Chapter 1: How It All Started

I woke up as the alarm went off at four o’clock am. I got up and put on a gray skirt, a light blue shirt and a matching gray hair band. Listening at my master’s door I heard him sleeping soundly, so I strolled across the road to the beach to practice. I listened to the waves crashing hard against the beach. It was high tide. Stepping in front of the largest wave, I focused on it and pictured it stopping in one place. The wave became immobile for thirty seconds, than it lurched into movement again. Too bad it wasn’t anything to be proud of.
The power of the wave had doubled while I’d held it still, and it was thundering towards me. I would be crushed under the pressure. I was going to die and I knew it. It was coming toward me! I couldn’t move as it began to drop down on me. Fear welled up inside and all I could really see was Ian, my master’s, face. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. The wave broke away at the very last second, and I was safe. For the moment, anyway. The hand then moved to my ear and pulled. Ian.
“Good morning Ian.” I glanced at my master’s face; he did not look happy.
“Sarie, could you please tell me what you are doing here at four in the morning?” He pulled my ear again as he asked this. I flinched.
“Well…” I stuttered not really knowing what to say. “I have to practice, Ian.” I was trying to ignore the pain in my ear whilst also trying to hold back the tears from the near death experience I’d just had. He dragged me across the road by my ear.
Once we were in the house he told me: “Go your room young lady,” his glare piercing and harsh.
I obeyed and went to my room, falling onto my bed, my body shaking. Now I could cry because I was out of earshot of Ian (or so I thought). I felt as if I would cry forever. However, three hours later, my face was dry and calm. I had only cried for about ten minutes. Instead I spent the rest of the time writing in my journal. I had started this journal when I began my apprentice ship with Ian. I loved Ian, but there were just some things I just couldn't tell him. There were also some things that he probably didn’t want to know anyway.
He didn't know it, but the journal was like another version of him that I could really talk to. With this Ian, I could talk about everything that was on my mind. After writing what happened this morning the journal was full. I sighed and leaned over to put it away, and no sooner had it left my hands that there was a knock on my door.
“Come in,” I called. Ian entered, looking rather worried.
“Sarie are you alright?” he asked. I just laughed. He always worried too much.
“Yeah I’m fine. It was the wave. It scared me is all.”
Ian nodded distractedly then grabbed my hand, pulling me out of the house. “Ian, where are we going?” I asked.
“It’s a surprise,” he said flatly. Strange. He didn’t sound too cheery for it to be any kind of good surprise. We continued to walk down the boardwalk when I saw two boys fighting. The boy who seemed older turned away from the other boy. The other boy had dark brown hair, a light tan, and deep blue eyes. The other boy was the same ways expect with green eyes. Green eyes seemed to be angry at Blue eyes and since his back was turned, he took the chance to throw a large earth attack at Blue eyes. I knew I shouldn’t have gotten involved, but I yelled. “LOOK OUT!” Then I sent a large ball of water to defect the mound of earth. I was pushed aside by Ian as he grabbed Green eyes by the ear.
“Who is your master! Tell me now!” Ian ordered. Green eyes shook his head, cringing as Ian twisted his ear. Sometimes, my master took things a little over the top. “Your masters name young man, or I’ll assume you don’t have one and punish you myself.” Green eyes’ eyes filled with fear and he stuttered, “His name is Glenn.”
“Glenn?” I asked, my gaze switching to my master. “Like, as in, your friend Glenn?”
Before Ian could answer, Glenn came running up the boardwalk, his sandy blond hair flying the same way Ian’s always did. He stared at the scene, confused, his eyes wide, as if completely lost. Glenn, I then remembered, is rather scatter-brained. What surprised me was that he yelled, “Vincent! Joey! There you two are!” He grabbed Joey Green eyes and Vincent, or Blue eyes.
Ian laughed. “No wonder you’re overwhelmed, Glenn. Two apprentices and they both look like trouble makers.” And not just mischief makers; they seemed to joke like brothers, as they stood there making faces at each other while our masters talked. However, one joke went wrong. I saw Vincent form a small ball of fire and flick it at Joey, but it missed and hit Glenn’s cloak. I began to panic so I hit the small ball of fire with a much larger ball of water, causing Glenn and his apprentices to be soaked from head to foot.
“Oops.” My cheeks went bright red, and Ian burst out laughing, which made me go even redder. He had a gift for embarrassing me; he had, and would always, feel like a dad.
“Now that Sarie has given you your daily shower, would you like to join us for breakfast?”
Glenn nodded. “Yes, that would be nice, but would you mind if we went home and changed first?
Ian laughed. “Not at all my old friend. Sarie and I will stay here. I think she needs a new journal.” I looked up him. He seemed to know everything. There was a small smile on his lips; he loved catching me by surprise.
“How did you know that?” I asked, “I ran out of pages this morning.” Ian who already started down the boardwalk called back at me. I stared after his retreating back in wonder. How it was possible for him to know everything that happened in my life completely baffled me. He always seemed to know more than I did.
“Masters have to know these things Sarie, or else they would never know what their apprentices needed.” He was laughing as he said this, continuing to get further away from me. I started to run to keep up, but all of a sudden I tripped. I felt Ian’s hands, or so I thought. It was actually Vincent, Glenn’s apprentice. I felt my cheeks go red. How did he get back there so fast? I never did find out.
“Thanks.”
“You’re quite welcome. My name is Vincent. May I ask what’s yours?” Vincent said this with a Spanish accent.
“Hi Vincent, I’m Sarie. I’m sorry about the water.” I began to turn away, but he kept talking.
“That’s fine. It was hot out any way.” Then he looked up and down the street and, seeing no one, kissed me on my cheek. Just then both Glenn and Ian came back. I felt my cheeks go nothing short of scarlet. Why did he always have to see?
“Vincent what were you thinking?” came Glenn’s yell.
“Well Master Glenn, I was thinking that Sarie is very pretty, and that she deserved a kiss for it.” I started to giggle, but Ian hit me on the head with the journal he was forced to buy without me. He gave to me a hard look than handed it over. I studied it intently, desperate to avoid the awkward situation. On the cover, the ocean was reflecting a full moon, the white foam slapping against the pale sand.
“I love it, thank you Ian,” I said.
“You’re welcome, Sarie but if we don’t get going we won’t have breakfast until lunch.” I looked down and rolled my eyes. That was Ian, always seeming to think we were going to be late. When would he learn it didn’t matter? We always were, no matter what.
We started down the boardwalk, arriving at a restaurant called the Early Bird. We sat next to the window, which had a wonderful view of the beach. There were seagulls soaring over head.
“Coffee or tea?” asked the waitress.
“Tea,” was mine and Ian’s answer. Joey and Vincent looked at me.
“Bit like your master?” I went red. Ian had been around me all of my life, which made it hard not to be like him. I had picked up a great deal of his habits.
“Yeah, just a bit,” I mumbled. We looked at the menu. Every time I read the name of one of the meals I felt stomach flip-flop three times. The only thing that didn’t cause this uncomfortable feeling was a side of home fries, which is what I got. After every one ordered, Ian glanced at me when he heard what I asked for. He didn’t push it the subject and instead began talking to Glenn. In this time, Joey leaned over and poked me hard.
“Hey what’s your story? He asked rudely. “You know, where you’re from and stuff like that.”
“Well, I’m from a small town called Moonshine. It’s a little south from here,” I answered.
“Have known your master long?”
“Ian,” I chuckled, “is someone I’ve known all my life. I can’t rid of the guy. He was good friends with my parents. They were killed by a fire in our house six months ago.” I often wondered why I had accepted that fact so easily; most people would still be denying the fact.
“Where were you when it happened?” asked Vincent.
“That’s the weird thing. I can’t remember.”
Our food arrived and the table went silent as we ate. I was about half way though my plate when I felt sick. I got up and went to the rest room and threw up everything I had just eaten. I went over to the sink to wash my face, and then I heard a knock on the door.
“Sarie? Are you alright?” Ian sounded really worried.
“I’m fine,” I lied. I didn’t want to worry him, so I opened the door and went back to the table with him. I looked over at Vincent and Joey.
“So what’s yours guys’ story?” I asked as if I hadn’t left the table.
“Well we’re bothers. This is our hometown. Did you hear about that really bad car crash two months ago? Well our parents were killed in it. Like you, we’ve known our master Glenn all of our lives,” replied Vincent. So maybe I wasn’t the only one who just accepted their parents’ sudden death. Still, it never made any sense to me.
“So are you learning all of the elements or just one of them?”
“We’re not sure. We could if we wanted to, but...” All of the sudden I felt dizzy and the room began to spin. Things were blurred, and I didn’t even feel myself hit the floor. That was all I remembered before waking up in my own my bed. It was dark outside. I looked at my clock, which told me that it was 11:30 pm.
“I blacked out all day!” I thought. I felt strangely light, as if I were floating in the ocean. I rubbed my eyes and tried to sit up, but I failed. I had no energy and no idea what had happened. So I went back to sleep. I didn’t remember anything else.

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 02.08.2011

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Widmung:
To Tony, the one who allowed my to chase my green.