Elements of Freedom

Chapter Eleven

56 Years Ago

25th August 2010

The fresh but brisk air was almost visible in front of my eyes, it's subtle touches upon the snow covered mountains mesmerized me. The lack of noise and brick buildings laid out across the land, forced a smile to appear on my face.

"Happy?" A warm and loving voice whispered into my ear, followed by comforting arms wrapping around my stomach. Before handing him my reply, thoughts shot through my mind. Do I lie? Do I tell the secrets I've tried so hard to protect him from? I mentally slapped the thoughts away and reminded myself that I was happy. I could be happy. I would be happy. I wasn't being controlled. I had control over the power I possessed, and he was safer not knowing. So much safer. This same conversation with myself was one I had frequently. It was the only way I could convince myself that I was the only one controlling my actions, my powers and my life.

"Of course." I whispered back to him, closely following his gaze to a small log cabin that was hidden between a clump of peculiar looking trees.

"I'm glad. Now, seriously, can we please remove the last box that has been in the kitchen for the past two weeks, or is that it's permanent home now?" My husband stared me down with the look that I couldn't help but give in to.

I took several steps and reached the double doors which led to our freshly decorated, wooden floored home and it's open planned layout. Breathing in, I felt a slight sense of serenity and waves of achievement. We had built so much together, achieved so much, we had dreamt of doing a million things, and with this house, those goals were reachable.

"This isn't you. Give in, you know you can't fight it, Terra."

After the initial shock of hearing an icy voice that I had managed to block out for the past three months, I twisted my body on the spot to check that she hadn't been heard. Looking around, everything appeared to be calm and normal. My husband, J, was sitting on our light brown picnic table drinking a gradually chilling vanilla latte while clearing admiring the small pond that sat on the land ahead of our house.

"You have no idea who I am and what I can fight." I hissed back at the voice that no one else seemed to hear.

"You must be kidding yourself if you really believe that." She seemed to have a voice that was like needles in my ears, which also had the effect of making my blood want to freeze and escape out of every possible crevice.

"Please, just leave me alone."  The tone of desperation seeped through into my words, making me seem weak and scared. A feeling which I tried to hide and bury so deep in my body that it was almost impossible to find. The power she seemed to hold over me was something I could not understand. If I let my weaknesses loose, then she had me, like a noose around my neck. She would choke every ounce of goodness out of me. I would be no better than a raved, hungry animal forever kept on a chain with no hope of freedom. For this very reason, I used my entire strength to maintain a strong stature. She began as my friend from the age I learned to lift my own head. She was someone who taught me about what I was, and what I could become. But as soon as I had been taught how to use my powers and had been taught about the history of our 'species', I could feel her grip on me tighten, I could feel myself turning into something different, something hard and unforgiving. Something I couldn't control. I spent my teenage years trying to convince my family that I wasn't crazy, and that someone was trying to turn me bad. So, they sent me to a psychiatric ward. From then on, I lied. I took the pills they gave me. I told everyone what they wanted to hear. I told them that I was better. That the voice had gone. 

Secrets, lies, and the ominous voice. Those three parts of my life were the most dominant. They ruled me. 

I found myself unintentionally pacing back and forth passed the lonely box that was collecting dust in the corner of our new kitchen. My eyes fixed on its rough edges, the slight tears in at least five random spots of the box, and gradually they shifted to the warm coloured wooden panelled floor beneath my bare feet. 

"Terra! Seriously?" My gaze had been broken in time to see J standing beside the box, with his arms folded, and his mouth open as if he were shocked about my lack of box moving motivation. This was, afterall, our third move in the last ten months. I shot him a smile, and kicked the lightweight box from the corner and into the candlelit hallway. 

"I called the electrician, he can come tomorrow. Will you be home?" J spoke to me as he reached down a mug from a cupboard that was above his head. 

"Nothing better to do in the land of the freezing." The words left my mouth, and I prayed that he could sense my sarcasm, and ignore the offense it could have caused. 

"Thank God I didn't marry you for your humour. Or at least your attempt at it." He rolled his emerald eyes in my direction and wiggled his behind as an attempt to make me laugh at how 'obviously' funny he was - in the mean time, almost dropping the ivory patterned mug that he was holding in his hand. Laughter erupted from both our mouths instantly. His efforts at humour were just as disastrous as my own at times, which made the situation all the more hilarious.

"Lovely, Terra. So lovely that we'll save him until last." She popped out of nowhere, again. I felt hot, raging anger bubble up inside me, almost spilling up to the surface. I couldn't seem to put a lid on my rage. It was rising with every breath I took, and every millisecond that ticked by.

"I told you, get out of my life! You don't fucking control me! You're not a part of me or my life, and I'm not a mother fucking part of you or whatever plan you have!"

I let go. I let it all go.

I heard my screams bounce off of the walls, and I felt myself and my anger radiate around the room, and out of the doors. I didn't stop running until I knew that I was alone, or at least away from anyone I could potentially hurt.

"Feels good, doesn't it? Feel the power inside yourself. You can have more, you can have it all. I am the key that will let you access it all, all the power possible." She was echoing around my head, and around the air that surrounded me.

It was suffocating me. I felt my control weaken, and my hands began to shake by my sides. The trees behind me fell to the ground with no mercy on my ears. The newly exposed soil rose up and flew across the land, hitting the far away mountains. My lungs did not stop releasing the screams. The pent-up anger spurred out of my very core, and brought down the first of many tall mountains. The sides crumbled away and started to shatter downwards. The clouds of snow settled in the air and landed in various unexpecting places. Several other larger mountains followed, I couldn't stop it. The chunks of mountain began to run through the land. They got close to a nearby large log cabin home. The pieces didn't stop, they kept sprinting closer. Before my next breath, they hit, the parts of four mountains demolished the house. My house was in ruins. My husband was sure to be buried beneath what I had started.

I didn't feel a thing, only power and anger.

"I told you, you can't fight it."