Fire to Water | Teen Ink

Fire to Water

November 30, 2013
By Zen.Taylor BRONZE, Middletown, Delaware
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Zen.Taylor BRONZE, Middletown, Delaware
2 articles 0 photos 1 comment

Favorite Quote:
"No matter what you are, be a good one"


The cool breeze blows through my shaggy hair and I feel the warm sun on my back. With every step I take sand fills in between my toes. The sun sets over the water and the sky turns the shade of royal purple. This is paradise, unfortunately at the same time it is a lie. My eyes flash open and immediately squint due to the harsh sunlight flooding into my room. I yawn and sit up; I look about the room. My clock tells me its 6:23 AM and I know soon the alarm will ring and I will have to get to work. I slide down over the side of my old, ragged bed and it releases a loud rusty squeak. My feet feel frozen on the stone floor so I dance over to the corner of my room where my clothes lay folded trying to keep in minimum contact with the floor. Quickly I cram my feet into my trusty old pair of shoes that have been, for a long time, too small for me. Then I change into my Monday through Thursday shirt. My clock hits 6:30 and the bell starts ringing waking up all the late risers. My cell door slides open and I walk out into the hall.

My name is Akva and I am Prisoner number 564 at this facility for so-called “special” people. We reside in an undisclosed location somewhere in the Brazilian forest. There are a large amount of people here and the facility is completely self-sufficient so there is no trace whatsoever. When children go missing and end up on a milk carton there is a very good chance that they could be coming here. You see the facility was originally set up for the United Nation’s prison for terrorist known worldwide, slowly but surely the definition of terrorism changed. After a couple of incidents of people going into buildings and sending magnetic charges blowing it up and people getting mad and sending a great mass of water and wind up the coast, being passed off as hurricanes, the government labeled people with abilities as terrorist and we were sent to this facility. Soon all kids with abilities were sent away which is how I got here.

A few years back I was with a few friends I was only eleven at the time and did not know how to swim. My friends were determined though and offered to teach me, so we all jumped in and I was doggie paddling as fast and strong as I could. I did stay up for a little, until I wasted all my energy and slipped under. I plummeted down and I saw several hands reaching for me, but they missed. I sank further and further down into the darkness. My eyelids felt heavy and I only dropped them for a second but when I opened them back up everything was clear, I could see perfectly. It wasn’t until this time that I noticed that I hadn’t taken a breath for a while. My mind raced trying to figure out what was happening. My first thought which many may be is am I dead, I pinched myself and felt pain so that obviously wasn’t it. Naturally my next idea was that I was some sort of Nymph so I felt my neck but surely enough no gills. I thudded on the bottom and had no idea on what to do; I sat there and sat there stunned for what must have been hours until I got hungry. I stood up and looked around lurking in the rocks hid and eel, I’ve had eel in the past but never raw, I heard that raw food could kill you. Then again I also heard drowning has the same effect. So I pounced on the slimy thing and bit its head off so that it would stop wriggling. It was surprisingly good. I lived like this for maybe a month until. A submarine came by and my first animal instinct was to play dead so I lay down on the smooth stone. Then the lights of the machine shone on me and I fought hard to control my urge to dash. It picked me up with careful claws and carried me as we ascended to the surface. When I popped back up and started to run the person who brought me up shot me several times thinking he was saving the world from a zombie apocalypse. Only I didn’t die the water healed me, I wasn’t fit enough to even lift one finger but I was still alive. Stunned the man took me to the hospital, I was put in the emergency room and he was put in an asylum. Later that night a tall dark man in a trench coat came and took me away to this place where I’ve lived for almost four years now.

As we all file into the mess deck I met up with the people I usually hang out with during meals. There were two girls Fajra and Ŝirmi, as well as two guys Vento and Forto. Each of them had their own supernatural experience Fajra had a cold, sneezed and burned down a village. Ŝirmi jumped off a building because she couldn’t bear life anymore and left a crater the size of an asteroid in the ground. Vento showed his friend he could fly and his friend spread the rumor. Forto got into a fight in kindergarten over legos and threw someone through a wall.
“You ready?” Fajra said to Forto.
“Ready.” Forto replied.
“Ready for what? What’s happening?” Ŝirmi said worriedly we all knew any attempts of anything that would make us stand out would end in harsh punishment. We all ducked our heads down and Vento explained what was going to happen.
“We are all going to go do our chores when Morto is going to raise a few dead kids from the foundation. To do this he gives a portion of his life to each person he brings, doing this in mass it will probably kill him. During all this chaos the guards from the east wing will rush over to tackle the undead. Then Forto will break down the wall, I will fly down grab Forto, Forto will grab Fajra, Akva, and Ŝirmi. Ŝirmi will put a shield up around us. As we fly away there will definitely be shots fired so Fajra and Akva will shoot water and fire back taking out the towers. Then we will –“ Vento cut off suddenly when a guard spoke from behind him.
“What are you talking about” he asked with a malicious smile and Russian accent.
“That joke, have you heard it. The one about the seagull” I said with a little nervous laughter.
“No, amuse he” The guard responded, sure he was about to make a bust.
“Why does the seagull fly over the sea” Ŝirmi questioned
“Why”
“Because if it flew over the bay it would be a bagel” at this point Forto actually cracked up laughing and everyone else gave a little grin.
“That was surprisingly clever, now eat so you can work, you have 2 minutes” For the rest of the meal, which didn’t last long, we ate in silence.

The second alarm of the day went off and we all shuffled to our first chore of the day. Mine was cleaning the floors of the east side of the facility. We were all on the east side in the morning which actually made chores a lot easier because of the sunlight that creaked through the cracks in the walls. The lights flickered on and I knew the kids with an uncanny ability over electricity were going to work. Echoing through the facility I hear the screams of children being whipped. I couldn’t help but to get angry, my emotions got the best of me and the water I was using to scrub the floor turned to ice. As it turned solid the water expanded and broke the bucket. A shiver ran up my spine as I imagined the whipping I would get for this, but then the earth started to rumble and I was thankful for the first time. We get earth quakes fairly frequently around here, this time though I knew it wasn’t tectonic plates but the bones of children sealed into the walls breaking out to follow the command of Morto.

Forto ran past me and smashed open the wall that had the most sunlight flowing through it then Farja, Ŝirmi, and Vento came running down. I stood up and started running as well. Forto grabbed Farja, Ŝirmi, and I then Vento shook his shoulders releasing his Green bat like wings as he grabbed Forto and flew out the hole. Ŝirmi opened a one way shield so that stuff could go out but not come in. Farja and I Turned around and saw people diving into the moat, absorbing into the electric fence, flying away. But I also saw hundreds of children lying dead on the ground. I looked up just in time. A large flaming ball was heading toward us, I didn’t even try to do anything but when I instinctively raised my hands to my face a wave of water came from the moat to douse and reflect the object on fire. Finally we were out of the artilleries reach but not out of the range of the painful screams.
“Guys” Vento said obviously strained
“I can’t hold us much longer, I’m going to start to descend we won’t make it to the city.” Then we started to drop at a pace a bit faster than comfortable. Ŝirmi anticipated a crash and removed our top protection so she could reinforce our bottom layer. We touched down with minimal discomfort.

For the first time I took in my surroundings we were in a forest with a light dew setting in. the sound of creatures stirring and cawing echoed through the trees. I turned behind and saw everyone surrounding Vento. I ran over and asked what was wrong.
“He dislocated his arm carrying all of us to safety” Farja replied quickly. Vento was laying on the ground crying in pain, his wings stretching and straining from torture.
“So much for not bringing attention to ourselves, if we walk into town carrying a twitchy, whining, winged boy we’re bound to attract eyes.” Forto said bitterly. We all helped Vento to his feet because he was incapable of any use of his arms without intense pain. A noise came bustling toward us from the brush and out emerged a large boar. Quickly we armed ourselves with fire, water, boulders, and a weird indescribable purple energy that Ŝirmi had power of. Then Vento fell back over and a loud crack sounded followed by a moan, he was unconscious and bleeding out, at least he couldn’t feel the pain any more. The Boar stood up on its hind legs and went through a horrifying transformation to a human he appeared to be only four or five years older than us.

“My name is Formoj. We do not have much time come quickly before they capture us, you’ve made too much noise.” He said in a whisper
“Why should we trust you?” I questioned still armed
“Because Akva we are the same only difference is I was not captured by Teruro the man secretly leading the UN’s terrorist capture division by bribery. Now come their sweeping the forest for anyone they don’t care if they’re regulaj or kapablo, let’s go!” I looked at the group they seemed convinced so we dropped our weapons, picked up Vento and Formoj started tapping people on the head each person he tapped each one of us we started shrinking into birds, except for Vento who became a mouse. I lifted my wings and spun around inspecting myself when suddenly a voice came to me and it echoed through my skull, it kind of sounded like Formoj’s.


I waddled over to Vento who was still unconscious, picked him up carefully with my three toes and started to flap my wings slowly I started to ascend to the sky which was at this point turning a purple and orange color. It’s beautiful; I haven’t seen a sunset for almost four years when I was eleven. After about an hour of flying in the dark Formoj spoke up again.
I angled myself a couple of degrees downward and I started to glide down. I felt like I just dived into water and when I came back out there was a large castle, bigger than the facility I was in before. Formoj led us to a landing pad as soon as all of us touched down we all turned backed to human.

“The castle has been protected so that no abilities can be used inside to avoid accidents, now pick up your friend we’ll drop him off at sick bay then go to enrollment.” Farja and I picked up Vento and Ŝirmi questioned him.
“What make you think we’re staying?”
“Would you rather go out there and be caught by Teruro’s goons.” He asked rhetorically and turned to walk down the steps. We dragged Vento down the steps after him and around a couple of corners until we reached a room labeled Malsana Golfeton, we dragged Vento inside and briefed the nurse on what had happened. Then Farja, Ŝirmi, Forto and I followed Formoj to an office labeled Akceptoj.
“What language is this.” Forto asked
“Esperanto, it’s a now dead language used in old Brazil and some parts of ancient Europe. You will learn it in your classes” We approached a desk at which an old lady was sitting
“Sinjorina, I have four new students with abilities for you.” Formoj said to her
“Ok, send them to the back room we’ll take their picture and then each one will say their name, gender, age, and power so we can create a student ID.” We all walk back to the room and got our pictures taken one by one.
“Akva, Female, 14, water”
“Ŝirmi, Female, 15, Shield”
“Farja, Female, 15, Fire”
“Forto, Male, 14, Strength”

Once all of us got our tags we brought up Vento to see if we should get an ID for him. Sinjorina just said that when he got out of Sick Bay he would receive it. We waited a little a little in the chairs when another Sinjorina came with four papers. Forto rubbed his eyes in disbelief; Formoj saw this and responded accordingly.
“Back when this place was created it was decided that we could not have regulaj, regular people, teaching kapablo, people with abilities. So everyone that you see here is just like you all. Sinjorina here has the ability of self regeneration, she came here only knowing how to heal herself but our ability instructors helped her be able to do so much more like duplicate herself. Here are your schedules. This place is a safe haven. It is home, school, and a family.”

Ŝirmi, Farja, Forto, and I looked at each other and smiled, then Forto said the first positive thing in, I don’t know how long.

“I’m sure we will love it here.”



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