The fear in me

Jason

When I open my eyes again I see the worried look of Lukas, who is dabbing at my forehead with a wet washrag. When he notices that I'm looking at him he starts beaming, and he calls out euphorically "Thanks be to God!" I sit up a bit and he puts the washrag to the side.

"What happened?" I ask him.

He gives a dramatic sigh: "Your little experiment could nearly have cost you your brain. You could have lost your powers of speech or important brain cells. The grains of sand settled into every gap and sealed the room. Fortunately you can't kill yourself like that. How can you handle the element air so carelessly? Absolutely irresponsible!" he reprimands me.

"Are the others angry?"

He sighs once more: "Nobody must know this; you can really be pleased I was nearby. I master the element air, and when sand suddenly came pouring up in front of the dining room I knew you were doing your experiments ... now ... I left Gabriel and raced upstairs... just in the nick of time, I must say ..."

"Tanks, Lukas! I ... suddenly there was no more air," I remember.

"Well yes, that happens when you don't fully know what you're up to! You have to know beforehand how an element functions before you try it out. Water in a beaker is something different from playing around with air in a room ..."

"But I could also change the water in the washbasin into ice. Look!"

He looks at the washbasin and grins. "Now I know why no water came out of the tap when Theo wanted to wash his hands. He didn't want to ask Rafael, he thought he had turned off the water for some reason or other ... who'd have thought you had frozen it?" he growls in amusement.

"Ah ... I didn't completely freeze it ... only what was in the washbasin and ..."

"Oh yes?" he interrupts me with a smile. "Have a closer look. The water that was in the pipe, even if it's only a few drops, is enough to expand your wish a little. In doing that you froze all the pipes."

 "Oh!" I say softly.

"Truly, my boy, be careful. Marcus also has the element water and he worked on it for a long time to be able to deal with it at least to some extent. One false thought and you can kill somebody without wanting to," he warns me.

"How?"

He looks at me compassionately then says patronizingly: "Look! Our body consists of 70 percent of water. What would happen if you concentrated and by mistake, you froze somebody? Your powers aren't yet under control. They're still unbalanced. You'd soon have done damage to yourself and brain damage wouldn't be such a thrill, would it?" He opens the window, mutters something to himself, and then all the grains of sand fly out again. He does that with an ease that quite impresses me. Then my power occurs to me, and my head drops. Everything I am is deadly, I think. Every element is in my eyes a new, lethal weapon.

"Oh, come on, don't look so unhappy ..." says Lukas. "I've got great hopes that you'll quickly learn to master your powers. And what happened here is our little secret. I could practice with you ..." he offers.

"Really? Why?"

He laughs. "Because you're one of us and you're at last a beam of light in all this mating game."

"Mating game?"

"You already know male testosterone is definitely in excess here, and well then, begetting isn't one of our abilities ..." he sighs sadly.

"But how did you come about then?"

He shrugs. "I've always been with Rafael. He says I'm a miracle. Gabriel is our latest arrival. He's been with us only twenty-four years. Rafael always finds the angels of death, they're always eighteen years old.