A/N: And here's the second chapter of this. Natasha is another character owned by DarkElements10, Zack who is mentioned along with his brother are from the Suite Life series, the fandom in which the elemental story are originally based. I don't think they'll play a major role in this story, but I haven't decided for sure. Thank you once more for Darkelements10 for allowing me to use her characters, and for betaing this chapter. Enjoy

Chapter 2: Questions

I stare at Rhuben, waiting for an explanation, some details, or images, or something. I just don't know. It never comes, her cold stare burning a hole into my heart, I try to look away, but can't. I don't want to face her, but I see something, hidden beneath a veil of confusion, a twinge of hate.

Whatever she saw, she believes it to be true.

So, we're all going to die. At least according to her, but I just know things can't be that simple. I clench my fists, trying to think of something, or some way out. I mean, we've been close to dying so many times before, we've had friends fall beside us, we've had family hurt and killed, but we made it through just the same. So how could she be so hopeless?

"What did I do?" I finally ask, though perhaps too harshly as I see her lean back, as if she wants to put some distance between us. I have a right to quester her words though. I'd never hurt any of them, so how could she think I'd be the cause of our deaths?

She closes her eyes, but I can still sense her thoughts racing, her memories blending with visions that I'm sure she'd rather forget.

"I'm sure it's not your fault," Sydney says, optimistic as ever, and I can't help but feel a burden lift as he places his hand on my shoulder. Maybe it's just my hope that he's right, but I cling to it, free of Rhuben's accusation.

"Sorry," Rhuben says, but I can't help but feel she doesn't fully mean it. "I just saw what I saw, that's all. It's probably nothing," she says before getting up and walking down the hall. She takes a quick glance back at me, and I can see she regrets what she says, but turns away before I can say anything. Riley goes after her, but is stopped by Rhuben going into her room and slamming the door behind her.

This doesn't seem to be like her at all. I mean, it seems like whenever something was going wrong, she'd be there for me. There are times when I'd even talk to her instead of Patrick if something was really bugging me. There has to be something she's hiding, maybe something she doesn't want me to know. This is just so confusing.

I hear Riley saying something, her volume somewhere between talking and screaming, but I try tuning it out. I didn't mean for this to happen, to send everyone into panic, but I was scared, I still am. I hold my hands out in front of me and confirm that their shaking.

"What was your dream about?" Sydney asks sitting beside me.

I look to him and see him twiddling his thumbs, a heavy burden placed on him to try to keep us calm through this. He looks up at me and our eyes lock, and I see a calmness in his eyes that assures me I have nothing to hide from him.

"I saw you guys, but there was darkness everywhere. It was really blurry, hard to make out anything, but I was trying to run." I try to hide my fear as I tell him about the dream, but I'm sure he can still sense it, but he doesn't turn from me, instead looking at me, silently urging me to keep going. "But then things finally became clear and I saw Patrick hurt really badly. There was a battle of some kind, and he was calling out to me to help him. But then I saw him die, before the darkness came and drowned me." I shiver thinking of drowning, thoughts of being surrounded by ocean, unable to see the shore among the endless depths, and the hopelessness of trying to get away, get to something to hold onto as the strengths in my arms fail me. I push that away though, his soft works breaking me out of the nightmare.

"That was kind of like mine," he says and I see that our dreams might be more than horrors brought on my too many painful battles. "But I saw you dying because I was too dumb to figure out what he was planning in time."

"Who was planning something?"

"I don't know," he says with a shake of his head. "During the dream, it made sense, but I guess the balance of chemicals in the dream messes with your memory so you don't see things as not making sense."

I sigh, wishing he'd have some kind of clue as to what these dreams meant. If they meant anything of course; we could just be sitting here worrying about nothing.

"What do you think Rhuben saw?" I ask, looking up the stairs.

"I'll talk to her later," Sydney says, and that's probably wise. Whatever she saw must have made her angry at me, so I shouldn't push it. Considering she's the closest to the darkness of any of us, if I can only imagine her nightmare is the worst of all.

But as I sit here thinking, I remember the whole reason I ran down here to begin with.

Patrick.

"Hey Syd, you know where Patrick is?"

"Oh, think I saw him leave a few minutes before you got up."

"Do you know where he went?"

Sydney shakes his head, and I feel my heart sink again. He's probably fine, after all, the others had these dreams before, and nothing bad has happened yet. Still, I want to see him, make sure he's okay.

"He probably just went to get some food or something, I saw him looking in the fridge but couldn't seem to find what he wanted."

That makes sense, and last night Patrick said he was craving a good burger. I guess he decided to just go get it this morning then. It sounds like something he'd do. Patrick would probably think I'm just worrying over nothing if I go look for him. And I'm not really hungry since I just ate, but still, I want to make sure he's okay.

"I want to go make sure nothing has happened," I say, getting up off the floor and heading back up stairs. I slide my feet into my sandals and head out the door. Right as I leave, the hot air greets me again, and I feel what must be a bug hit the back of my leg, but I brush it away, and grab my bike to head into town.

…

After a few minutes of riding, I reach the small city on the outskirts of Sydney. There are a few cars around the streets, but not too crowded considering the time of day, and it being a Saturday. I keep my eyes out for Patrick, but am already pretty sure where I'll find him. After rounding a couple blocks, I reach the local burger stand, and see him and Natasha around a table, her laughing about something he said.

I can't help but smile, Patrick is enjoying this day, perfectly fine, and I see all my fears were for nothing.

"So Zack really did that?" she asked, and I can't help but wonder which story he's telling now.

"Oh, you should have seen the look on his brother's face, red as this bottle of catsup."

"And you had nothing to do with it?" she said with a knowing smile, as I rolled up to them.

"Who me? I would never stoop to such a level over something so trivial."

"For some reason I don't believe that," she says.

"Me neither," I say, rolling up beside them, and they both greet me.

"Sorry dude, if I'd have known you'd want to come I would have woken you up."

"That's fine," I say, brushing off his concern, but I can't help but feel a bit disappointed that Natasha is here. I was really hoping just me and Patrick could talk. But at least he's okay, so I guess we can always talk later. Besides, I haven't seen Natasha much in the past few weeks, so things could be worse.

"So, do you have any plans today Natasha?" Patrick asks, as I slink away to order some food, to make it look like that's the reason I came, and just happened to bump into them here. I can't help but feeling though, that something isn't quite right. The sun is bright, it's a nice hot day, but still, a chill runs up my spine.

I try brushing it off, like there's nothing wrong. Maybe it's just my imagination after all. I hope it is. It's such a great day, and I'd hate to ruin it by being so paranoid. Sometimes though, caution is the best course of action. I just have to keep my eyes out for anything out of the ordinary.

While I step up to the counter to order my food, I catch something in the reflection from one of the napkin containers that seemed off. Like instead of seeing the sun that I could feel on my back, I see a dark reflection as if it was night. I blinked once, trying to not act like an idiot in front of the person who seems to be ready for her lunch break. But I look down, and see the dark reflection still there, and immediately turn to face the sky.

But then I feel it, my body going numb, a sensation of invisible binds light as air wrapping around me, and while I tell my body to move, it refuses to respond. I'm not sure if the binds around me are so strong, or if my nerves aren't able to communicate the message. Though in front of me, I see it, darkness reigning down, the light of the sun no more, and the buildings that adored the street merely seconds ago replace with ruin, a desert beat down by endless winds until nothing human remains.

"Noah," the voice calls out, and I'm brought back to the reality as I know it. I look in front of me and I see Patrick there, his hands in front of my face waving. "Good, you're awake."

"What happened?" I ask, trying to get up, and then I see that am lying on the pavement, a small crowd surrounding us. Well, probably just surrounding me, Patrick just kept the rest of them away.

"You passed out a few minutes ago when you went to order," he says, and I'm at an even greater loss for what I saw. I can still see it clearly, picture the night, and the destruction it held embedded into my memory. "You hit your elbow on the way down apparently trying to catch yourself." I look down and see Patrick had fashioned some kind of bandage with a few napkins, and I can feel the sting from where I fell. I know it won't last long, one good thing about being elementals is that we heal fast.

"Thanks for helping me. How long was I out for?"

"Only about five minutes. Natasha wanted to call an ambulance, but I told her that you weren't feeling well recently and to just give you a little time and you'd be okay," he says and I know what he's trying to do. We have to be careful about letting people know about our powers. Natasha is one of our best friends, but we decided long ago that we'd only tell her when it became necessary, and a trip to the hospital would likely make us stand out as not being like other humans.

"Yeah, I guess I pushed myself too hard," I say, acting uneasy, slowly getting up, though now I felt fine. It would be simple enough to say I had a cold or something, and probably hadn't had enough to drink so I passed out. Something like that would make sense.

"Sorry Natasha, but we need to head back home. I want to make sure he's okay."

"Of course, want me to come with you in case something happens?"

"Nah, I got this, I'll call you if anything happens though."

Patrick helps me over to our bikes sitting at the side of the store, and I try to make each step seem stronger than before. It might not be a good idea for me to be riding a bike when I just fainted, especially if I want to put on an air of sickness, but I'm not walking all the way home. We can just take it easy for a while, get out of sight of the guys here, and then we'll be fine. I don't like lying to Natasha, but really, the truth wouldn't make any sense, it certainly doesn't to me.

So I just go along with the plan, pedaling slowly, Patrick right beside me. "So, what's going on?" he asks quiet enough so that no one else can here.

"I don't know, but something bad is about to happen."

He nods, as if he understands my fear, and I have to wonder if he's had the same experiences.

"Have you seen anything strange involving darkness lately?"

"No," he pauses for a second, deep in thought, as if there was something he had forgotten. "But there was that one time a couple weeks ago."

"What was it?"

"This strange guy walked up to me, and asked if I was an elemental."

"Do we know him?"

"No, I never met him before. I just acted like I didn't know what he was talking about. But he gave me a piece of paper with an address on it, saying that I'd want to come see him soon."

A/N:A chapter that the characters actually make my ideas work better? Shocking, I know. Still don't know what's up with Rhuben though…but I guess that will come in time.