The Elementals [Watty Awards 2012 Action Winner]

Chapter 12

Chapter twelve:

[Derrek’s POV]

Cold air rushed past my body as Val and I fell towards our most probable deaths. My hair whipped around my face and Val was still screeching and growling at me as she held onto my leather jacket. Screams and gasps of horror filled the night and every cart we fell past a blurry face or two would have no choice but to watch our descent downwards.

I twisted my neck to see the centre of the ferris wheel quickly growing closer and even though Val wasn’t herself, and still trying to attack me despite our plunging into steel bars, I pulled her close to my body and braced for the impact.

My back and shoulder made contact with the ice cold, hard steel and I felt something in my shoulder snap. Instead of breaking me in half as I expected we started sliding in a spiral missing all the steel bars. The rest of my body thudded against what I thought was the steel bar and Val’s head soon followed with a sickening crack. I held Val tighter to me when her body went limp and saw that we were sliding down a spiral slide made of ice. We slid onto the grass and the ice slide melted into rain before it disappeared.

“What on earth happened!?” a tall teacher, who sort of resembled a water nymph, exclaimed.

“Uh...” For some reason I didn’t want to tell them what happened to Val. I wanted to ask her what the hell just happened in private. “We fell”

“You both just... fell?” she asked raising an eyebrow in disbelief. Anger heated through me, why the hell did I give a crap about what she did and didn’t believe. I didn’t!

“Yeah, we just fell! The safety bar was faulty. Now can someone get her off of me? I think I broke my shoulder, and she hit her head hard enough to knock her unconscious” I yelled angrily as I laid on the ground on my back with Val lying on top of me and what seemed like the entire student body crowding around me.

“Derrek! What the hell happened?!” I turned quickly at the sound of Max’s voice and regretted the movement when the pain in my shoulder coursed through my body. I sucked in a breath as I concentrated on not yelling in pain. I felt hands pulling Val from me carefully and saw Coach Shulk carrying her towards the campus. I’m assuming the infirmary.

“Derrek man what happened to Val?” Max asked desperately.

“Well, nice to see you’re concerned about me too” I replied sarcastically wincing in pain when he pulled me up from the ground.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah you’re fine. But what happened? What happened to Val?”

“Keep your panties on, you girl. She’s fine. She’s just unconscious. We were on the ferris wheel and... the safety bar came off and Val panicked then voila. She nearly killed us” Once again I didn’t want to tell anybody what happened and I wasn’t sure if she’d even spoken to Max about her nightmares.

“Geez...  Good thing Ms Flumine was there to catch you two”

“Who?”

“Ms Flumine... she’s our Water Skills teacher and the one who made the slide to catch you and Val. Anyway, let’s take you to the infirmary to check out your shoulder and see how Val’s doing” Max said already turning to the campus.

I sighed and walked with him noticing how the atmosphere of the fete didn’t seem so happy anymore.

***

[Val’s POV]

My head was pounding.

I felt like a concrete truck had decided to reverse over my skull a million times.  At a tortoise’s pace. With an inexperienced driver. Who’s drunk!