Escape, Lost Soul

Escape, Lost Soul: ✧Chapter 5✧

She grabbed his hand, and raced back to the basement. Lights flickered as she proceeded through the hallway, only making her feel more nervous and excited as adrenaline pumped through her veins. She didn't notice how dismal the basement was earlier. It wasn't maintained at all, with spiderwebs and cracked floor tiles all throughout the area. Even so, it didn't seem suspicious enough to hold any deep, dark secrets other than old supplies and retired desks. She pushed the button in the same vase she had run into, and the glowing panel appeared again. Caelum was mystified.

"What... is this?"

"I have no idea. I just happened to find this, but it's asking for a code. Do you think you could crack it?"

Caelum crossed his arms, and thought for a moment. "I can give it a shot. But, are you sure you want to go through with this? I mean, we literally have no idea what it'll do."

Ria was already firm in her decision. She wanted to know what was down there. Even though it was none of her business, what if the academy was hiding something important? "Let's do this. If we happened to get caught, I'll take the blame since this was my idea."

Caelum sighed. He took a small, thin needle looking object out of his pocket and electrified it with his light magic. He then stuck it into a side port of the panel and the whole screen glitched out, spazzing for a couple seconds before shutting off completely and the two could see their own reflection in the black screen. It lowered back into the ground, and they could feel the ground start to shake. A secret passageway in the ground opened up, with a staircase leading into its abyss. The two looked at each other, and nodded. The room was small, but didn't feel cramped. It was quite dim, save for a luminescent aura coming from the far end of the room. As Ria looked up at what was giving off the strange light, her eyes widened in shock. She had to cover her mouth to prevent herself from screaming loud enough for the whole world to hear. Looking down on her was an immensely large crystal, encasing the body of her sister.

"I-I don't get it. Wasn't she buried? They should have asked your parents to preserve her body, but this-" Caelum didn't know what to say. He felt utterly useless, unable to help his best friend. Ria was still in a state of shock as she walked over to the crystal, and placed her hand over it gently.

"Ash..."

There was a desk near the crystal, with books and papers scattered all over it in an unorderly fashion. Caelum walked over to it, and began looking through the mess to try and find some kind of explanation. After flipping through the pages of one of the journals, he noticed a passage that had been written on the day Ashiro's body was found.

"Ria, you need to look at this."

The excerpt read:

I believe there is something more sinister going on in relation to the girl losing her powers. I must look deeper into this, to prevent it from happening to the other Elemental sister. I have spoken to the parents about this, and they have granted me permission to investigate further. The council doesn't know about this yet, as I am afraid of what they might do.

Ria read and reread the passage to fully comprehend what it said. "Mom and dad knew? Why didn't they tell me?"

"I think they were afraid of what you might do. I don't want this to sound harsh, but you're pretty reckless you know."

The two lost track of time as they continued reading through the journals and notes that had been made, trying to find anything important related to Ashiro's stolen powers. At last, they found something did. It was written a week ago.

I finally figured it out. After an endless amount of test trials and research, I have come to realize that her soul has been completely removed. In other instances of an Elemental having their powers stolen, their soul had not been removed and the vessel remained alive. The girl didn't have any injuries, and wasn't killed by another so that can't be it either. My theory is that her powers hadn't been stolen, she just transferred them to another person before she died. I want to continue conducting further research in order to try and see if I can access her memories, but it will take awhile considering the fact that she isn't alive.

Her powers had been transferred? Who could she have possibly given them to?

Ria had made up her mind after reading the passage.

"I'm going to find this person."

"How on earth are you going to find them? You don't have a single clue to go on."

"Actually, I do. She was found on Etheria's side of the Chuyoku forest right?"

"Yeah, and? The person could be from either country."

"But we would know if they were from Wisterr because they would've told someone about what happened to Ash sooner."

Caelum was uneasy about the whole idea. He knew she was going to leave without telling anyone else, because if she did there's no way she would get approval from her parents or higher-ups. "Fine, you have a point. But, I'm not letting you do this on your own. I'm coming with you whether you like it or not."

Ria smiled. "We should get a headstart then."