One

Chapter Four: Will the Wise

Phina instantly sees Joyce's car as she screeches to a stop in the grass. She copies Joyce, tearing up the grass as she drifts to a stop next to Joyce's car. Joyce gets out of the car, clearly distraught, slamming her car door a little harder than necessary.
"Joyce? What's happening," Phina asks.
"I don't know," she answers, rushing towards the front doors of the school.
Phina rushes after her, worry eating away at her now. If Joyce was here, something bad was happening.
They run to the AV club room, but the kids aren't there. Phina's worry climbs to an unhealthy level. They better be ok or I'll kill them.
The girls hear the kids yelling somewhere off in the school. Phina's heart clenches, they are yelling for Will. After what happened last year, well, Phina could only hope it wasn't happening again.
They run towards their voices, Dustin's in specific since he was the loudest. They walk down a hall and Dustin and a redheaded girl, Billy's little sister, walk around a corner.
"Will," Dustin yells.
"Dustin," Joyce asks.
He looks at them, "Ms. Byers? Phina?"
"What's going on? Where's Will," Joyce asks.
"Mike called the emergency line," Phina says, "are you guys ok?"
Suddenly, Lucas runs through a door to their right, he is breathing heavily, "the field."
They all run without a thought, following Lucas outside. When they are out the doors, they see Will standing in the middle of the field with Mike.
"I just found him like this," Mike yells at them, "I think he's having another episode."
As they get closer they see Will is frozen, his eyes closed. Joyce gets to him first, running closer to him.
"Will? Will." She grabs his shoulders. "Will? Sweetie? Wake up, it's mom! Will?"
Phina steps towards them, "Will? Will come on, wake up."
She places her hand on his shoulder and her entire body tenses up. She falls through darkness, coming out in the upside down, a place she recognized all to well, all to quickly.
She stands in the middle school field, at least twenty feet away from where she was previously standing. Her head pounds at the sudden, transportation? She wasn't quiet sure what just happened.
Phina hears a roaring wind behind her and she whirls around. She freezes in place at what she sees.
   A giant monster made out of shadows, one long tenticle reaching down to cover something in its darkness. In utter horror, Phina realizes that this thing is the monster she drew last year, the one that might snuff out her flame, her.
   She hears a choking scream and she remembers why she is there, Will. He was trapped in the shadows of that thing. Phina doesn't remember beginning to run, but she is running faster than she has ever ran before.
   She gets to the shadows and tries to run into it, to get Will and run, but she is thrown back by the strengthened wind.
   She flies backwards and hits the ground, hard. Phina groans as she pushes herself back to her feet. She glares at this thing, if it wanted to use wind, she'd use her own.
   Phina lifts her hands from her sides and her wind affinity answers, making a protective barrier around her. She runs towards the shadows again, and this time, her wind battles back the shadow's, letting her through. In the center, stands Will. The same shadows that surrounded him, were going down his throat.
   "Will," she screams.
   He can't hear her. Phina looks all around them, towards the darkening shadows, how the hell was she supposed to fight a shadow? And then it hit her, how do you fight darkness, light. She turns her back towards Will, wanting to send everything forward so he wouldn't get caught in the crossfire.
   She lifts her arms in an x formation in front of her face, to do this, she was going to have to let her air barrier fall. Time for a count down.
Three. She steadied herself, positioning herself into a stronger stance.
Two. She took a deep breath, her eyes beginning to glow as she prepared herself.
One. The wind barrier dropped and she unleashed herself, a war cry leaving her lips.
   Bright, golden flame lit up the shadow. The shadow retracts, letting out a loud, painful growl. Phina's flame grows hotter becoming emerald. The shadow tentacle starts to fly back towards her, and the image is to familiar. A shadow, an emerald flame.
   The shadow is growing closer and closer every second. 
One, ten feet away.
Two, six feet.
Three, two feet.
   And then Phina is gasping awake, back in the normal world. She lays on the ground, staring up at the sky. Joyce was holding Will, ten feet away from Phina. The kids stand behind them, their eyes wide as they watched her.
   Phina groans as she sits up, her entire body ached, her muscles all tense. She lifts her hands to her aching skull, rubbing her temples with her eyes closed.
   "What happened," she croaks, her voice sounded like she had been screaming.
   No one answers her, she slowly opens her eyes and she sees the reason they took no steps towards her. She sat in an eight foot circle of withered grass that turned to char as it got closer to her.
   Her own eyes were wide as she looked at Mike, "did I hurt anyone."
   He shakes his head no, but doesn't answer. Phina looks at the boys, to Max. She was staring at Phina in a mix of wonder, and, to Phina's heartbreak, fear. Phina then looked towards Joyce and Will, Joyce had put herself between Will and Phina, so I wouldn't hurt him, Phina thought to herself.
   Phina slowly stood from the ground, staring down at her hands in horror, she could have hurt them. Her powers were growing stronger everyday, she was losing control. What would she do if she had hurt her kids, Joyce. 
   "Phina," Joyce asks, "are you ok."
   Phina continues to look at her hands, she would never forgive herself if she did anything to them. She needed to get away, before she lost control again.
   "I have to go."
   Phina began walking away, her head down.
   "Phina," Mike asks.
   Phina picked up her pace.
   "Phina, come back," Joyce says.
   And then she is sprinting. The kids all yell for her to stop, but she doesn't. She runs all the way to her bike, and within seconds she is on the road. Her eyes welled with tears as she realized she didn't know where to go. She couldn't go home, what if she lost control and hurt her mom, Holly. She couldn't find Nancy or Jonathan, what if she hurt them. Phina had always made herself the protector of her family, but now she might be the one to protect them from.

-1152 words-
Not the best chapter but I hoped you all liked it. I wanted to put in a little more of Phina's power in a fighting stand point. Obviously I'm not that good at it, if you have any pointers let me know!
-Morgan