Unwanted Elements

Chapter Eleven

As I galloped down the hall, I didn't mind the silence. My footsteps resonated throughout the hallway, which was littered with discarded garbage and dust balls the size of my hand. Yellow and black checkers raced along the wall, which was decorated with more posters, this time taking on a theme of cops and robbers. Cat and mouse.

All I could hear was the reverberating noise of my footsteps and my heartbeat, racing like a horse at the track. Sheer determination to find Jyushimatsu tore through my skin, my heart thudding with anticipation. For a minute, I let my mind wander again. What if he wasn't in these prisoner holding cells? What if there were more cells we didn't know about? What if he was somewhere else in this labyrinth of chambers and rooms?

What if he was being tortured because he was an electricity elemental? The anger that had packaged itself with that thought flowed throughout my body, and I felt my ears heat up with pure rage. No. I wouldn't let my brother be abused. I picked up speed, skidding across the concrete floor. I could only hope that the security in the prisoner cells was lax. I didn't want to be captured myself, and have my brothers lose hope in me.

Worry began to replace the determination, and I let my speed drop. I began to feel an overwhelmingly strong sense of guilt, and I felt my stomach turn with nausea. I couldn't give up, not now. I had to find my brother. I had to free him to say sorry. I had to redeem myself to him, somehow.

My pace had began to slightly pick up speed as the concrete under my sandals morphed into tiles of white, teal and grey. I looked around. This looked out of place compared with all the other parts of this temple I'd so far observed. It was neat and tidy, much more welcoming in its aura than the facility and entrance. White painted walls surrounded me.

A wooden desk was pressed to my left, papers scattered all over the top of it like a storm had hit this room. On the walls were old newspaper clippings, the once pale-grey paper now tinting yellow with age. A door stood at the back of the room, what it was guarding unseen from the normal eye. Posters lazily hung around this tiny office, and there were flower petals all over the ground. Curious, I looked at the nearest clipping to me, tacked into the wall.

It was something about an elemental master going rouge. Not much of a surprise, and I took a guess that almost all of these tacked and taped clippings on the walls were about this subject. This one master had poison at his fingers, and this story was how he had used that to assassinate people who had "caused him misfortune". I shivered.

My eyes passed over the desk, and I now really wish I hadn't been as stupid as to read over one of the upturned sheets scattered on the desk. As my eyes met the ink, something unsettling washed over me, and I couldn't just shrug it off. I had to see the paper, and why the clippings had strands of multicolored string under them, linking them to a piece of paper by the desk.

I picked up the nearest paper on the desk and studied it. It took a moment for it all to process, but the moment it did, I let out a noise that sounded like it was a strangled gasp. My own half-lidded stare met me from the paper. I read the text over and over, my heart banging against my ribs in a request to escape. It was all my information, including my full name, date of birth, my mother and father's names, and what my element was.

I felt sick. Who had gotten these? Who was stalking us? What did we do? Putting my palm to my head to steady myself, I read more. There were notes, observations. About me, my behavior. It was like someone had watched me since the day I had been born. It made me completely unnerved. For a moment, I wish someone else had been picked to go alone. I wanted someone here with me. Fearing the worst, I flipped over other pieces of paper by my profile.

Like I had suspected, my brothers' were right by mine, buried and flipped over. My brothers' faces glared back at me, and I almost started crying. What kind of madman were we dealing with! My stomach was aching, as if a knife was being plunged into it. Hot tears rode down my face, and I wiped it away with my sleeve.