The Gifted Chronicles: Power

Chapter 4: Scorch

Scorch makes her way over to the healing station. Then knocks on the door.

"Come in" an older voice, says softly.

A wiry looking defender was sitting on the table getting her arm bandaged up.

Scorch instantly has a pain in her left arm. Scorch says, "Ouch, ya got a compound fracture in the radius bone."

Scorch sits in a chair to observe the woman working on the patient. Reminding her of her own injury.

A child runs over to the horses, living in the country was all that Scorch wanted, she didn't think of putting on some shoes that time. Scorch grabs the horse apples knowing well that horses love to eat them. She carries as much as she could across the yard. "Silver! Here boy!" A silver colored horse comes happily trotting in her direction.

She places them on the ground and feeds each one to the horse. The horse inches closer and closer to the fence until his broad chest is pressing against the wood leaning over to eat the apples. Scorch scoots towards the fence as well Unknowingly, her left foot slips under the fence. Silver happily stomps his hoof at Scorch but her face told otherwise that she was not happy anymore.

She looks down at her foot to see it covered in blood, she lets out a bloodcurdling scream scaring Silver away. She limps to the house crying in pain noticing how the horse almost cut her big toe off, she swings the door open, "Mom I got Hurt!" Her mom stands up "Oh my god Scorch! You need to go to the hospital now!" Her mom pulls the nearest piece of material she could find (A.K.A. a thin sweater), and helps Scorch wrap her foot as it bleeds all over the carpeting. "what happened Scorch?" Scorch sobs while wiping her face, "S-Silver stomped on my foot. Wh-Whe-when I was feeding him." Her mom picks her up and places her in the car taking her to the hospital. "We will get you better okay?" her mom unknowingly speeds to the hospital. Scorch remembers next laying on the hospital table with her personal doctor leaning over her foot, "We might have to amputate it if her toe is not attached by the tendon. It looks like it is barely hanging on."

Scorch did not like this idea more tears came to her face at the thought of not having a toe to wiggle, "NO! Please don't take my toe away!" she sits up to shield her foot. The doctor sighs and examines it without the rest of the wrap and looks for some key parts, "Your lucky that the horse separated your toe at the joint."

The doctor covers it back up with some gauze to at least stop the bleeding, "You can keep your toe, let's get it fixed up okay." Some nurses come in and hold down Scorches' foot, she never felt more scared in her life at that moment, this was either a make or break moment for her foot. The nurses numb her foot with something similar to ora-gel. Her mom soothes and strokes her head as the nurses reattach her toe to her foot. The nurses finish up their job, the radiologists take an x-ray, and the doctor comes back in with her results.

"With these X-rays, you should have a boot on for a couple of months. Your horse fractured a couple of bones in your foot as well." The doctor hands the boot to Scorch's mom, "This will not hurt okay sweetie?" Her mom slips the boot onto her foot and fastens the straps. "How will I walk?"

The healer stops wrapping the arm, her voice smooth as honey bringing Scorch out of her traumatizing memory.

"Yes indeed she does have a fracture there; you know with that gift you can eventually use it to actually heal people by a wave of the hand. I can help train you to get that strong, that is why you are here right? Sorry, I didn't introduce myself, I'm Aries. For now, finish wrapping this bandage I can sense another person is hurt and is about to come in here."

Scorch takes over curiously wondering about Aries's power, "What is your power?"

Aries turns and begins cleaning up a table and answers her with her back turned, "Time, time is my gift, I can speed up or slow down the healing processes on an organic lifeform. I did not heal her arm entirely, but just enough to where it does not affect her healing duration for training."

"I have never knew that time could be manipulated like that." Scorch is baffled to find someone with such a remarkable power. I really do not know much about this kind of mantra, but this woman in her middle ages will teach me; I guess I am sort of an apprentice. Scorch finishes wrapping the arm of the defender then helps her hop off the table. "Alright you, you need to be more careful when you're training, don't come back anytime soon." Scorch kindly pats her back.

Aries then turns to Scorch as she takes off a pair of latex gloves. "This was a good introduction to the healer's den as it is commonly called. It's near lunch time, lets go grab some grub. One more thing to tell you, I have been informed that I am going to be your teacher to help you discover and control your gift. Tomorrow, your time for training is 2 hours before lunch. And if you come in here an hour earlier or an hour late I won't be here because healers take shifts."

Scorch waves her hand, "So, where do we eat?" Aries leads Scorch to the mess hall, "This is where we eat young one." Scorch grabs her stomach as it growls angrily for food, "Good, because I am famished."