The Elementalists

Chapter 1

Kass

*Part 1*

I can't breathe.

The mountain shivers as I force myself to take one more step. Then another.

Keep going. Just one more step.

A rush of thunder cracks the sky. It's a vicious purple, swirled with grey, like the colours have been smudged by clumsy fingers. The clouds tumble over each other and constrict.

I can't breathe.

The pain is everything. Everywhere. I close my eyes, as though that might help, beads of sweat prickling across my temple. Running hasn't helped—there's no running from what I've just seen—and images flash unchecked under my lashes as my mouth falls open and a scream rips forth—

No.

Don't scream. They'll hear you.

I fall to my knees, my hands trembling in the dirt. Then—as my eyes open—I see it. 

A crack. Deep through the earth, right under my thumb. Just a splinter at first, but then it grows, blossoming beneath my fingertips. I watch, eyes wide, as it flows from me, forming a river through the rock, splitting into a hundred tributaries, meandering streams—

'No!'

I bolt, but the ground begins to crumble. It gives way beneath my every step, the very mountainside itself crumpling around me. Cracks collapse into chasms that yawn; I leap over them even though I know it won't do any good, it won't bring them back, it won't bring any of them back—all I can do is run and run, scattering pebbles as my shoes catch, wiping my eyes as they stream against the wind—

The mountain gives one last judder. One last enormous heave—

Then it stops. Just like that. 

Holding it's breath.

I stop too, my own breath bursting out of me in shuddering gasps. My knees buckle and I fall, exhaustion heavy, dragging me down. I rest my cheek against the cool, cracked earth. A sob wells in my chest, breaking free unhindered; I let myself cry until the purple clouds roll away into the distance, leaving a dull grey residue in their place. Slowly, gently, the mountainside melts away, leaving me stranded, alone, in the debris. I surrender, letting unconsciousness envelop me in its arms. 

Take me away, I beg.

And it does. 

For a few, short minutes, it does.

*

As everything fades to black, it's only too easy to remember what came . . . before. It was the day before my birthday, my sixteenth, which had been the talk of Quillin for weeks. And as if the limelight wasn't enough, my kid sister, Kitty, was treating me like a goddamn celebrity. It was cute, I guess, but way too much. A bit like Kitty herself, really. Hell, she'd even taken to pouncing on my back, just to stop me going in rooms containing "forbidden birthday secrets", her clammy little hands snaking over my eyes. Giggles loud in my ear.

God. Even as I lie here, eyes closed on the mountain side, the memory of Kitty's laughter still manages to make me smile.

'You're only sixteen once,' Mum reminded me. Damn, it must only have been yesterday evening. We were hanging up laundry on the rickety line outside our pod, my arms full of table linen and hole-pocked underwear. Then the hurricane of Kitty arrived. She hurtled towards us down the street, a suspiciously cake-shaped box in her arms, and barged us out of the way, slamming the front door behind her. Sheets and spotted socks went flying.