Chapter 22 - HOUSE OF SNAKES 5.3

They ran to elemental class and got there two minutes earlier. The elemental class was entirely different. It felt like they were in another world totally. The room was extremely wide and the floor to ceiling length was impressive. 

The room was divided into five parts. Water, Air, Fire, Earth and Ice. The icy part was extremely cool and had a temp of minus zero degrees. The fire part was warm. The earth part was filled with flowers and the Air part was breezy. In the midst of it lays an extremely big glowing white rose. 

Fina and Zo found Shelly perched on the edge of a small desk at a corner. 

"You okay?" Fina asked. 

Shelly looked at her and gave a tiny smile. 

"As okay as I could ever be" She replied. 

"Which means you are not okay at all" Zo translated. 

"Thanks, Einstein" Shelly said mockingly. 

A teacher appeared suddenly in front of the class. He had bluish-green hair with sky blue eyes. His mouth curved up in  a teasing smile as he clapped his hands. 

"Josh Winter here" He introduced. 

Josh Winter was tall and very fit his shirt filled every part of him. He was wearing a white shirt, black jeans with white sneakers. 

Mr Winter, was in fact the tallest of them all in the room. 

"You can call me Josh. Now, shall we?" He asked "I deal with elements. It's simple if you put your mind to it. Not hard at all. We have four elements"

Jackson raised his hand. 

"First question - Are we going to sit? Second- I'm definitely seeing five elements here except my eyes isn't that good anymore"

"Answer to first question. You won't be sitting. AT ALL" Josh said, stressing the last word. "Answer to second question- I didn't count the element of Ice because it's extremely rare for anyone to have it. In fact, i have never taught a student with Ice in my life"

Lulu Atom raised her hand. 

"Can we pick elements ourselves?" 

"No" Josh replied "Your elements picks you"

He snapped his fingers and his book wand appeared. Josh waved the wand with a spell they didn't hear and five big white roses appeared floating in the air. A rose has fire burning it but not actually burning. Another has water dripping from its flowery parts. One has a breeze moving round it. The fourth had thorns circling it and the last was frozen completely. 

"These are the five elements in Amenix but research by the  Amenix investigation agency says that there might be more but it hasn't been proven yet" Josh Winter said "You move in front of the roses and the one that chooses you is your natural element. Those who are ready should step forward"

A student from Aries, Leo, Capricorn, Virgo and Gemini stepped forth and stood in front of the white roses floating in the air. 

They began to move from roses to roses until it glitters. A small disk appeared in front of them and they took it. They all got their respective elements but none got the Ice rose. 

"Next" Josh said

Nancy, Shelly and Talon moved forward with Jackson and Lulu Atom with her twin. Both Gemini twins must definitely move forward together. 

Nancy Miller glared at Shelly Jefferson. 

"I pray you pick the weakest element" Nancy Miller said

"I didn't take you as a believer, Miller. Do you even know the meaning of the word prayer?" Shelly asked

Talon choked on his gum and chuckled. 

"Shut up" Nancy said 

They stepped from roses to roses. Nancy avoiding Shelly and Talon like the plague. The Water element chose Talon, the Fire element chose Nancy Miller and she smirked. The Air element chose the Gemini twins, the Earth element chose Jackson. 

When Shelly moved from roses to roses and nothing happened, Miller chuckled. 

"Sooo toough and mighty" She mocked. 

Then two elements began to glitter suddenly and both released a small disk. The disk joined together and stood in the air. 

Nancy Millers mouth froze wide open. Shelly just took the disk which has both fire and earth symbols on it and smiled. 

"Yep. Definitely tough and mighty" She said

Mr Josh shook his head. 

"Well, that's surprising but it has a fifty percent likelihood of appearing. It's not completely odd" He said 

Another set moved forth including Zo. 

Zo walked shakily to the rose, her palms slicked with sweat. 

Carrie, Nancy friend, got Fire and took her symbol disk proudly while Zo just stood there waiting for one of the elements to choose her. Nothing happened for a minute and she began to worry. She looked behind her at Fina but Fina only gave her a small smile. 

Two elements suddenly began to glitter and two symbol disks appeared. 

Air and water. 

Zo took the disk and hurried back to her spot not noticing Josh who had started to frown. 

Three other sets followed before Fina finally moved forth. She stood in front of the roses but nothing happened.

Fina recited the alphabetical order in her mind from beginning to end. Thrice. Nothing happened. 

"Joy" Nancy said mockingly behind her. 

When nothing happened for five minutes, Mr Josh stepped forward but stopped when the roses began to shake. 

Four roses began to shake and each formed a disk, joining together as one. 

As Fina raised her hand to take the disk, the Ice rose began to glitter, summoning many gasps from behind her.  Even she was surprised. 

The Ice rose disk joined with the already bonded disks and it became one. 

Fina took the disk which consists of the five symbols and walked back to her spot. 

Mr Josh Winters stood paralyzed on the same spot, wondering about what just happened. 

He cleared his throat. 

"Well, um… that's grea.. t. It happe… ns. I… guess? We will meet in the… next classs….. For trainings. Dismissed" 

Fina could hear whispers all around her and some students even dared to point fingers at her. Everyone of them stole glances at her here and there and she suddenly felt weird with all the attention. 

It certainly wasn't her fault the roses had chosen her. 

Serene Berry and Talon joined them on their walk outside the class. 

The Earth element had chosen Berry. 

"You are sooo luckkky. All roses chose you. It's just luck, you know that, right? It's not anything special cause it happens" Berry said. 

They all looked at her, even Talon gave her an odd look but Serene just laughed it off like it's nothing. 

"It happened once when I was in school" She said 

If they had been given her an odd look before, they are giving her more than an odd look now. 

Serene suddenly paled and cleared her throat. 

"Not Elfina. A school I went to when I was a kid. The kid was really special. He had all elements too. Even an odd element called lava, it was exciting. The school collapsed not long ago"

"What's the kid name?" Fina asked

"Lucius. He's dead now" Serene said, looking sad suddenly. "He died when I left the school. So sad" She said with a very sad smile. 

Her eyes welled with tears suddenly and she wiped at it. 

Talon put his hand on her shoulders and embraced her. 

Shelly made a gagging gesture which the couple both missed. 

Fina just stared at them weirdly, Serene's words ringing in her head. But Serene looked so sad - Fina thought as she stared at the couple. 

Students were still giving her strange looks when she looked around. She was quite sure everyone must have heard about the girl with the Ice element. 

Fina, Shelly and Zora all walked outside the class to the sun still beaming high in the sky. 

"Oh God!" Shelly said suddenly. 

"What?" Fina and Zo asked

"We have Mr Walker's class. I hate that man" Shelly said

"Such an imp" Zo said

"Shut up, Einstein" Shelly said

After a minute of prolonged silence, Zo raised her hand. 

"Are we going to talk about it? The fact that we had two elements instead of one and Fina got five!" Zo said 

"I don't know. There must be something behind it. Like Serene said, it happened before" Fina said 

"One, we don't trust Serene. Two, we will never trust Serene and three Serene might be lying. I don't know. She seems so sad" Zo said, confused. 

Shelly Jefferson rolled her eyes. 

"Settle for one, Einstein. Not many of us has a confused-clear brain"

"I think it's odd that I got five elements but maybe there might be something about it in the library?" Fina asked 

"Maybe you should ask Tyrell about it. He seems to know a lot about this sort of things" Zo said

Shelly gave her a questioning look. 

"Why not Xavier Starr, Einstein?"

Fina shook her head in frustration. 

"Oh, I forgot. We should just ask Ozias Black instead. Ex boyfriend, huh?" Zo snapped. 

Shelly turned white and instead of responding, flipped her red hair and walked away. 

Fina and Zo shared a look.