A/N
I'm gonna make this short. Here's the next chapter. I HOPE YOU LIKE IT.
SIX |
SCARLETT PANICKED, TRYING to smother the power that rose up within her, but the panic instantaneously brought back gruesome, terrifying memories of her time in the FAYZ. It wasn't as bad as Sapphire, since she hadn't been suppressing her every feeling for as long as she could remember, but it was enough. The power seemed to feed off of her fear, growing stronger and more uncontrollable the more afraid she became.
She cried out, shoving Sapphire off of her and as far away as she could manage. The power seemed to burst from her every pore, flooding the room in a fiery glow. It was all too much for Scarlett; the light was punctured by little black dots as she gasped for breath, but she couldn't seem to draw air into her deprived lungs. Distantly, she heard sounds of people screaming and crying out in pain, yelling to others to get out.
But then it all slipped away and Scarlett fell into the dark abyss that waited to consume her.
/Break\
Sapphire watched in horror as her sister erupted into flames.
The entire room was soon engulfed in flickering light and unbearable heat. Almost as a reflex, she thrust her hands out, controlling the air around Scarlett until she'd drawn all the oxygen from the area. Instantly the fire on Scarlett went out, and Sapphire began to drop her hands, sighing in relief, but then she noticed the rest of the room was also in flames, and the others were freaking out. She'd been so focused on saving Scarlett that she hadn't even put together the fact that the light and heat wasn't entirely coming from her.
Desperately, she realized that Scarlett was the cause of the fire. Her power.
She'd processed this all in about the space of a second, and turning her head away, she continued to pull away the oxygen from Scarlett.
She tried not to turn her head, but after a moment she couldn't resist it and she looked, worried that she would not only knock Scarlett out, but kill her by keeping the oxygen away so long.
It was worse than all of experiences in the FAYZ, watching her sister gasp and suffocate while knowing she was the cause of it. It took every ounce of resolve for her to continue. A choked sob escaped her, her horror multiplying by the second.
She still couldn't bring herself to look away. The moment that Scarlett slumped forward, Sapphire rushed oxygen through her lungs. Scarlett stayed limply on the floor, out cold. Sapphire rushed to her sister, ignoring the flames that still lapped at her heels and burned her as she ran. Sapphire cradled Scarlett's head gently, sobs ricocheting off the walls of the empty, smoke-filled room.
It was then that Sapphire realized that they were alone and the room was still on fire. Taking a deep breath and repressing a sob, she turned attention away from Scarlett and focused on putting out the remainder of the fire. It had stopped spreading when she'd knocked out Scarlett, but the preexisting flames remained. She took a deep breath, still not sure if she'd need it, and pushed all the oxygen in the room out the door, leaving a bubble around Scarlett so she could breathe. Sapphire waited a bit but she seemed fine, confirming her theory about not necessarily needing to breathe, and Sapphire left the bubble to Scarlett. All the flames went out almost immediately, just like they had on Scarlett.
Sapphire used the air currents to carry Scarlett out, moving her bubble around with her. Scarlett bobbed through the door, nearly having her head slammed into the doorframe. Sapphire made her drop down a little bit to avoid a collision.
She walked just behind the airborne Scarlett, her arms raised to channel her power into keeping Scarlett afloat.
As they stepped outside, the sight awaiting Sapphire made her drop Scarlett in shock. Rose was on the ground, everyone else rushing around her at once. Her screams and cries of agony each pierced Sapphire like a sharp knife, nearly making her cry out in pain.
Angelina was next to her on the sooty floor, holding her older sister's arm and weeping. All the others were either running around retrieving supplies, like Edilio, Diana, and Sam, or applying the supplies that they found to the painful burns that ravaged Rose's arms and legs, such as Astrid and Sophia. A section at the bottom of her shirt had been cut away, exposing an angry red burn on her abdomen as well.
Sapphire just stood there, frozen in horror, until Sam noticed her and hurried over. "Sapphire," he said, his voice both relieved to see her and frantic at the same time. "Where's Scarlett? Rose-"
His words were just enough to jolt her back into gruesome reality and move her focus away from Rose. "I see Rose. Scarlett's over there, knocked out. I had to use my air to make her black out because-" she faltered, afraid that outwardly acknowledging Scarlett's power and role in all of this would make it true. She scolded herself for being so foolish and finished, "because she was the cause of the fire. Her power. I thought that- that if I knocked her out the fire would go out."
Sam's eyes widened when he realized how much control she must have had over her power in order to do that. He glanced over at Scarlett's listless form uneasily, as if worried she'd turn him into a human torch. Which was a little ironic.
Scarlett stirred slightly, moaning. Sam took an involuntary step back, earning him dirty look from Sapphire that caused him to take a step away from her.
A horrible idea came to him. "Sapphire," he began hesitantly. He didn't want to, but he kept going. "Do you think you could knock Rose out like you did Scarlett? That way she won't feel what Astrid and Sophia do to her or the pain from the burns."
Sapphire's eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to protest, but then she closed it again. A look of despair clouded her expression, only to be replaced with a look of desperate determination. "Fine. I'll do it. but only after we ask Rose and make sure that's what she wants us to do. If not, then we don't do it. It's her choice, and we have no right to take it away from her."
Sam considered what she said for a moment, then nodded grimly. Sapphire thought she might have caught a look of approval in his expression as well, but it was fleeting and soon forgotten because of the dire situation.
Sapphire and Sam approached Rose, kneeling at her side. "Rose," Sapphire began gently. Rose was drenched in sweat, but her eyes locked onto Sapphire's. "I had to knock Scarlett out to get her to stop using her power. She was the cause of the fire. I used the air and made it so she couldn't breathe, so she blacked out." Rose's eyes went wide with astonishment. Sapphire knew she had just been blabbering, reluctant to get to the point, but she couldn't help it.
Sam glanced at Sapphire, silently reprimanding her and reminding her that they needed to do this quickly. Sapphire nodded and took a deep, reassuring breath.
"We think we should do the same to you," she finished. Rose looked confused.
"Why?" she managed to gasp. "I'm not using any powers." Understanding seemed to dawn on her; Sam and Sapphire waited patiently as she seemed to wage some sort of internal battle before she nodded and grimaced. "Go ahead," she said.
Sapphire closed her eyes, but before she could do anything, Astrid interrupted.
"Wait," Astrid said, focusing on Sapphire and Rose. "You pushed all the oxygen out of the area surrounding Scarlett, so she blacked out because lack of oxygen flow to her brain, right?" Once Sapphire had nodded in assent, she continued, "Well, it might be easier on Rose if you just pushed all the molecules that make up the air out of the way, creating a sort of vacuum. The pressure in your inner ears drops so fast it'll knock you out almost instantaneously."
She gave the others a moment to process this. Sam looked entirely lost, but the girls seemed to understand at least a small portion of Astrid's science lesson. Sapphire turned to Rose.
"You want to do that instead? I think I can manage it if you do," she asked.
Rose considered it, and Astrid's idea did seem better than Sapphire's original plan. She nodded in agreement. Sapphire closed her eyes and focused on her task, latching onto each individual molecule in the air. Once she was sure she had them all, she mentally shoved them all out of the area.
It seemed to happen exactly as Astrid had described; Rose went slack immediately. Sapphire waited anxiously, and Rose drew in a steady breath. Her shoulders slumped in relief at the confirmation that she'd done it right.
Astrid released the breath she hadn't noticed she'd been holding; Sam took her hand and squeezed it reassuringly before rushing off once more. Sapphire felt tears well up in her eyes when she looked at her limp sister and Rose lying on the floor, but she wiped at her eyes angrily and extinguished her feelings yet again. She headed back over to where Scarlett remained, slowly regaining consciousness.
Finally, Scarlett opened her eyes and propped herself up on one elbow as she surveyed the room. Observing the chaos with wide eyes and astonishment, her memories rushed back to her in a stampede. She remembered the power rising up in her, the fiery scarlet light, gasping for breath as the room burned around her and the power took control. Everything going black.
She realized that all of this was her fault. She stared at Rose, knowing that she was the cause of her pain. Sapphire embraced her tightly, whispering reassurance to her. Scarlett didn't know why she bothered. She felt terrible, hollow and empty except for the guilt. She tried to disentangle herself from her twin, but Sapphire held on despite her efforts, just tightening her grip in response.
"Stop," she said, louder than she'd been before. She pulled back slightly so she could look at her sister, keeping her grip on Scarlett's arms tight. "It wasn't your fault," she practically ordered, looking Scarlett straight in the eyes.
Scarlett shook her head, ceasing her efforts to escape and dropping her gaze from Sapphire's icy blue determined stare. Normally Sapphire's eyes were a light, sky blue, resembling the beautiful stone that she was named for, but now they were stormy.
Finally, Scarlett found her voice. "Of course it was my fault," she said hoarsely, ignoring Sapphire's protests. "Who else did that? I was the cause of the fire, and I was the cause of Rose getting burned. It was my fault, Saph, and you're not going to convince me otherwise."
Sapphire raised her eyebrows. "Challenge accepted," she replied, which was so unlike what Scarlett had been expected that her eyes flitted upwards to meet her sister's determined ones. She lowered her gaze once more.
"If this is your fault," Sapphire began, after a moment of hesitation, "then do you think it's my fault when I knocked you out and nearly killed you earlier? Because by that policy, the blame falls completely on me. And what I did was worse. You nearly died. And I just suffocated you, on purpose, a few minutes ago."
Instantly Scarlett's head whipped back up, and she jumped to her feet, all thoughts of her own guilt leaving her. Of course none of that was her sister's fault, and she would pulverize anyone who contradicted her on the matter.
"That's different! You didn't mean to! How could anyone blame you for that?
"Exactly," Sapphire said in a small voice, and this time it was her turn to lower her gaze from Scarlett's. "It was the same thing with you, only you nearly died. Rose will be fine after she recovers. So if you're gonna assign blame to yourself, then you have to assign the same blame to me."
Scarlett was speechless, but she realized her sister was right. She couldn't just pretend as if she hadn't done anything, however. She had no way of arguing with Sapphire, though, and her sister was fully aware of that. Sapphire grinned triumphantly, but Scarlett thought she saw a hint of sadness in Sapphire's once again clear blue eyes before it flitted away, leaving Scarlett unsure if it had been there in the first place.
"See? Told you I'd convince you. I win," Sapphire boasted, lifting the mood slightly. That progress was utterly obliviated when Angelina let out an ear piercing shriek.
Seeing her sister lying on the floor so helplessly, obviously in a lot of pain, was the hardest thing Angelina had ever witnessed. And knowing that she was completely powerless to help made it even worse. With the lingering terror of the fire and the fear she had felt for her adoptive sisters, coupled with the terror of discovering that those horrible events that had taken place in the FAYZ oh so long ago, it was all too much for the young girl.
She felt a shriek leave her body, being torn out of her. She seemed to split in two, power bursting from her at the seams. The room flooded, molecules of water seeming to come from the air and pool together, washing away the screams of the others.
She felt Rose ripped out of her grasp, and she panicked. She couldn't let her sister drown or get hurt any more than she already was.
She dove into the wave, not really worried about herself. She searched frantically for her sister, her vision oddly clear, but she repeatedly encountered floating debris that made her stop in her tracks.
Sapphire witnessed the whole thing, knowing that she had to take action before things got as bad as they had been before. Instinctively, she raised her arms as the wall of water came barreling towards her and Scarlett.
She felt the air swoosh over them, encasing them in a shell of oxygen and pushing back the tide that tried to overtake them. Scarlett, who had fallen over and scrambled backwards to try futilely to escape the sudden tide, shakily got to her feet and observed their makeshift bubble.
Sapphire saw Angelina freak out once Rose was washed away from her, seeing the girl dive after her as water streamed off her in rivulets. She turned to her sister.
"Stay here," she instructed. As if Scarlett had a choice. Scarlett couldn't leave the air bubble or she wouldn't be able to breathe. Sapphire wouldn't move the air bubble, even if Scarlett were selfish enough to waste her sister's precious time arguing with her and trying to convince Sapphire to take Scarlett along. She'd just be dead weight and they both knew it.
So Scarlett nodded, and Sapphire stepped out of their bubble and swam towards Angelina. She formed a small pocket of air right in front of her eyes, kind of like air goggles, so she could see better. She reached the smaller girl and came up behind her, tapping her on the shoulder.
Angelina startled, surprised to see Sapphire not affected by being under water, but she didn't have time to contemplate.
"We need to find Rose," Angelina said experimentally. She wasn't sure she'd be heard through the water, but Sapphire nodded, having created a tube of air for the sound to travel through. Not even bothering to think about why her little sister was still breathing, she kept the tunnel open long enough to respond.
"You find Rose, I'll work on finding the others. We'll need to get them to safety too," she said. Angelina nodded in assent, and the girls swam off, branching out in different directions after a short distance. Angelina swam at almost an unnatural pace, undoubtedly using the water to propel her, though she had already been an exceptional swimmer before.
Sapphire was the first to encounter one of their friends, coming across a frantic and drowning Sophia. The water pressure was pushing down just hard enough for her to be having trouble getting back out. It seemed like Sophia was on the verge of passing out. Sapphire quickly threw out her hands and sucked air down from the surface so quickly it sent the water spinning and spiraling around them, causing the debris to swirl violently.
Sapphire entered Sophia's bubble. Sophia was on the ground, coughing and dragging in deep breaths. The older girl waved her hand to signal Sapphire that she was alright.
"Go," she rasped. "Find the others."
Sapphire needed no additional urging. She used her momentum from leaving the bubble to propel her forwards through the water, scanning the tides frantically for the sign of someone else. They were running out of time.
Only a moment later, she found her second person. Astrid was floating in the water helplessly, most likely passed out. Sapphire hastened to create another bubble for her, then left after she saw Astrid move and cough up water.
She searched the waves valiantly, but she couldn't find anyone else. Eventually, she made it back to Scarlett's bubble, having scanned the entire room. She updated her sister on finding Sophia and Astrid, then swam off to find the latter and make sure she was alright in her bubble.
She found Astrid awake, seemingly back to normal. Astrid was pacing back and forth in her bubble anxiously when Sapphire arrived. Astrid rushed forward to greet her, asking if she'd found Sam. Sapphire hesitated, not wanting to tell her no, but told her the truth after a moment's consideration.
Astrid's face crumbled, and Sapphire quickly explained how Angelina was out searching for Rose and the others and had probably already found Sam. It seemed to help, but Sapphire knew Astrid was still out of her mind with worry.
/Break\
Meanwhile, Angelina scoured the water vigorously to find their missing friends, especially Rose.
By the time she finally came to a limp body floating in the water, her heart was pounding and she had a fierce headache. Water poured out of her constantly, increasing in amount the more frantic she became.
She used the water to shove her forward so fast her ears popped when combined with the water pressure. The body looked pale, and the person was unconscious. It was Rose.
Angelina nearly wept with joy, but then she realized another problem: she had no way of saving Rose. Sapphire could create bubbles of air around people so they could breathe, and could move underwater without needing to breathe at all, but Angelina couldn't transfer her newfound ability to breathe underwater to anyone else. She was still helpless.
The thought made Angelina want to sink down to the floor and sob. But she didn't, instead embracing her sister.
She knocked herself in the head with the palm of her hand, ordering herself to think. She couldn't make it so that Rose could breathe under the water. But she could get rid of the water, or at least take Rose out of it.
Reinvigorated, she pushed off the shadowy floor and propelled herself to the surface, letting go of Rose. She found the top of the water, though the level of it continued to rise. Angelina wasn't sure why, but finally she looked down and realized that all the water was now coming from her. She'd known that she'd caused the initial flood, but hadn't noticed that it'd kept increasing.
She closed her eyes in concentration and focused on staunching the water, using up a fair amount of her strength in the process. After what seemed an eternity but in reality was most likely only a few seconds, she cracked her eyes open to find that the water level had not only stopped rising, but had actually dropped somewhat. She wasted no time in diving back down, dragging her sister to the top.
She noticed a place where the roof looked about ready to cave in, as her sister began to groan and cough weakly. Angelina knew she had to act quickly, in case Sapphire hadn't been able to get to the others.
She looked around helplessly, but she couldn't tell if there was any way for her to keep Rose out of the water while she went and looked for the others.
But then, a loud groan, followed by a crash that sent waves rippling backwards towards Rose and Sapphire, sending them sprawling backwards, split through the sounds of rushing water.
A/N
So this is our longest chapter yet! I hope you liked it! Over three thousand five hundred words... We got really caught up in this and by the time we realized it we were already at another scene so we didn't bother stopping.
Anyways, I want to point out that although we can see if you view the chapters, we can not know if you actually like what we are doing. As shocking as this may seem, we are not telepathic. We need to know if we should keep posting chapters or if you guys are just not interested or hate this story. Let us know if you want us to continue or not. Remember we are always open to criticism, good or bad, so feel free to tell us if you hate this story with all your being or like it, we want to know. If you see anything we need to improve on then that's great. Please don't just say you hate our story. Tell us why or what we may need to do to fix it, and if it is in our abilities we will.
On an entirely different note, the subject of suicide has been brought back into the forefront of my mind. My neighbor recently committed it in the fear that he may be developing All Timers Disease. Please please please, if you are going through hard times and thinking about this, remember that someone will always be there for you. YOU ARE LOVED. WE CARE ABOUT YOU. You can talk to people about what is happening. I can guarantee you that SOMEONE will be there to listen to you. You can always PM me about this. I may not know you, but I care about your life. I care about YOU.
I should warn you... I won't be posting for at least another week or two. We are getting a bunch of projects and assignments and I just don't have time to do this as well. Both of us will be too busy to write much until really late at night and by then our writing won't be very good because we will be too tired to correct ourselves when we mess up which means when we are free we will be fixing that.
Sorry for my ramble. Thanks for those who have stuck with us this far. CYA!
-Kari