Sarah Scott Journalist

Red

The colour red can mean many things to different people. It can represent the colour of a favourite flower; a ruby or the colour of someone’s lips. To the unfortunate it can mean the colour of blood, though I find blood to be a darker red, a colour that can’t be described. I have had far too much experience with blood-red lately.

For me today the colour red is the colour of fire. Luke showed me his element earlier today. It was beautiful.

After a traumatic morning Luke showed me the fire element at its best. There was a demonstration by the leader of the fire element. It was beautiful. Extraordinary. So far, the elements I have seen, I cannot imagine them being used in a war.

I don’t know what Luke was saying earlier when he said he couldn’t get the hang of his element, what he’s showing me now is pure beauty and control. With a bit of practise he will be as skilled as the leader.  

“You know I wasn’t like this yesterday,” he says.

“Well you’re doing better than me,” I say. “I’m supposed to be practising this element but so far I have nothing.”

“It will come with time,” he says.

“Well the pod will have reached its destination in an hour and then I don’t know what happens after that,” I admit.

“Can’t you just ask your brother?”

“I haven’t seen him since this morning. I don’t if he’s mad at me or if he pity’s me.”

“Which would you rather?”

“I don’t want his pity and he shouldn’t be mad at me,” I say with a hint of bitterness. “He let me go to that monster knowing what he was like.”

“Well . . .” he says. I give him a look. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not siding with him. It’s just that he didn’t know you were going to go and see him. He was trying to make it easier for you to adjust.”

“I guess,” I say. “I just don’t want any more lies. It’s all my life seems to be right now.” He looks at his feet and says nothing else. “Luke, I have to ask. You and my brother shared a look this morning. It may be nothing but I have never seen you look at person like that.”

“Like what?” he asks.

I pause. “Without love or kindness. You looked at him like you looked at me the first time we saw each other on the pod.” He looks at me and thinks for a second. “Did you know my brother before all of this happened?”

He pauses as if making up a lie. “I was aware of him,” he carefully says.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Did you ever speak to him?” I ask.

“Well, we lived in the same area of our city, so I had seen him around,” he says through gritted teeth like he’s holding something back. I don’t like that. Luke lying will never be a good thing. “Why do you ask?”

“Did you not hear what he said earlier?” I ask. “Alex said he might have guessed you had something do with it.” I wait for a response. After a minute, I know I will be disappointed. We sit in silence for a while. Not awkward silence, just quiet.

“It really meant nothing Alleyah” he says. He then sighs. “I got up to some bad stuff back home and he caught me doing some of it. I would really prefer not to talk about it if you don’t mind. I’m not the person I was and I’m starting afresh.” I understand that. I can be a new person here just like he wants too. I can have a life here.

“I understand. There’s always a part of the past we want to hide or forget,” I say.

A girl walks in the fire element training room. I recognise her. Then it clicks. The girl in the wedding dress. Anna I think her name is. She crosses the room ignoring the other people sitting down and talking. She has a bottle of water in her hand. Water.

Luke jumps up when he sees the water in her hand. I had forgotten how thirsty I was.

“Where did you get that?” he asks. Her eyes light up when she sees him and a faint smile stretches across her face. I stay here as I watch them talk. Why do I feel slightly annoyed that Luke is talking to her? I’m not jealous. It’s not even that I like Luke in that way. I mean it’s hard not to be attracted to someone who has saved your life on so many occasions. But Luke is that kind of person who would save anyone’s life because he actually cares.

Still, I feel sickened when I see her touch his arm. I feel reassurance when he pulls away. I’m not jealous. Luke can talk to whoever he wants. It’s just since our cell I feel almost protective over him.

Luke walks back over and grabs my hand. “They’re handing out fresh water,” he says.

I smile. “Let’s go”

I can feel the water running through me, cooling my insides. I drink so much water that my stomach feels bloated. I don’t care. I feel refreshed and already my body feels lifted. I tip the remaining water over my head to cool me down.

I fill my bottle up to the top again as we will be walking a long way soon. People are already being moved around into groups for walking. Some have already set off. Alex pulled me back and asked me to walk with him so we can clear some of the air between us. Luke said he will be fine walking with a group from the fire element to give us some space. I didn’t really want to leave him, I was enjoying spending time with him, but I do need to speak with Alex.

We walk and walk for miles. Everyone is quiet, and focusing on hiding their pain. I try not to think about my back. My muscles have grown used to the exhausted feeling. My eyes struggle to stay open as my body craves sleep. The only thing keeping me awake is the curiosity of what is waiting for us in the forest.

I am walking behind Alex and the leaders of each element. Alex acts like nothing happened this morning. He was going to talk to me about things but got distracted about running everything smoothly. Instead, Alex talks about what awaits us in the forest. He says all this to the leaders but speaks loud enough so that I can hear.

Everyone around me is carrying heavy supplies. I didn’t have to carry anything because of my back injuries. I offered though. I said I could do it but Alex insisted that I couldn’t. Luke doesn’t either because of the burn marks and his knee. He is walking at the back I think. He was told that he would slow everyone down.

I sip my water savouring every drop. I know water will not be an issue after seeing what Alex can do but I still appreciate it. Since I have part of the water element, I should be practising my skills. I focus on the water but nothing happens; my mind is too distracted.

As we walk deeper into the forest I see things I’ve never seen before – wild flowers! The area around me is filled with the flowers’ unique colours. I don’t remember some of these, it’s been so long.

The next few hours just pass by. I’m so memorised by all these colours that I don’t even realise how long and far we’ve been walking when we reach the camp.

The scene in front of me is something of a dream. So many individual tents stand in front of me. They’re made from wooden sticks in the ground with a huge waterproof sheet over them and they actually look quite warm. The trees show their bright, colourful flowers and birds sing their beautiful songs. I look around me and let the gentle wind brush my hair off my shoulders. The wind doesn’t feel as controlled out here.

I let the sickly sweet smell of flowers scent my clothes and my hair. I’ve been standing still so long that people have already started looking round and claiming tents. Alex walks up to me.

“Hey,” he says. He looks exhausted but his eyes are filled with excitement like a little child opening a present. He looks more excited than the rest of us.

“Hey?” I reply. I said it as a question and I guess it is. How can he be so casual about what has happened?

“I’ve saved you a tent,” he says. “Near mine if that’s alright?” I nod but would prefer to be near Luke. “The elements are separating to their parts of camp to work more on their training so I thought maybe you would want to be nearer the centre of it all so you can go round various ones. Are you any closer in deciding your element?”

“Deciding? I don’t get to decide. So far I’m crap at all of them so I will probably end up with no element at all,” I say.

“Maybe that’s for the best. If you have no element our father may accept you back home and you can go back to being normal again.”

“Normal? You want me to go back to a place where I didn’t fit in, had no friends and a father who hates me. Dad would never accept me back, you didn’t see him this morning Alex. He hates me,” I say. “Why didn’t you tell me about him?”

“I didn’t want to upset you. I knew that we wouldn’t be seeing him again so I thought it was for the best. I thought it would help you move on. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t know I was going to go see him. You’re a good brother, Alex,” I say.

“I’m not. A good brother would have taken better care of you. I should know you well enough to know you would go and see him. I should speak to you more. I feel like I haven’t spoken to you in so long. I’ve been too busy to spend any time with you.”

I smile which confuses him. “Alex, I love you and you’ve basically raised me. You’ve put up with so much and you’ve managed to pull all this off. You’re a great big brother.”

He pulls me in and hugs me. Even though my back still stings, the comfort of another person is nice. It feels like I’ve been carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders and somehow it’s shared with him now. Our mother always used to tell us, “A problem shared, is a problem halved.” I never understood what she meant until now.

The rest of the day goes by in a blur. I spend my time exploring. Alex told me there was a lake nearby but it was about a mile away so I decide to do that tomorrow. The camp is away from everywhere so we should be safe here for now. I am genuinely impressed that Alex has pulled all this off. I can see us having a life here. We have the supplies we need till the earth element can learn to grow our food. We have the warmth of the fires made by the fire element. We have unlimited supplies of water from now on and the air element is able to blow away any bad weather that comes our way. Together this will work. I can feel my spirits being lightened; either that or it’s the medication I’ve been taking for my back.

There’s only so much exploring someone can do in a day. I retire to my tent to get some rest and find my body is catching up with its trauma. I just want to sleep and let my body recover from the past few days. I ache everywhere, so much so that I can’t lift my arm from my bed without it requiring my full attention and concentration.

The atmosphere in the camp is buzzing. I can hear people talking and laughing around my tent but all my body can do is become part of the bed below it and await for what tomorrow brings.

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Read Chapter 7 now.