Girl At War

Explosions - 2

**Edit 10/8/19: Thank you, DeepalakshmiRadhakri, for supporting and voting on my story :)**

It had all started three months ago, almost four. The morning the courier arrived at their door with that dreaded letter. No, it had started the night before. Talk of the drawings had led bad luck to the Kaleni household. Or did it have to do with the little experiment she had done? She truly didn't know anything, except that her brother was gone, and it was her fault. 

So she thought.

The small room was silent save for the ticking of the clock and slow dripping of liquid. A dark haired girl of fifteen leaned over the table, holding the small bottle in her hands as though it could break. She counted the drops. When it reached six, she carefully tipped the bottle up and put it on a shelf without taking her eyes off the small jar she'd poured into. Outside, the impatient call of a horse reminded her it was getting near time to eat.

She picked up the small container and went out the door, kicking it shut behind her. A slow drizzle came down, but she ignored it, hurrying toward a small, stone cabin nearby. She cradled the container in one arm, and opened the thick oak door with the other.

The place was one room, twenty feet wide, and square. Sheer stone reached up on all sides, and even the roof was stone, curved up in a dome ten feet above her head. The only furniture was a stout iron table and a wooden chair against the far wall. The floor was all stone, cleverly fitted together by an unknown builder. The stone walls had seen much, for this was her testing chamber. She simply called it the Stone House, and only her younger brother knew of it besides her.

She left the beaker on the table and ran back to her first building. Picking up two small bottles, she skipped out again. Her horse, a palomino mare, waited in a grove thirty yards distant, beyond the trees that the girl's small clearing was hidden in. Trees hemmed in the clearing on all sides, and it had been only an accident that Eloyse and Shyden had found the place.

She hurried, conscious she would have to get home soon. She wanted to complete her experiment before she had to go. She had been working up to this for weeks, mixing a little of this and that, until she thought she had what she needed.

She leaned over the container, both little bottles in her hands. Then she took a deep breath, whispering reassuringly to herself. She measured out a small amount of one bottle, and the same amount from the other. Just as she was about to pour them together, she saw the future flashing past.

She saw the stone building gone, charred ashes and broken rocks where it had been. She saw herself in the picture, lying in a crumpled bloody mass nearby. Abruptly, she cut both measurements in half, and poured them in the container before she could duck out of it. For a moment nothing happened, and Eloyse, remembering the vision, suddenly backed up rapidly. The liquid seemed to sit placidly in the container, then everything happened. A blinding flash of light of light burst forth. Something struck her hard, throwing her to the ground, and then everything was gone.

****************

Darkness.

Light.

Pain.

Eloyse felt like she couldn't move. Slowly, her eyes opened. She was not at home, she was nowhere, she deduced. As her mind cleared, she suddenly remembered. She quickly sat up, and instantly regretted it. She was going to be sore. She was buried from her waist down, and a few minutes of digging freed her. Moving gingerly, she got to her feet and examined herself.

She had a cut on her forehead, and blood trickled down in a small, but steady stream. Her left leg ached fiercely, prompting her to look it over. It was not broken or cut, merely bruised. She grimaced.

Not merely bruised, severely bruised. She would be limping for weeks! And if Ma saw the cut on her forehead, she'd be permanently grounded. Not for the cut, she and Shyden were always getting in scrapes of some sort, but for what she'd done. Girls weren't allowed to play with chemicals like that, and she had been experimenting for months now. She found practically her whole body was sore, and she scowled darkly. She wished there was another Malental nearby. She was one, but Malentals couldn't work their healing gifts on themselves, only others. She gently touched her ribs, instinctively knowing a couple were probably cracked.

Eloyse took a deep breath, then winced. Not a good idea with injured ribs. Her eyes went over the wreckage, it suddenly dawning on her that she was lucky to be alive.

"Whoa..." she whispered, her pains forgotten. The Stone House was gone, just as in her flashing pre-vision. The iron table had been blown twenty feet away, and lay there, dented. The stones from the House littered the ground, all heavily scarred and blackened. The stone floor was crushed downward, as though a huge force had stomped it down. She walked around, realizing more and more how nearly she had been killed. She saw a charred splinter of wood, and shuddered when she realized that was all that was left of the oak door. She herself had been thrown nearly thirty feet. She kicked a small piece of iron, the door hinge. The wooden chair was entirely gone.

"Wow." she muttered. It was dusk, and she realized with a start she had a good five miles to get home, and her parents would be worried by now. She grimly smiled; this time, they had reason to worry! She started off at a brisk, limping pace to where she'd left her horse. Almost as an afterthought, she turned back and locked the door on the other building.

Upon reaching where she'd tied her horse, she stopped, amazed and dismayed. Aleska was gone. Her snapped picket rope reminded Eloyse again of the power of horses when they were frightened. The blast must have been louder than she'd thought, and scared the palomino mare. Eloyse stamped her foot angrily, ignoring the pain. Aleska would probably be back at the stable by now! She started walking reluctantly. Her ribs ached with every breath, but then again, compared to the rest of her, they weren't too bad.