Four- Nox

A Chapter by Sophie

chapter 4 of Airborne

Chapter four

Nox

Swirling, curling, black

blind and deaf, smothering life

the dark closes in

“Dark” by Sophie Lynch

“The plan failed.” I say. I stand in front of a ten foot tall monster. My master.

“I know, they all escaped.” Malum says.

“Maybe fire soldiers aren't the best to send, when one of them can control fire. The humans would be best.”

“No, we need a spy, find their weak spots, but who...”

“I don't know, sir.” I reply, waiting for him to figure out the obvious. He sits in his black throne, his red skin blazing bright with anger. His long mouth is set in a straight line of thought. The spikes in his fingers, retracted, but I can hear the drills behind his thin lips whirring. His long, greasy brown hair reaches his waist. He is the Fire Beasts' leader, they were his creation. He won't tell how he came to be, if you ask... well, you'll never ask another question again. His throne creaks as he shifts his weight. I have been waiting for him to figure it out for ten minutes.

“Perhaps, sir, me? I'm one of them, technically, I could pretend.” I was born one of the eight, but I was brought here, to serve a better purpose. To destroy them. And I've been here ever since.

“Hm, an interesting thought... Yes, yes, that could work. You leave now!”

“Now, sir?”

“Yes! Out! Go!”

I nod and then turn to walk down the long, black carpet to the heavy, wooden, tall double doors. I push one open with a lot of force. I'd grown accustomed to opening those doors, the new human recruits can't even move it an inch. I step out into the daylight.

I have the power of darkness, the night, and the moon, so the morning? Not my thing. I shade my eyes, which are used to darkness, with my black hair. I look at my feet, which are covered in navy blue Converse, as I walk. We have been trained to sense when one of the eight use their powers, and yesterday, when a tornado appeared out of no where, we got the signal. Fire Beasts immediately rushed to the scene, and Briar-Rose, the only prisoner to ever escape Malum, knew to protect the others, even if they didn't. They set the school on fire, and made it look like lightning had. I wish those five innocent children hadn't been lost. But I could never tell anyone that. Pity is a sign of weakness, of betrayal. But the seven children I'm trying to kill, less innocent.

They think they exist for a good purpose, Malum wants to rule the human race, and they want to stop him. But if you think about it, humans are pretty bad. I take power from the moon and the stars and the darkness cloaking them, but when city lights take away the dark, and the starts are dimmed to nothing, and the moon is blocked by buildings, I'm powerless. In the day, I have some power, but not as much as preferred. In the night I can turn into darkness, I can become nothing, and everything, all at the same time. I can spread and be in different places at once, I see everything where my particles go. It's very useful. I can watch all of them at once, figure out who knows about their abilities and who doesn't. But it's day, and people would notice a huge cloud of swirling black and grey spreading around. So, I'll just have to be normal.

Ugh. Normal.

I know of three of them, Briar-Rose, the new girl, Airborne, and Wren. Though Wren doesn't know. His parents do, and they've made it abundantly clear. They've told him he's allergic to animals, and has been since he was a child, they give him pills so he won't “sneeze, cough, or swell up” but what those pills really do, is hide his powers. He can control animals, talk to them, and ask them to do his bidding, on their own will as well. His parents are on the top of the hit list, because we can't kill him without his powers being developed. I have to take those pills away.

Briar-Rose can control plants, she can make them grow, twist, make hands with vines, it's a very useful power.

Airborne seems to have a very strong ability. She made the storm yesterday, or at least the tornado, mother nature took care of the rest. She can control the wind, air, and she can fly. The air will hold her up. If she wanted to, she could even make a bed out of air that would just float. She could stick her hand through it, but she could also rest and not have to worry about falling. She could sleep in the sky.

There are more, and it's easy to guess what the powers are: fire, water, earth, and light. Light could be a problem, she or he might just see through me, like a flashlight cuts through the night. I'm walking through the woods now, a highway is up ahead, I'll walk along that to get to the town. Still hiding my dark blue almost black eyes from the sun, I notice a notebook on the ground. Along with a blue cloth case. I bend down and pick up the spiral bound book and open it up to a random page. It's a drawing, a beach, but with no water, and a boy standing and staring at the setting sun. There's something about it that shocks me. Well, two things.

This is one of theirs. I flip to the beginning of the book, in a swirly penmanship is written Marina Hendricks.

Well, now I know where to get one. But has she realized her powers? I should catch up with the group and become “one of them”. I know where to find Briar-Rose, and she never saw me, so she won't realize. It's around two o'clock in the afternoon, I'll just go up to her door and tell her I'm one of them. Not really a risky plan. I know where house is, we've monitored it on and off for years.

As I continue walking I flip through the pages of the sketch book. There's drawings of the ocean with X's through them, many portraits with labels. There's one of her mother, one of her father, friends, and then, very interestingly, a self-portrait. That's very useful.

She's pretty, I suppose, I haven't seen many teenage girls in my lifetime, and trust me, I'm still human and I do want to. She has light blue-green eyes, beach-blonde wavy hair, a tiny gap between her front teeth, golden freckles speckle her nose and cheeks, and long eyelashes frame her eyes.

In the blue cloth case is many pencils and colored pencils. I have never known there were so many shades of red, or orange, or yellow and so on. There must be 100 colored pencils in that thing.

Finally I reach the town. I walk into the town and past stores and houses . People rush home or on errands, some read newspapers with blaring headlines about the fire and the tornado (which supposedly dropped the dead body of a teenage girl in Connecticut) and cars leisurely drive through town. I reach Briar-Rose's house. I stand in front of the house and ring the door-bell. I wait a second and she opens the door.

“Yeah?”

“Hi, I'm Nox, I'm one of the eight...” I whisper. She grabs my arm and pulls me into the house. Before I have time to even say anything she pushes me up the stairs and into her room.

“Don't you know not to say that?! Idiot! Jeez, do you want to be killed by a Fire Beast's ax?”

“No. Sorry.”

“Ugh. So you say you're one of us? Prove it.”

“Okay.” I set down my bag with the notebook and some clothes in it I concentrate on becoming nothing. And I feel my face start to wear away, wisping around like smoke and start to spread, soon my neck is going, and my chest. I hear her gasp as she watches my body turn to smoke. And soon everything has spread, I can see her face, along with the ceiling, and her closet, and a few wisps of me go under the backroom door and I can see that too. I control the tongues of smoke to group together, so I'm more of a floating cloud.

“Believe me now?” I say, but it comes out like a hiss because of my form.

She nods.

“Okay, now there's one problem. When I reform, I don't have clothes. So I'm gonna go into the bathroom and wrap up in a towel, could you just bring in my bag.”

“Erm, sure. That's kind of inconvenient.” She replies. I make the cloud of particles move into the bathroom, under the door so it's already closed.

I start to reform and soon I am standing, naked, in the middle of the bathroom. I grab a towel and wrap it around my waist.

“Okay!” I call. She opens the door and hands me the bag, she blushes and averts her eyes.

“Here.” She says and leaves. I open the bag and pull on a pair of light blue jeans and a black tee-shirt and a replacement pair of navy blue Converse and socks.

I open the door, she sits on her bed.

“That was one weird power. What power is it? I have plants, as you can guess by my name, Briar-Rose, but call me Bry.”

“I have Darkness, I take power in the night, from the moon and the stars.”

“Oh, kind of scary.”

I shrug and make a non-committal grunt.

“Well, my parents are doing volunteer work for the school all night, do you have a place to stay?” She asks.

I hadn't really thought about that.

“No, I don't.”

“Well you can sleep in the guest room then, down the hall just drop your bag in there and I'll make lunch, you hungry?”

I nod.

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© 2012 Sophie

Author's Note

Malum means evil in Latin. Reviews please!

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Featured Review

Amberly

Hey! This is going to be a really good book. I can tell that this is going to be great. It kind of reminds me of I Am Number Four.
I only really have two suggestions. One, I think it was more in the earlier chapters, but most of it was just dialogue. Now, there's more thoughts and feelings and emotions. But I think what makes a story is when you can actually get inside of a character's head. The human mind, and humans in general, are complicated, detailed and in depth. When writing, keep that in mind.
Two, Briar Rose seems very powerful, smart and nice. And she's an interesting character. But remember everybody has their flaws and their weaknesses. What is Bry's? Otherwise, besides those two suggestions, the book's amazing. I can't wait for the next chapter :D

Posted 12 Years Ago

1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Reviews

Coyote Poetry

A very good chapter. I like the beginning. Adding some history and plot to the story. I like the conversation and the meeting at the house. No weakness in the outstanding chapter.
Coyote