The Enigma

Prologue

The sounds of war filtered into the shelters rock ceiling as I sat, staring at it. My twin brothers huddled on either side of me, their thin arms wrapped tight around my middle. I kept my hands wrapped around them in a feeble attempt to protect them from something that was impossible to defend against. It was like a shadowed monster, which with each passing step approached. Ready to devour us in our hovel.

For weeks I had seen the grim expression on my mother's face, and the once animated father I knew, somber. Though I was only twelve I knew the reason. The second elemental war had started, and my parents knew soon they would have to join the fray. The war approached the Capital of Tranquility - the hub of all science, power, and technology.

The boom of power colliding with the earth made dust rain down on us and my brother Jared whimpered as I shushed him and murmur reassuringly, 'Its okay, we will be fine.'

Even as I said this my eyes fell on the ceiling again, illuminated by the single candle at our feet. We were still in our night clothes. My mind still played back to my mother rousing us from sleep, a look in her eyes that I won't soon forget. Desperation. Abject terror. Dispar. No question could pass my lips, because in my own innocent way, I knew what had come to our doorstep. Even as she got us up, my father was rushing to pull on his long leather boots, his fingers seeming to glow with energy.

My mother had pushed us into the kitchen as my father rushed in, tossing the table he had worked so hard to build away from the stone floor and my mother went to work.

My father was a powerful elemental. He had the power of electricity at his fingertips, a rare element. He was amazing and vivacious with life, always smiling. But the hard line of his jaw showed a determination I had never seen. The scar cutting through his brow reminding me that he had already survived the first war and now it was happening again.

Like my father, my mother was powerful too, steady as stone, her power was reflected in her personality, an earth elemental. She had slapped her hands on the stone and it sank into the ground. She had handed me the lit candle and told me to get into the square box of a hole that was deep enough that my father could stand in and not brush the edge with his fingers. I jump down in as my father hands me my twin brothers, only eight and both wide eyed with fear.

Just before my mother slides her hand to close the stone over our heads, she whispers, 'Be strong my little star and moons. We will be back... I promise.'

My mother had always called me her star, her cherished first born, and unfortunately a powerless child. The look of worry that passed over their faces as they slid from view told me enough. Neither believed they would survive, and their dread made me wonder if we would either.

The crackle of thunder from an electric elemental so close jerked us all and I wondered if it was my father. The hair on my arms stood on end from the static in the air around us. More dust coated us as earthquakes and elemental bombs went off.

They were closer than ever and I could hear my brothers crying deep whelping sobs littered among the constant barage of powers splitting the night above us. Was it even still night time? How long had it been since the distant rumbles of war had turned into a battle close at hand?

A boom so loud it seemed to crack above our heads made us all scream in terror as the ground under us shook violently, dust and dirt pouring down on us. i grip my brothers harder and scream out as the ground seems to sway under us with force, roaring, cracking, and so many sounds rolling above us. It was like the earth itself was trying to throw us up, rid us from it's existance. My scream ripped from me in one word that goes on for what seems an eternity, shrill but forceful, 'STOP!!!!'

Suddenly the room is silent, the air still, the sounds of the battling demons above silenced, as my once squeezed shut eyes slowly open. I gasp in surprise. The dust that had been raining down was floating and unlike sand and dust it seemed to glow like tiny stars. The candle in front of us was floating among the starry little specks like a lighthouse. It wall floated around us.

My brothers gasp and I look down at Aidan, his blue eyes transfixed on me. My other brother whispers softly, 'Willow?'

My eyes shift to him, his green eyes the only difference between my twin brothers as I say, 'Y-yes Jared? What's wrong?'

But it was Aidan who spoke, 'You're glowing.'

He spoke with awe as I looked at him, realizing that something else was illuminating his face besides the candle. Pulling my hands from their shoulders, I look down and realize they were right. My hands...were glowing. My mind went back to my father's hands, sizzling with electricity as he used it to start wood fires in the fireplace, that inner glow under his skin. But this was wholly different. My skin wasn't glowing from beneath, but seemed to shine like a light. I could see my veins pulsing a paler brilliant hew beneath my skin as I turned my hands over. Energy seemed to pulse through me, a soft heartbeat faintly heard in this small shelter.

This wasn't real, I wasn't doing this. I was dreaming, as I slam my eye shut and pull my brothers closer. Had I been hit by a rock and been dreaming. Just then an earthquake seemed to rip us from our seat against the stone wall, bucking us away from it, and we scream as the sound of an explosion overhead deafened us. My eyes open as the dust once winking like little stars fell limp and dark, the candle hit the floor and the flame extinguished as the war exploded overhead, pitching us into darkness.