Hiding in the shadows

Chapter 14

The rest of the day passes in a blur. Meet Elijah? What for? Once the final bell had rung for the day, I headed to my locker to put away my books and grab my bag when a thought occurred to me. Where was I meant to meet him? I caught the bus home and dropped off a few things before mom and dad finished work. Maybe I should try his house I thought. The walk there felt like forever but when I turned the corner, time went by so fast. I was walking toward the driveway 238 Collins street when something shiny caught my attention. Walking over to inspect it a bit more, a car sped passed me. It must have been going at least 100km in the 60 zone because the force of the wind knocked me over flat onto my butt, but when I turned around to look for the car in the distance, I saw nothing. I shrugged it off, picked myself up then continued towards Elijah's house. Out the front, little Rosa was kicking up the autumn leaves, spinning and twirling and dancing around the yard. Elijah was standing on the front veranda, supervising his little sister.

"Lijhy, Lijhy!!" Rosalina yelled up to her big brother.

Elijah looked up at the sound of his little sisters voice, eyebrows raised in curiosity.

"Lijhy, It's you're girlfriend." She said to him, although a little quieter.

Elijah jogged down the step to the front yard and picked up his little sister, spinning her around above his head before putting her down and saying, "She's not my girlfriend." Then tapped her on the nose, making her give a precious giggle, before walking over to me. I was leaning against a tree at the top of his driveway, but stood up and started to walk towards him when I saw him depart from his sister.

"So," I asked. "What's this all about?"

He said nothing, but motioned with his middle and forefinger to follow him. We walked towards the forest down the bottom of the town but instead of heading down the main path like usual, he made me follow him on a small, beaten path. After about 10 minutes on the path, my curiosity got the better of me.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"We are nearly there, just stay close."

"How much further?"

"About another five minutes."

I let out a sigh and continued to follow him. Eventually we reached a huge kapok tree, and stopped.

"What's this?"

"A kapok tree." Elijah said smartly.

"No shit genius, what are we doing here?"

"Look, I know that night that I pulled you out of the creek that it wasn't because you simply stumbled and hit your head, falling in. I know that the reason you went to the nurses office and was late to class wasn't because you fell and hit your head on the lockers. You see them, don't you?"

"You... you know about them?"

"And what you drew in class today, wasn't chance, it wasn't something random, you drew yourself. But developed."

"Developed?"

"You just have to get training to help your powers come out."

"Wait. Stop. Start from the beginning. What are these things and what do they do?"

"They are called Shagaras. They are creatures born from nightmares and childhood fear. They hide in the dark, they are dressed in black and are extremely hard to kill. For years our ancestors have been stalking them, trying to kill them off so that everyone is safe. Only a few people over the world can see them, which is why it is our duty to keep the Innocents safe. You can temporarily banish them from earth, back to the land of the dark by bringing light on them, which is what you do. You can kill them by using two of the elements power against them. My element is water, yours, as seen today in class, is fire. Learning how to use them is hard, but once you have gotten in control of your powers, it becomes easy. But when one person is by themselves and only has their element, the Shagara can be paralysed. When it's paralysed we generally stitch their mouth shut, because when their mouth is natural, it can unhinge like a snakes, revealing rows of sharp teeth, dripping poison, which turns people into them. There are only two ways to create a Shagara, that is one, the other is when a child is fearing there is a monster under the bed or in the closet, and their parents don't check, because the reason the child is afraid is because they can sense the Shagaras presence, however they can't see them, unless they are like us. They feed on fear, and once they have eaten all of your fear, you end up being just the shell of a human, while your insides turn into black, and when you die, you change."

I was lost for words.

"And this," He said, pointing to the kapok tree, "Is the headquarters for our state. We work here non-stop, trying to track them and prevent them from entering the world of light, our world."

The he opened the hatch in the tree trunk for us to enter .