The Elementals: The Rise of the Deviants

Chapter 4

Chapter four

One by one, families and packs of animals and insects had begun to emerge from their hide outs. Chirps, scampering and shrill insect noises slowly filled the air when they realised that the shadow presence was gone. The atmosphere surrounding us seemed to mellow and somehow even the sun that was now beaming down felt warmer. Helena, the Elementals and I stood in a loose circle around Evanesce and Chimera while we waited for them to start speaking.

The minutes were ticking away and with every lost and wasted second I felt my pulse quicken. “Did you not hear me the first time?” I asked quietly.

The women’s heads turned towards me with a look of confusion. “What do you mean?” Chimera asked.

I unfolded my crossed arms and stuffed them into my leather jacket pockets. “I said, ‘We haven’t got all day’” I reiterated slowly.

“Do not talk to us as though we are children, Derrek” Evanesce snapped angrily at me. I was about to demand how she knew my name but figured after stalking us for who knows how long, her knowing my name shouldn’t have been a surprise.

“Well, then talk!” I growled angrily back at her.

Helena stepped forward and kneeled down in front of them a she looked carefully between the two before speaking, “Please. We need to know as much as you can tell us. Anything you know could really help us find our friends and we can’t waste any more time. What happened, and why were you following us?”

It must’ve been the Earth-abled calmness that seemed to exude from Helena because the two women relaxed again and Evanesce began talking. “We shared a cell together with Chaos” She began, using Cara’s name given by Malum, “I can’t even remember certain things before we were experimented on, like what Chao’s real name was. Luckily I was able to remember what our name’s were... Chimera had forgotten until I told her”

“We don’t go by the names Malum called us anymore” Bree hastily added. “We don’t want anything to do with him and what he made us into... So we decided on new names. Chaos is now Cara, I’m Bree, Pseudo is Sophia, Blizzard is Blake and Chameleon is Cameron”

“We know... we overheard while we were following you. It just takes some getting used to, I suppose...” Evanesce replied.

“Time is ticking” I murmured angrily, tapping my foot against the dirt beneath.

The two girls threw me a look before Evanesce began again, “Anyway, as I was saying... We shared a cell with Cara and we were panicking. I remember us screaming to be freed and Cara would just sit there like she had lost hope entirely. She told us that she’d been trapped down there for weeks and had no idea what they were doing to everyone. The only clue we had were the other prisoners being dragged away, kicking and screaming, and then sometimes they’d return... sometimes they wouldn’t. If they returned back to the cells they wouldn’t be the same. Then one day he started taking people in by twos... friends, siblings and even couples. That’s when he took away Cara”

I looked over at Cameron and saw the suppressed rage that blazed in his eyes. The other Elementals leaned in closer to listen, as though Evanesce was whispering a secret to us even though she wasn’t.

“I tried to fight them off” Cameron suddenly interrupted, as though he wanted to fill in the blanks that Evanesce wasn’t able to. “Cara was too in shock. She was absolutely petrified of what was going to happen to us, to her. So I fought them and I yelled for her to run... But she refused to. She was scared but wouldn’t escape because I suddenly had four guards on me. They captured her... and- and Malum decided that our ‘wits and strength’ needed to be refined. He made her powerful – ability wise, laughing that he had made her a better being. He ‘refined’ me, as he puts it, by making me physically stronger. The invisibility seemed to have been a bonus.”