"Got you." He said, gripping her by the throat. Her whimpers and painful gasps are covered by the furnace burning hot next to them. "Where are they now?"
She tried to wiggle free, but her small frame was too weak, and her mind began slipping and her vision blurring. She felt sick; bile building up in her throat. It was too fast, she couldn't realize she was dying.
Amora woke and jolted upright in her seat, quickly gathering herself.
"That dream again…" She mumbled while she fumbled with her nails.
She was still in her seat, the bus still moving steadily, she peered around Shirley, who sat next to her, and caught her attention.
"Hey, are you okay?" She asked, putting her hand on Amora's shoulder, her long pink nails dangled over Amora precariously. Amora always warned her that they'd break off if she weren't more careful with them.
Shirley was Amora's only real friend at school. It's not that Amora didn't have any other friends, but the other people who claimed to be her friends never quite stuck around unless they needed Amora for something.
"Yeah, I just had a strange dream," Amora replied, brushing her fingers through her straight neck-length brown hair nervously.
"I didn't want to wake you. You sleep just like you did in 1st grade, it's cute." Shirley giggled. "11th grade and we're going on a field trip to a museum designed for kids."
"Mhm." Amora replied, looking outside.
"Well, what was it about?" She asked, tightening her blonde ponytail, something she did often, as she worried constantly that it'd come undone.
Amora turned back toward her best friend.
"I can't recall… I just know that I've had that same dream before." Amora said, not wanting Shirley to worry about her.
She glanced out the window again and noticed a dark storm cloud creeping across the sky quickly in the distance. She smiled a little, knowing that when it rained, everything would look prettier, but it didn't hit her yet that the cloud's movements were quite abnormal.
Slumping down into the seat, she could see Andrew peering down at her from the seat in front of her's. His brown hair was short and seemed spikey, as if he'd used gel for it. When she lowered her gaze to his face, his brown eyes peered into her's.
"Didn't you say you were getting some kind of surgery for… that?" He asked her.
Amora quickly felt self-conscious and looked down at her arm, she knew already that her face become bright red.
Her right hand was covered in a dark substance, dried like cracked mud. It felt like human skin but was a mark left by her adoptive father, a man made out of some kind of dark matter. He claims he left it on her after finding her as a baby. It was solely on her right hand, slightly going up her wrist where the dark color faded into her normal tan skin tone.
"Yeah, I will... eventually." Amora always wanted to have her adoptive father, Darkness to remove it, as she cried constantly to him for getting heavily bullied for it, but Darkness refused, stating it was a way for him to pursue her in the event of an emergency.
He assured her that since he was her father, it only made sense to protect her. She thought of Darkness as such because since she was born, he had taken care of her. But he always managed to be someone else, transforming to appear as a human woman or man when he brought her to school because he claimed he "couldn't be seen as himself."
Amora didn't understand why he hid the fact he was a being of dark matter creature in a world of Elementals but left the matter alone.
Amora sighed and her attention returned to Shirley yelling at Andrew for what he said, while he was apologizing to Amora profusely.
"You dirty asshat! Pay attention to what you say! Do you always make fun of women?!"
Andrew put his head down and Amora stopped Shirley, covering her mouth because nothing else would quell her wrath.
"It's fine. I'm sure he meant no harm." Amora looked out the window silently, feeling a little sick for some reason.
Students on the bus began to gasp suddenly, and Amora couldn't understand what was going on. Shirley, Andrew and her all looked ahead at the students before looking outside as the sky began whirling and the bus began shaking, the lights flickered intensely.
As the shaking continued, everyone gripped tightly to their seats, with one boy in the back standing up and looking at Amora directly. She turned to look at him, getting a strange vibe from him. His purple eyes seemed to glow, and he smiled as lightning struck the side of the bus and students screamed.
A tornado whipped down and sped toward the bus, forming in a matter of seconds, which seemed almost impossible. The screams continued as the bus shook profusely and many people collapsed to the floor, the bus swerved off the road and quickly lifted through the air, spinning wildly.
It spun for a moment, and Amora tried to cling to the seat in front of her as the jerky movements of the bus desperately tried to pull her out of her seat. It didn't help that small objects were flying through her open window and hitting her in the face.
As she held on, a glowing blue butterfly floated delicately through the window, seemingly immune to the high winds and movement of the bus. It landed on Amora's head, clinging lightly to her hair, and her fear seemed to slightly vanish for a moment, that was until the bus pointed straight toward the ground mid-air, and then was flung straight into it.
Amora gasped in pain as she woke up, staring straight at the sky, which appeared to be clear and sunny now.
She attempted to stand only to drop back down and land hard on her side.
"Fuck!" She yelped in pain, before attempting to squirm towards the bus, which lay dormant on its side.
She grasped onto the exhaust pipe of the bus, which was now bent at an awkward angle, and pulled herself up, looking inside and expecting the worst, her dead classmates or teachers, but upon further examination, nobody was within, there were just small spots of blood flung around the interior.
"Hello!? Is anyone here?!" She pleaded. "Could everyone have gotten sucked out of the bus? Are they... dead?" Amora shook her head and pushed away the thoughts that plagued her mind so she could pull herself up, and as she did, she suddenly felt where all of the cuts on her body were simultaneously.
She felt a sharp pain in her leg and cried out loudly. She almost collapsed in pain, catching herself on the bus once more as tears streamed down her face. She quickly wiped them away and limped her way around the bus, leaning against its bottom side for support.
From the front side of the bus, she could see someone's leg sticking out.
"Oh my god..." She mumbled, her voice shaky as her heart began to sink. She followed the leg to the other side of the bus and could see Andrew lying down, covered in blood, pierced by a large metal pipe from the underside of the bus.
She rushed to his side and shook him.
"Andrew...? Andrew! Are you alright!?" She screamed, warm tears falling from her eyes onto the asphalt.
He opened his eyes and smiled weakly, but then winced in pain.
Her eyes widened in relief that he was still alive. Alongside the metal pipe through his body, his shirt was ripped, which revealed many large cuts across his body.
"Look at you being all worried for me..." He said, blood dripping from his nose and torso.
"Shut up! We need to get you help!" She yelled, continuing to cry.
"I'm an elemental; it'll heal, but I do need your help. You see the metal pipe going through my stomach? Yeah—we need that out of me for my wound to heal." He seemed calmer than he should have been, which only made Amora more anxious.
Amora didn't know Andrew was an Elemental, she started wondering about all of the people she knew, and which of them could be Elementals without her knowing. However, she managed to pull her thoughts back to the situation.
She knew she had to pull him off the pipe or the pipe out of him, but she was terrified of worsening the wound. She flipped him on his side and observed the pole from both ends.
She could see the pipe had bits of rust on it but luckily not on the side he was impaled with, but it was still a nasty wound regardless. She decided she'd pull the pipe from that end, as to not get rust into his wound.
She closed her eyes and started pulling on the pipe and pushing him in the opposite direction, he grunted in pain and she stopped pulling, reversing some of the progress she had just made.
"Are you doing alright?"
He reassured her with a nod, his eyes still winced in pain, yet he didn't yell or seem angry, he appeared to be caring more for her than himself.
Her stomach ached from fear and panic. She began to look for another way to help him since what she was doing now wasn't working. She began pushing his back to get him off of the pipe.
She pulled once more until the pipe flung out of him, blood dripped down his body from his open stomach, and leaked from the crevices of the pipe.
Andrew lay on the ground for a moment before trying to stand, yet he fell right away.
Amora grabbed his hand and helped him up, allowing him to use her shoulder to help him walk out of the road.
Reaching the grass, the two fall to the ground and lay there, Andrew breathed heavily, and Amora watched the hole in his stomach slowly close up. He laughed a bit, almost out of nowhere.
Amora stared at him in awe, and then asked, "How is any of this funny?"
"I like you a lot Amora."
"But... I thought you liked Shirley. You always followed her around, and plus... how is right now the time for this?!"
There was an awkward silence between the two, where Amora looked away, her face lightly red before Andrew spoke up. "I only followed Shirley around to learn more about you. Not only that, but she's too bossy, you're so... beautiful and so very shy, it's honestly really cute." Amora sat up, her face bright red.
"Stop that! That's not a funny joke!"
"Well I'm not joking." Andrew said, his face more serious than usual, his face was also slightly red.
The two sat there silently, Amora staring at him with her face warm, and her hands shaky. He leaned forward and hugged her tightly.
"I wish you could believe me. I know it's sudden, but once we get home and go back to normal... I'd love to go on a date with you."
Amora stayed silent. She'd only ever had one boyfriend, and he didn't last long, he never treated her like this, Andrew was making her feel so good despite the circumstances, and they hadn't even started dating yet.
"You don't have to answer right now, but eventually, I would love that date if you don't mind."
Amora felt like crying, all of what happened was beginning to hit her. Shirley was missing, as was her entire class, and someone she had slight feelings for actually confessed to her.
"I know today has been… a lot, but I want to help you. I promise that. I won't hurt you, nor let anyone else. Let's find the others. They could be hurt. Okay?" Andrew asked, not letting go of her.
"I want to find Shirley," Amora said, wiping her tears again, slowly pulling away from Andrew.
He smiled at her and she looked down to see his stomach fully healed over. The two stood up, and Andrew began walking, so she began following after him, the two followed the street, seeing a city in the far distance.
"Amora. Are you an Elemental?" He asked, not looking at her.
"As much as I wish, no. I've seen them on TV all my life. I was so obsessed with them to the point where every day I would hold out my hands waiting for something to happen, fire or water shooting out, or even a gust of wind but... it never came."
She stayed silent for a moment before continuing, "It's okay though. I've been fine without them."
Andrew smiles at her reassuringly and replies, "It's not that cool actually, you have to be careful with some elements because they could do immense damage. Especially if you work at a job with Fire Elementals."
Amora suddenly became uninterested in what he had to say, none of it mattered and it was just making her view of Elements and Elementals boring.
She zoned out for a bit until suddenly everything was quiet.
"Are you listening?" Andrew asked, faking an angry expression.
"Oh, uh... yeah, sure." Amora answered awkwardly, looking at Andrew and then to the ground.
Andrew shook his head and started laughing. They both walked into a forest, she never once questioned why they didn't just stick to the road, she only could think about how quiet it was now.