Element

✭ Chapter 53

My eyes flutter open to the eerie noise of wind rushing through the treetops. Snow flutters to the ground, pushed from its resting spots on upper branches by the strong breeze. Fortunately, the thick layer of broken branches surrounding the base of the tree breaks most of the wind. I shift uneasily on the ground, trying not to disturb my other teammates curled up around the trunk of the tree. My ears and nose are ice cold, but the seemingly magical fabric my suit is made of miraculously kept my body warm all night.

I carefully sit up, and the crunching of the ground beneath me is magnified, echoing in the muffled silence of the forest. Kneeling beside the "walls" of our shelter, I remove a branch, revealing an opening to the clearing. I crawl out and take a deep breath of the icy cold early morning air.

Calum and Lystal are sitting adjacent to the desolate fire pit, side by side. They talk earnestly, Lystal using lots of gesticulations to prove a point. Calum just stares at her over exaggerated hand movements and starts laughing softly.

"What?" She says, even though I can't hear them.

Calum just shakes his head, looks down at his lap, and continues their conversation. But he's smiling.

Good to know our captains are... friends. I smirk to myself.

The wind picks up even more. I feel it rushing down from the slopes of the mountains in the middle of the arena to the valley, bringing with it the freezing temperature. It's going to be difficult to fly today if this keeps up.

I hear boots crunching behind me, and I whip around. My teammates have begun to wake up, stretching their legs from a night of being cooped up beneath a tree. It looks sort of funny, seeing person after person emerging from the little ground-nests we built. At least they worked.

Lystal and Calum walk towards the shelters, where everyone is milling around, yawning and stretching. "Okay, get into your groups from last night. Shelter-making group, disassemble the shelters. Make it so we were never here..." Lystal says with a grin.

The camp slowly comes to life, as people head out to find food, discuss rebuilding the fire, and take apart the shelters. I grab a branch in each hand and fly up the side of the tree, strategically placing them so they look like they're still a part of the tree. Thankfully, most of the branches used were dead, dry branches. We can just use them as firewood, eliminating the need to disguise them.

Eventually, the food group returns with berries. Lots of berries. "We found a bigger berry patch a ways back," a girl reports, beaming. "They're really good. We have a lot more than last night."

The fire-making group was able to catch a handful of small fish when they finished restarting the campfire, and so the fish and berries are evenly distributed. We sit around the fire and cook our small portions of fish, and stain our hands a reddish-purple color while we munch on the fruit. The wind and quickly-flowing river make quite a racket, and we almost have to shout now to talk. Our fire is nearly blown out a few times, but we hurriedly protect it with a bubble of calm air.

Suddenly, an extremely loud crack echoes from the mountain side. Everyone looks up, immediately tensing. Some even spring to their feet. Silence seeps into the previously lively camp, spreading fear and anticipation like poison through veins.

And then it happens. A low rumbling shakes the ground and the trees begin to shake. We can see a whole mountain side of displaced snow surging towards us. Trees in the distance are bowled over as if they hold no resistance to the might and power of the avalanche.

"EVERYONE UP!" Lystal's shrill voice somehow cuts over the rumbling of the snow, and just seconds before the surge of snow capsizes the trees around us, we jump into the air.