Chapter EightFaces of familiar yet unfamiliar children. Their mouths moved and – by the look of it – were shouting. Forbidden words, nonexistent words, blasphemy, lies, random words, cheering booing – I could not hear them. It was black-and-white, but I was in full color. A small group had their mouths open, looking at something behind me, then me, and so forth. Only they noticed. I turned around and saw
My eyes shot open, unsure of where I was. And what had I seen? Something I couldn't quite put my finger on. It was the darkest of all lights, the whitest of all blacks; the color of the colorless, the blank of a page with too much writing; the place where everything parallel intersected without touching. Unless, of course, you called it a contradiction, but it just... clicked with itself. Oh well, I would think about it later. Getting up and out of the bed, I realized there was a bright red notice on the billboard.
Meet Andromeda Group at 10:00 AM @ Fountain
Spend whole day with them
I checked the clock – 9:42 AM. Shrugging, I changed. I picked out dark jean shorts and a white camisole. It was summer, after all.
I knocked on Dec's door, told her about meeting the Andromeda House, and we knocked on the others' doors. By the time everyone was finished it was 9:50, and we rushed down the stairs. I slipped my feet into sky blue flip-flops and held open the door for everyone. Quietly shutting it as to not wake anyone up, we ran out to the center of campus and sat on the fountain, panting. Imoan checked his watch.
“Two minutes early,” he informed us just as several people came. Actually, it was the Andromeda Group. We introduced ourselves and they did so back. Apparently they were a Group rather than a House. A Group was a more informal type that did not matter of the genders as long as they had at least two of each Element.
Katina Delphina Shalafina and Nathanle Jence were the Water Elementals. Derek Madnilla and Coprisma Delight – both boys – were the Fire Elementals. Yellow Caranal and Phelisia Sackama – both girls – were the Wind Elementals, and Juneau Sackna and Grahana Enice were the Earth Elementals.
Katina had short blonde hair streaked with pink highlights and dark blue eyes. Nathanle had brown-red hair and extremely dark blue eyes. Derek had brown hair and brown eyes. Coprisma, on the other hand, had golden brown eyes and a mix of brown/blonde hair, with a layer of brown on top and blonde on the bottom, sorta. Yellow had gray-golden brown eyes and short reddish brown hair that was tied up in a short ponytail. Part of her hair kept covering her right eye, and she shook it away every time and tried to put it behind her ear. Phelisia had pure gray eyes and black-black-black-black hair with blonde streaks (strange, huh?). Juneau's eyes were deep brown and made you feel like you could fall into them. His hair was dyed bright green, which he kept waving around... Crazy person! Yay! Grahana had dark brown hair and piercing green eyes. She seemed shy and tried to hide behind her dark pallor, but her eyes ruined it.
“OH. MY GOSH. IT IS A. CASHMERE. SWEATER.” Yellow squealed in delight and stroked Dec's sweater.
“IT. IS. SOOOO SOFT!!!” Katina joined in. I reached over, petting it, and indeed – It was extremely soft. Om nom nom. Bunnies. (I don't know where that came from, so don't ask me. Maybe you should go and ask the kitchen floor or the rug over there or that plant or maybe the Christmas tree in the corner or – You get the point.)
Soon enough everyone was stroking Dec's sweater except for the boys who were just standing by awkwardly. Even Cerulea was hugging it, and Grahana managed to spaz out for once. I stopped petting the sweater and giggled. “I think you're scaring the boys.”
Indeed, they were making strange faces that looked somewhat like distorted camels. Or maybe turkeys. With a small “aww” from Yellow, they pulled away their hands and everyone was shifting awkwardly again. Aaaah, so much awkwardness!
“Do you guys want to go to Illusion? That, um, park.” I asked quickly, trying to relieve us of the awkward pain.
“Yaaaaay!” Yellow squeaked. I correctly guessed that was a yes, and we ran to the park.
Okay, okay, let's not talk about our little fails along the walk to the park, like when Dec slammed into a tree by accident... AAAAH YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO READ THAT. Now we need to erase that from your memory...
When we finally reached the park, we were breathless... Again. For no reason. The park was closed for some random reason, and I made a face. Back to the drawing board to find something that would relieve us of awkwardness. However, I found that everyone was shoving each other around and pretending to be each other repeating our fails of coming to the park. Laughing, I joined them in their game. We shoved each other and ran into each other like crazy to the point where we ended up in a giant field. Soon, we were screaming like monkey-hyenas, rolling around in the grass.
“Hey...” I said, running up a nearby hill. Laying down on it and tucking my arms together, I threw myself down the hill as fast as I could manage. Colors flew around strange strange mixes – they swirled around and around, but would not go together evenly. I reached the bottom and continued to roll like crazy. Getting up, everything was still spinning, but slowly at this point. Especially that blob over there. Hey, it has yellow hair. Good for it... Wait, that was Dec! Dizzily, I ran up the hill after everyone else. And I can tell you this: It was pretty steep, but flat enough for us to roll down and not have an accident. At the top, we would wait for the person before us to finish before we began to go down, so that we wouldn't crash into each other. After several times, we all felt extremely euphoric and in a dream, so we stopped to catch our breath. Imoan checked his watch and practically screamed.
“Shoot, we're going to be extremely late for lunch if we don't hurry!” He showed me the watch, which read 12:42 P.M. The lines closed at 1:00 P.M. We spent nearly three hours with the Andromeda Group so far... That was weird. Time passes by too quickly.
We ran back, failing a couple times again. When we reached the cafeteria – Grand Centrum Hall, floor twelve – it was 12:50 P.M. Perhaps we should eat our lunch outside of the cafeteria? We hastily received our lunches and ran outside, where the sun greeted us. Looking at each other, we began to laugh. All of our clothes were stained with grass marks where we slid. Yellow's hair was extremely messy and Dec's had some leaves stuck in it. We laughed with each other, almost as though we had known each other forever.
Finishing our lunches, we ran off to explore campus. Katina even stuck her head into the water fountain of the need to wear away the head. She came out, gasping for breath, and I splashed more on her. She did the same, and we had a small splashing fight before running around campus again. When we finally calmed down, we were eating cookies. Yep.
We chatted about randomness and being Elementals. As it turned out, they were starting their training tomorrow with an agent named Jay, a.k.a. Agent Blu3jay. What? Blu/blue three jay? That made no sense, unless the “3” was meant to replace an “e”. Wondering when we were going to start our training, I let the thought go to the back of my mind as the sugar took over. So, the whole day was pretty much spent being crazy.
As I entered my bedroom, I remembered that I needed to know when our training started. Tiredly looking at the bulletin board, I read a brand new blue notice.
Attention Bubble House.
Training begins tomorrow.
Trainer: CJ.
Where: His private training area.
Time: 7:00 A.M.
Shrugging, I put off the thought, changing and putting the grass-stained clothes in the “dirty clothes” dumbwaiter. I sat on my bed and looked through the window that let me see the courtyard with. For a few ten minutes, I just looked outside, watching the stars and the patterns my breath made, those innocent patterns that lasted so few seconds, those little seconds of pride and fame that ended their lives.
My door creaked, and I saw Dec. Her eyes were red from crying as she stumbled in, closing the door. She collapsed on the floor, and tears flowed out for several minutes before she explained.
“My foster parents are dead.”
