Page awoke to the ear splitting sound of a clap of thunder. She looks around the room to see all the sleeping forms of the other girls. Dark clouds as large as jungle cats claim the sky and refuse to give Page a hint at the time.
She rolls over to see if Crystal had heard the thunder only to find her gone! Page bolts upright, where could Crystal had gone? Don't strange blue blobs know that storms can be dangerous?! She shakes her head, throws off her blanket, and quietly puts on her shoes. If Crystal thinks she can go off and solve the Avatar mystery without her she is sooo wrong.
She gets up and tiptoes to and out the door. The only sounds that fill the watertribe hallway is the sound of thunder from outside. It has to be late if people are this quiet. And how in the world can people sleep so heavily through a storm as loud as this?! But as the same time she's grateful, she isn't an airbender for a reason; the floors seem to scream rather than creak loudly as she trecks her way down the never ending hallway. How can Crystal do this like overnight without having a heart attack by now?
In attempts to calm down, Page tries to solve the Avatar mystery in her head. Crystal and Talula can both waterbend and airbend, Talula definitely has Asian background and Crystal hinted at having some too, both are great benders and yesterday Crystal was getting better (well, if it's past midnight it was yesterday)...both see this blue blob thing that keeps leading them places at anytime it feels like, both could be the Avatar but Talula has claimed she is the Avatar before the three of us could find out for sure...is there anything she's missing? If there is she can't think of anymore.
Flash! Boom! The lightning casts shadows of the people in the rooms. She freezes as one of the shadows moves. She holds her breath. They role over and don't stir again. She lets out a quiet sigh of relief and makes it to the door that leads to the square. Cold wind and rain are peeking in through the propped open door; its opened wide enough for a small person to fit through sideways, its a good thing she's small too. They must lock the doors so no one outside can get in, otherwise Crystal wouldn't have left the door open.
The lamps lining the square are all extinguished. Larger lamps hang from the ceilings of the hallway that surround the square. Through the downpour, a moving flame across the square catches Page's eye. She hopes that it's Crystal she's about to follow down yet another hallway she doesn't recognize.
Flash! A black figure turns into open hallway. Page takes off down the adjacent hallway, praying that another flash of lightning doesn't reveal her running after the flame. She looks back at the person, their black silhouette has kept its calm stride, so they must not have seen her. She reaches the hallway that the flame disappeared down. She looks one more time at the silhouette as they turn down another hallway, that is when she realizes that there is more than one sillouhette around; they are on the roof top, outside the square, and around the building from what Page can make out through hallways. They must be patrolling in case the Chinese make a surprise attack. In fact, now that Page thinks about it, there were a lot of older benders "waking around" earlier ... dang, the camp really was on edge, but why not tell the Freshmen, they have as much right to know about the impending danger as anyone else. Unless they send them all hone early because they are beginners!
Page shakes off the notion, she's a great bender, they'll keep her here and let her protect her bending school and journey. She knows they'll keep her.
At last Page catches up to the flame, its has stopped moving at the top of a set of stairs. From what she can make out, the light from the flame dances on a thin wooden door. A small figure cautiously raises a fist to the door and lightly taps on its surface. The flame doesn't cast enough light on the person for Page to tell who it is. She steps forward to get a better look, the floorboards creak in response. The sound of water being thrown on a fire is lost within a clap of thunder. A gust of wind blows smoke into Page's face, but it doesn't keep her from seeing the door open and someone pull the person in side.
YOU ARE READING
Element Academy
Science FictionWhat looks like an ordinary camp on the outside, is unlike anything else on the inside. Could bending the elements really be possible? Crystal has her doubts and Page has her excitement and once inside, there's no telling what will happen.
