The Elementals Book One: Beginning [On Hold]

Chapter One

March 17th, 2087

BEEP-BEEP

BEEP-BEEP

BEEP-BE-

A hand slapped the alarm, shutting the dreadful wake-up call off.

A boy, 17 years old, sat up in his shabby bed. Hair a mess, eyes half-lidded, a bit of drool present on the sunken-in pillow.

The boy looked at the now silent alarm. It read 6:30.

6:31.

He groaned to himself at another day of the hellish prison called high school he and about two-thousand other students attended.

He crawled out of bed and checked his clothes in the mirror hanging on the far wall of his bedroom, if that was even a proper description for the place. Worn down furniture, peeling walls and an almost invisible floor as it was covered in trash and junk from many days ago that was never picked up.

Inside the mirror the boy saw a messy bedhead of light brown hair (sometimes shaded red in the sunlight), blend of brown and dark blue colored eyes, a tan complexion, with a few pimples here and there. His face was emotionless, worn down from 17 years of abandonment, depression and lonesomeness. His clothes were tattered, in several places, almost to the point where it was too revealing to wear in public. But what the boy was looking for were signs of any sort of burn mark that happened to appear on his clothes in the middle of the night.

There were none.

Once the routinal, meticulous scanning of his body was complete, the boy grabbed a set of clothing from his chest of drawers, not even giving the clothes a proper look, and made his way into the bathroom to get ready for another long, grueling day of school.

　

The sweet aroma of eggs frying on a skillet filled the boy's nose and surrounding air as he hiked down the creaky stairs wearing a blood-red collared shirt, and faded blue jeans with holes in the knees. His black sneakers squeaked against the wood floor. His hair was far less unruly, but still sticking up in several places, more prominently in the back, though still damp from his morning shower.

The egg smell wafted around him and got ever stronger as the boy entered the somewhat pale kitchen.

"Hey stranger." called the woman standing in front of the stove, flipping the eggs. She wore a black, cotton blouse, with a matching knee-high skirt and high heels. Her long blonde hair cascaded down her shoulders, giving off a sweet scent of a mixture of bananas and mangos. A few locks of her straw-colored hair kept falling out of place, forcing her to either blow it aside or physically move it when her hands were full. She was a beautiful woman, but of course, Eric didn't think of her like that. She was his adoptive mother, the only person who really took a chance with a boy of his kind. She was also only ten years his elder.

"How'd you sleep?"

The boy shrugged, opening the cupboards to retrieve a couple of plates and cups. "No better then usual."

"So basically, your night sucked."

"For lack of a better term, yes." The boy answered in a melodramatic tone.

The woman started piling eggs onto the plates while the boy started filling the cups with milk, opening a chocolate powder pocket into one, emptying a strawberry flavored one into the other.

Soon, the breakfast was officially ready and the teen boy and the older woman sat down to eat.

"So. Eric." The woman addressed the young man as she forked a piece of egg into her mouth, and washed it down with refreshing milk. "How are your grades?"

Eric didn't even look up from his plate of eggs. "Fine."

"You're not failing anything?" she asked skeptically.

Eric shrugged his shoulders.

"C'mon, Eric. Talk to me. I'm trying to have a conversation. You're pushing me away." The woman practically begged.

Eric didn't say anything. He just took a sip of his chocolate milk and stared at his now empty plate, once full of scrambled eggs.

The women glanced at the clock and once again sighed. "It's 6:55. You'd better get to the bus."

Eric nodded and got up, grabbing his pack. He walked past the woman and walked out the door, closing it gently behind him, not saying a word.

The women closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. "Oh Eric." She muttered to herself. "Why are you so distant?"

She then got up and grabbed the empty dishes, dumping them into the rundown kitchen sink to wash later, and climbed back up the stairs to finish getting ready for work.

　

School bus number 598 was definitely not Eric's favorite place in the world. It was always rank, always smelling like rotten beef. It was loud, no one would shut up, event at 7:00 in the morning. And it was chaotic. People couldn't sit down, and they wouldn't stop throwing paper airplanes, spitballs various other tiny objects. Its as if these bunch of high schoolers didn't know the meaning of "maturity." Probably have never even heard of a dictionary. The bus was downright stupid.

Eric walked onto the horrendous transportation vehicle and, after being bluntly ignored by the overweight bus driver, walked down the seating aisle, into the midst of hell's party.

"Hey! It's the anti-social firefly!" one kid named Bryce called, mocking him.

"How's life cooped up in your nest, firefly?"

"Burn any buildings down recently, firefly?"

"Hey, firefly! The hobo called! He wants his clothes back!"

Through all this, Eric stared ahead, slowly making his way to the back of the bus, ignoring all the usual, pointless comments directed at him.

And then, the snobbish brat Zak Thundora had to cross the line.

"Hey firefly! Where's that hot babysitter of yours? She's a scientist right? Well tell her to feel free to analyze me all she wants!" Zak and his bunch of cronies laughed at the stupid joke. "Of course, if she's not too busy splicing atoms with everyone else, if you catch my drift!" and then he spit a spitball directly at Eric. The spitball splattered directly on Eric's cheek.

But it evaporated.

Eric had stopped moving. He turned toward Zak, who was still laughing hysterically along with his friends.

"What's the matter, firefly?" he mocked. "Too busy crying like a baby to respond?"

And for the first time in his life, Eric actually bothered to speak to a piece of scum like Zak.

"No."

Zak grinned. "So he CAN speak!" then he started giggling hysterically once again.

Eric could feel his cheeks heating up, but not from blood rushing to his face, but from something much warmer.

Hotter.

"I'm not crying, Thundora." His eyes changed to a bright red color, redder then blood. "I'm too busy imagining what you would look like when you've turned to ashes. Like a stick in a campfire." Eric growled.

And right then, on both of Eric's hands sprouted bright orange flames, mixed with a hint of red, as if the flames themselves were getting angry, licking their way up Eric's fingers and caressing his palm.

Zak stared with a shocked expression at Eric and his glowing hands. He and his friends were no longer laughing. No one on the bus was speaking.

"Catch." Was all Eric said before he launched two golden-hot fireballs, right into Zak Thundora's frightened face.