Elementals Book 1: Of Fire and Ice

Everything is frozen.

My body refuses to move as I begin to wake up, slowly and painfully, shaking uncontrollably from the ice that seems to move through my veins. My eyelids begin to open, and then shut, open, and then close. My breath vapors as it leaves my body in huffs. When I get the strength to lift my head, everything I see around me doesn't make sense.

I'm in an enclosed space, tight quarters, and the only source of light is a white light that lines the bottom of whatever enclosure I'm in. Metal bindings hold me to the wall, the edges cutting into my chest. Tubes run out of my arm as do other electrical wires and nodes that are stuck to my skin. I try to move, but nothing budges. My heart hammers as I realize that I'm trapped.

Wires are running from my skin.

Tubes are pumping into my stomach.

Nodes are attached to my neck.

And why does it feel like I'm floating?

I pull at my arms, shake my body, try to move my legs, but nothing seems to work.

A rough shake of the enclosure has my head snapping in all directions, trying to figure out what is going on.

And that's when I notice the man across from me.

I try to calm my breath as I realize I'm not alone. The man seems to be in a similar situation; metal bands hold him against the opposite wall, tubes running from his arms and stomach, and a strange device hovering in front of his face that seems to be helping him breathe. The only difference is that the man seems to be sweating.

A lot.

“Hey," I whisper, my voice coming out in a quiet croak. It feels as if I haven't talked in years. Everything in me feels cold and dry as if my body is thawing from the inside out.

I need water.

Just as the thought enters my mind, there is a hissing sound and one of the tubes funnels water directly into my stomach. I don’t dare move for fear of there being pain from the tubes that protruded from my body.

I look back up at the man, trying to keep my panic down.

“Hey," I say with more force, my voice still dry. "Hey, wake up!”

He doesn't move. His head lulls to the side, a wave of dark brown hair coming into view, the machine moving with him. I struggle again, trying to get out of the bands.

The enclosure jumps, my stomach rising into my throat, everything turning weightless. I scream, my voice feeling as if it’s ripping to shreds.

"Commencing landing sequence,” a woman's voice speaks over the pounding in my ears. “Prepare for landing.”

Everything shakes around me and this time, I do lose the contents of my stomach. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to control my breathing, trying to control the rush of adrenaline and the overwhelming panic.

I must have lost consciousness because when I open my eyes again, everything has stopped moving. The tubes are gone from my stomach and in their place are bandages. The bands are still there keeping me in place, but when I try to move, they retract back into the walls. I fall to the ground and collapse into a pile of sick.

I groan, everything in me feeling tight and loose all at once.

The guy still hangs from the wall, but the tubes and machine are gone from his body as well. I stand, my legs are shaking and weak. I reach out to touch him,

“Hey, wake -" I scream in pain as my hand comes into contact with his arm. A loud hiss sounds as I pull my hand away, steam filling the air around us. I look at my hand, the burning sensation almost too strong to bear. The palm of my hand is a blistering red color, the skin looking as if I had just burned it.

Did he just...burn me?’ I look up at him, confused and disoriented. His chin almost touches his chest, but from my viewpoint, it’s a bit easier to see that this guy is roughly the same age as me. He seems to be in his twenties, his features sharp and straight. Sweat drips from his straight nose, which looks crooked in a few places. There are small scars that cover his cheeks and jaw. I glance down at the rest of him, finding that he was missing a shirt and wearing gray cotton pants.

Scars also covered his chest and stomach, small ones that were predominantly located at sharp angles; his sharp collar bone, his shoulders, and even a few along his ribs. Sweat caused his gently tanned skin to glow in the red lights that flashed around us. I reach out again, being mindful of the burn in my palm, and halt a few inches from his skin.

Steam hissed.

I ripped my hand away.

The man was burning up, yet I was shivering with cold.

I take a step back from him, looking around the small space, keeping my burned hand close and trying desperately not to cry. Now that I was standing and not strapped to the wall, it was easier to get a look around. The space we were in was a small square, not much bigger than a bathroom. The only things on the wall were the metal bands and the compartment where we were hanging. Red lights flashed along the top of the walls, making my head pound along with each blare of light.

I place my good hand on the walls, trying to find a way out of the area that was steadily starting to smell like my stomach. I feel around the walls, not finding any kind of button or lever or anything to open the door.

If there even was a door.

I begin to pound on the walls, kicking and even throwing my shoulder into the walls.

"I want out of here,” I say scream, pounding against the door. “Let me out of here!”

"Opening portal,” the woman’s voice says.

A rush of air and a flash of bright light had me shielding my eyes and falling to the floor. After my eyes adjusted, my heart stopped, my mind not wanting to believe what my eyes were seeing.

For miles, everything was sand. No roads, no cars, no people, no buildings, nothing.

Nothing but an eternity of sand and a blazing sun.

I took a few tentative steps outside, the air hot and sticky against my cold skin.

I turn around, looking at the thing that I just came out of.

It was a circular ship with a hatch that led to where the unconscious guy still hung.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the thing looked like a spaceship.

A freaking spaceship.

The memories of the white coats rushed back to me.

“No,” I whisper, looking from the spaceship thing to the barren desert. “No, that's impossible.”

The landscape was barren, yes. There was sand everywhere, and if I didn't know better, I would say this was a large desert we managed to land in.

But directly in front of me, hovering low on the horizon, was the largest moon I had ever seen. And around that moon were two other small moons that peeked out from behind it, one tucked back behind the other.

I shield my eyes and dared a glance up at the sun.

Or rather, the three suns that seemed to blare down.

My hands began to shake as I looked down at the sand, and realized it wasn’t sand at all. Instead of small granules of sand, there were very small, very smooth rocks that were all a reddish color. Each was about the size of my pinkie nail.

“No,” I say as tears stream down my cheeks, the rocks falling from my hand. “No, no, no, no...”

“What the hell...”

I spin on my heel finding the guy leaning heavily against the side of the spaceship, his hand wiping at the sweat that’s on his brow. His dark brown eyes take in the landscape, his eyes slowly scanning his surroundings.

“Where are we,” he asks, not even seeming to care I'm a stranger. I look back at the foreign landscape.

“A long way from home.”