ForestLands Institution

Chapter | 7√

Later that evening, Nadia knocked twice on her teacher's door and went inside after she told her to come in.

"Miss Campbell, you said I should meet you after closing," Nadia reminded.

"Oh yes!" Miss Campbell - Their earth Elementalist teacher - exclaimed, putting away all the papers on her desk before standing up.

"Follow me," she told Nadia, walking past her and entering a room connected to the office.

The room was neither tiled nor cemented but covered with soil in which plants, flowers, short fruit trees, and shrubs were planted. Colorful birds flew around while some rested on the trees. A clear crystal lake rested in the middle with a stone pathway over it, which led to a boulder erected from the middle of the lake. On the boulder, a crystal orb sat.

The teacher instructed her to walk towards the orb and to place both her hands on it. She did as instructed.

"Ok Alexandra," Miss Campbell started. "I want you to close your eyes and focus hard on your environment, draw energy from the nature around you and transfer that energy to the orb. Understood?"

Nadia nodded her head then closed her eyes and started to draw energy from nature and into the orb. Guess, the lessons with Abhay these past few days paid off.

It was relaxing, and peaceful even until a ringing started in her ear, voices started and pain flooded her head. She tried to let go of the orb but she couldn't, her hands were stuck, and blood flowed from her nose, eyes, and ear. She could hear someone shouting her name but it felt so far away, then the memories started.

"How many times have I warned you, Nadia, to stop picking fights with people?!" Nadia's Mother shouted.

Seven-year-old Nadia sat in the back seat, her arms folded and fuming quietly, her mother scolding her from beside her. Her parent got called by the principal that she had picked a fight with a girl in her class called Stacey. She had a busted lip, and swollen cheek and her hair was messy.

"She started it first, she was making rude comments about my skin color!" Nadia defended herself.

Her mother massaged her temple."You ignore Nadia! I've told you many times to ignore but you won't listen!"

"Give the girl a break, Zoeya," her father gently said.

"A break?!" Her mother screeched. "If we don't do anything about this, very soon we are going to find her on the street picking up a fight with everybody!"

"This is your fault, Michael!" Her mother chided.

"My fault!?" the father exclaimed in disbelief.

"Yes, if you are so strict with her and don't pamper her as you do, she won't be behaving like this!"

The argument started, and the parents were screaming at each other.

Little Nadia covered her eyes whispering stop over and over again.

"Stop,"

"Stop,"

"Please stop,"

"The noise,"

Then she screamed out, "Stop!"

The father had to swerve the car to avoid the tree that fell in front of the car on the road. Unfortunately, the car strayed off the road and went down the hill. Nadia's mother quickly shielded her with her own body, preventing the scattering glass from hurting her. The car tumbled down the hill to the ground.