The Elementals : The Dawn of Darkness

Chapter 4 - My First Flame (Consciously Anyway)

"Can someone warn me if Sheira's going to kill me?" I asked down at breakfast the next day. "I just need to know what form of pain and torture I'm going to be exposed to."

It was a bright summers day, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and I was due for my first training session to channel my elemental powers in my life. I'd been asking for tips all morning from the rest of Fire Cabin and their advice was as varied as 'Stay patient and calm' to 'Try not to blow anything up'. From the brief history lessons, I had received and the relative new quality of every building, nothing lasted long here.

"Don't worry about it," said Sophie. "You'll be fine."

"You'll be in utter agony by the end of the day, but other than that, perfectly fine."

"Thanks Chip."

Yeah, my fellow cabin mates were taking this opportunity to wind me up, but I felt kind of good about the whole situation. For starters I slept like a rock last night, which was surprising all things considered, and when I woke up the first rays of light were creeping into through window. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and I felt alright with the world.

Okay that's going a bit poetic, as what actually happened was I was given a minor heart attack by Chip and Sophie bursting into my room at six in the morning carrying a massive, bulging bin bag with them. It turns out the rest of Fire Cabin had been up till midnight tearing up the entire camp to find me something decent to wear. They had scrounged through lost property, begged for donations and bribed a few people to hand over their newly bought goods. To cut a long story short, I was eternally grateful to the guys, staying up till way past curfew just to make sure that I wasn't going to be wandering around Camp in the nude. Plus, it was pretty fun trying on all the different outfits and sharing a good laugh about some of the more... outlandish donations.

In the end I ended up with a decent haul; four t-shirts, two pairs of jeans, the hoodie that Chip insisted that I keep, a waterproof jacket, a new pair of trainers that made me notice that the housekeeping jar wasn't as full this morning, and thank the lord for Chip who ran down to the nearby shops at five in the morning to buy me some clean underwear. But by far the best find of the evening a pair of hard leather, combat boots. They had been discovered in one of the old training rooms, buried under a pile of disused equipment and thoroughly caked in mud. After a quick scrub, by paying Earth to remove most of the mud, and getting rid of the smell, curtesy of Water and Air, the housekeeping jar was now at half contents, but I had a badass pair of boots that I swore I was going to keep whether they fit or not. They were just my size, worn down just enough to be comfortable and probably the best footwear for being thrown around by one of the Camp's best known Veterans.

It was seven o'clock in the morning and the rest of Camp was tucking into breakfast, Flame was gnawing away happily on a rack of ribs, species unknown, letting the sound of crunching echo up from below the table. At least he was enjoying his breakfast, I didn't know how to get mine. There were no tables, or jugs or an all you can eat bar there were just the cutlery and the crockery sitting empty in front of me. I certainly wasn't eating that. I looked around, everyone else had their plates full to the brim. Leela saw me looking.

"Let me show you," she picked a stone tablet and handed it to me. Various meals were carved into the stone. "It's really simple." Obviously not enough for me. "You choose what you want and tap the sigil next to it." I scanned the list.

"Don't go for anything too greasy!" yelled a boy named Vincent from down the table.

I took his warning and decided on a bagel with scrambled eggs and salmon. I tapped the sigil. A matching sigil on my plate suddenly flared red and were a flash of light my plate was suddenly full. I nearly dropped the tablet in shock. I picked up the bagel and took a bite out of it. The bagel was toasted to perfection, the eggs were soft and golden, and the salmon was melt in your mouth amazing. It was delicious.