wakes up," he snaps. He motions to who I presume to be the unconscious girl, all without turning around and taking his eyes off the road. At least he's a good driver. I hope.
     It's at that moment that I realize we are driving nowhere. As in, the absence of anything. Well, not quite nothing, but it's just fog or cloud, something like that. Yet the GPS is literally yelling at him to "turn left" or "turn right" or "you missed the turn, you dumbass!" I personally like that the GPS is giving him his proper title of dumbass, but seriously, he needs to get it fixed.
     I start to explore the RV, which I find is much larger than a typical RV. Right over the driver's seat and passenger seat is a messily made bed, which I guess is Mitch's bed. I continue  looking, and there is one of those tables that can be made into a bed if needed, and across from that is the kitchenette. Right next to that area are the two built in bunks. Past that is the toilet and sink on one side, and the shower on the other side, and at the end of the RV, which is the thing that makes this stand out from other RVs, is instead of the usual queen sized bed, in place of that is a long window seat, looking out the back onto the nothingness of clouds. I sit down on the seat, and stare. I'd guess there is some kind of time in this world, because the clouds have an orange-ish red hue to them as if the sun were setting. This means it is getting dark. At least that's what I'm guessing. I can't help but think why I died. I mean, I certainly know how I died, but why. Thinking about this reminds me of that night, and I feel instantly transported there.

     It was during the winter, which now seems ironic. My mom, dad and younger brother were at home, decorating for the holidays. Christmas was my favorite time of year, mostly because we got off of school. I was stringing the lights on the tree, my twelve year-old brother was stringing popcorn chains on the tree, and my mom and dad were hanging ornaments. I remember that tree. It was the most beautiful tree we had ever decorated.
     We needed cookie dough, to make cookies for "Santa". Neither my brother or I still believed in Santa and knew our parents ate the cookies after we went to bed, but we made them anyway just for the pure joy we felt when we frosted each other's faces. We lived in a townhouse near downtown, so I went a few blocks to the grocery store. I bought the cookie dough, and while I was walking home I saw a car wreck. The sight was awful. A little Bug rammed a Ford pickup. Inside the pickup was a mother and three year-old. I couldn't not do something. I ran to the mother's aid, and she had gotten out, but her child was stuck in there, and the engine was on fire.
     I burst through that tiny window, and got the child out of the car seat, but the flames licked at my ankles. They crawled up me like snakes, and I smelled burnt polyester and hair. The shirt I was wearing was melting into my skin, and it felt as though I was being fried on a giant metal frying pan. I was coughing up a storm, and I was too weak to get out.
     I remember seeing, vaguely, in a blurry image, a fireman pull me out and put me in an ambulance. Obviously, I didn't make it.

     I snap back into reality, and am startled. I look into my arms, expecting there to be burns and blisters, but there are none. That memory, if you could call it that. It was so vivid. It was awful. I felt like I was dying again. It didn't make sense. But then again, none of this makes sense anymore. I wonder if it's as simple as, "Oh, you died because it was your time." If that's true, then that is the lamest reason for dying, ever.
     "Hey, look who's up! It's Sleeping Beauty!" I hear Michael say.