Fire, Earth, Water, and Storm

Chapter One - The Email

It started with the Dumpsters.

So one evening I'm sitting on my desk (don't judge; it's totally been my thing since second grade) with my laptop doing science homework (a chemistry essay) when I get a creepy email from a random address.

"Dear Aeris:

"Meet me by the salad bar two days from now at 12:18 pm PST in the western lunch building. Very urgent. There are things I can't say over an unsecured network, including my name. Trust me.

"~F"

He knows my name, was all I could think for a few moments. He knows my name. Either he was a stalker...or a guy who noticed me. I was not the type of girl that guys noticed a lot; lightish dishwater blond, plainish blue-gray eyes, pale skin, smallish stature. I blended in with just about every high school girl in my city.

I sighed. I was a terrible decision-maker, and, at this rate, I'd never figure out anything.

I clicked open my iCloud program and checked to see if my friends were online. Wynn, Fiona, and Titania were my absolute best friends in the world. Well, and yeah. Kind of my only friends, outside of my cousin Flora, my dog Cobby, and my sort-of-not-really-boyfriend-slash-boy-friend, Tyler, and my actual boyfriend, Elijah.

Fiona is super gorgeous, with actually green eyes (mine only look green in certain lights). Titainia's stockier and more muscular than I am (she works out for 60 minutes a day, I walk from class to class and catch the best home instead of running, like her). She's not chatty, so as Mr. Brown (one of my English teachers) would say, she's stoically silent. Or something like that. Wynn is the most like me, only with longer legs and longer hair. And she's way smarter, and a heck of a lot more graceful. I wear Converse; she wears heels. I match jeans with some sort of solid-colored top; she goes all out in a ultra-cute miniskirt I could never pull off and (usually) an equally cute top, or occasionally a dress.

I don't wear dresses.

So in short, Wynn is a waaay sexier me. Also, not really that much like me now that I think about it.

We were all born in consecutive months in the same year. Fiona is February; Titania March; Wynn is a gorgeous April flower, and yeah, I'm a shrimpy May shower. Even though it's supposed to be the other way around, I think.

But anyways, I pulled up iCloud and checked for my friends. My super-restrictive mom (who won't let me get a cell phone - even though I turned sixteen six months ago - a tattoo, or let me cuss) makes me stay on the school network. I scrolled down a list of maybe 50 or so people, mostly strangers, until I reached "Hunt, Titania". I clicked on a random open chat room ("The White Star Line" - lame!) and sent her an invite.

The stupid "school network" is supposed to be "safer" because it can read all our IM's. And it makes everyone - and I mean everyone use their real - freaking - names. And the yearbook photos - they even managed to screw up Wynn's picture.

I looked like something from under the dryer.

Bleh.

"Hey," I typed at Titania."

"Hey," she said back.

"I have to tell you something real quick."

"Hang on, I pulled my finger wrong. Turning on my camera."

Titania's short black hair and athletic, tanned skin flickered into view as I clicked "accept video call". Another window popped up, covering the rest of my research. I l clicked to try and close "The White Star Line" but accidentally X'd out my essay,

Whatever. It wasn't going well anyways,

"OK. Spill," said Titania.

"i got this super creepy email from a guy who calls himself 'F', and-"