Elemental

Chapter 5: Explanation

I wake up in the same room as before, sitting slumped over in a chair. I have another splitting headache; my brain feels fried. Memories come flooding back of the Capitol and my hunt for Brooke. Oh my God, I almost killed her! Guilt fills my mind. Uh- should I tell her I'm sorry? Or would that just sound lame?

"Where am I?" I ask Andrew and Brooke who are sitting across from me.

"You are in my humble abode," says Andrew. "More specifically Brooke's room."

"What happened to me? I felt all weird, like I wanted to, you know, kill Brooke."

"Do you remember what happened right before you acted weird?"

"Yeah... I was in a spotlight in an otherwise dark room and this guy questioned me and then... it was weird. I felt like... like I was frozen, and all these dark thoughts went through my mind."

"That's what I thought. Do you remember what the man looked like?"

"No; he stayed in the shadows so I didn't see his face."

He sighs. "I was afraid of that. Anyway, what happened to you was that you were hypnotized. That man's name is Nage."

"Nah-gay?"

"Yeah; it's spelled N-A-G-E. I knew him from when I was still in the Dawning Sun Society. He did what we called reversing to you. Your strengths became your weaknesses and vice-versa, you had the opposite personality, and you had basically the opposite thought process. When I was in the Society, I had seen its affects many times and had learned the concept of how it was done. You see, for some reason, Nage always uses the same word to hypnotize. Once this word is said, the person being hypnotized will black out for exactly three minutes, then will wake up, completely opposite of normal."

"What's the word?"

"I'll write it out for you. If I say it, you'll just black out." He grabs a nearby piece of paper and writes the following word on it in perfect handwriting:

modsatte

"Now, Aden," Andrew continues. "You must under no circumstances tell anyone this word, or the power behind it."

"I won't. How does Nage hypnotize people?"

He is silent for a moment. "It's hard to explain, but I'll do my best. I assume you know the elements?"

"Yeah: fire, air, and water."

"Ahhh: that's what most people think! But what isn't commonly known is that there is a fourth, evil element. Darkness. It isn't common knowledge because only five people in the world are known to be shadow elementals. One of them is Nage. Shadow elementals are VERY dangerous. They can morph into shadows, so they can be anywhere without you knowing. They can merge with any shadow, where it is your own, one cast by a tree, whatever. Anywhere, anytime. Eavesdropping. Of the five known shadow elementals in the world, all are evil and use their powers for evil. Nage is unique. In the Capitol, he is the President's adviser, but we called him the puppeteer. The President takes his advice very seriously and will basically do whatever he says. Anyway, when Nage realized he was a shadow elemental, he did a lot of experimenting, especially after joining the Dawning Sun Society. Soon, he realized when he touched someone's head as a shadow, he had access to their memories and emotions. He could make you think all those terrible thoughts, make you feel cold, and even control your body. When he became part of the Society, he had many more 'lab rats' to test on, people the President wanted tortured for information and such. Soon, Nage realized if he said that word while touching a person's 'mind', he could hypnotize them into the opposite of their personality. I don't even know how he came up with the word modsatte and why that word works. Anyway, Nage introduced a new kind of Society. Instead of just killing the people they needed information from, they could just have Nage read their minds. Then, Nage can turn them into more minions. It's a win-win for the Society."