I woke up January 1st, groggy and in a daze. I’d stayed up till midnight, celebrating with everyone else. There was food, laughter and loads of fun times packed into one night.

I barely remembered anything, for I was so tired. The only thing I remembered clearly was Sol.

He had kissed me under the mistletoe on Christmas. That was a shock. But what surprised me even more was when he locked lips with me last night, at 12:00 a.m.

Before then, after Christmas, Sol had acted the same towards me. Like nothing had happened. But something did. I fell for him. But why didn’t he mention it? I was fraid to ask, but I knew the topic would come up eventually.

I rolled out of bed and put on some sweats and a loose shirt. I tied my hair up and washed off my face before heading out of my room, Edna by my side.

Cinnamon rolls were on the menu. I took a seat, being one of the first ones there. The others filed in, each sitting in their normal spots.

Morgan took a seat next to me. She was well aware of what had happened in the past week.

“Soooo,” She said, nudging my side with her elbow.

I remained quiet, unsure of the state Sol and I were in. I had no idea if we were “together” and I didn’t know if I wanted to be.

Aria sat across from me, her blonde hair frizzy from bed.

“Sol HAS to ask you out! Y’all have already kissed like, 10 times!” She said.

“It was twice,” I corrected her, sipping my coffee.

“Oh, same thing. Aw, you two are so cute together,” She clapped her hands together.

“Yeah, I guess. Man, he was talking about you last night, he would not shut up.” Caldwell chimed in from across the table.

I looked to see that him and his friends were whispering, laughing, and punching each other in the arms. I did not wanna know what they were saying, for teenage boy humor was not always the politest.

Aria turned to the door, as Sol walked in. Even with bed head he was still adorable. She winked at me and took a seat next to Morgan.

He pulled out his chair and sat down, yawning and stretching his arms out as one of them wrapped around my shoulder.

“Hello MacKenzie. You look as pretty as ever this morning,” He said, in between more yawns. I could tell he got barely any sleep.

Edna squawked at Altan, Sol’s sun bear.

I filled my plate, and set my napkin in my life.

“So, MacKenzie,” Sol started, but was quickly interrupted by Mother Nature clapping her hands together. She and Father Time stood up.

“Attention Everyone! We have very important news for you,” Mother Nature looked worried, so I assumed this was no good news.

She sighed. “Let me start from the beginning. You all know, we used to have 20 elements. We remain with 15 now, due to people deciding not to pass their element on, letting it disappear from the Earth forever. But, that apparently is not entirely true. We thought, there were 5 selfish people, but there were only 2. 3 of those people, we have just found out, found a magic that allows them to keep their element, remaining young and powerful while doing so. The magic is very rare, and they’ve surely used up the last bit of it. It takes tons and tons of years to settle, and take place, taking almost 6 times as long to master an element as it would training here.

“Their elements are at full power now, and we have just been alerted they plan on controlling the human race, wiping out all of us in order to have complete control over the Earth,”

She snapped her fingers, and holographic images popped up, across the wall. The first one was a headshot of a girl, she looked about 17 or 18. She had dark brown hair and murky blue eyes, which seemed hollow. She had full lips, which were stretched into a slight menacing smirk. In the corner of her picture was a shot of a huge bat, which seemed to have a wingspan as long as a bed.

“This is Mara, used to be known by us as Sapna. She used to control dreams, now she controls nightmares. Ever wonder why dreams are always influenced by things that happen in your everyday life?”

The snapped. A new picture of a boy, not much older, mid twenties at the most. His hair was black, and his jawline was narrow. His eyes looked full of hatred, and in the corner was his animal, a black King Cobra.

“This, this is Adriano. He, was once Aaron, controlling Light, but now, unfortunately, controlling darkness,”

Another snap of her fingers and one last image popped up. It was a man, about in his mid forties. He looked the creepiest of them all, like someone who would be on a wanted sign for kidnapping a child. He had a bald spot in the middle of his thin gray hair. His eyes were saggy, resembling more of a 60 year old man rather than 45. He wore a snarl, and his eyes looked wild. There was no clear animal in the corner, more of a large black blob. His picture gave me goosebumps.

“And finally, this is Anubis. A long time ago, he was known as Zoltan, the one who controlled health. He was almost as powerful as us, me and Father. But, he went crazy one day. Whisked away Sapna and Aaron with him,”

She sighed. “They are planning an attack. We don’t know when, or where, but it’s coming. And we must be prepared.”

~

The next days were jam packed with training. No more free time. No more group meals, all meals were in our room, no longer than 20 minutes until it was back to training. I went to bed every night exhausted, and woke up every morning queasy. It was too much, and I never had time to talk to anyone, not even Sol. Delia was showing me no mercy, pushing me until i collapsed on the floor.

Long days and short nights, my hands were sore and my chest was exhausted. I’d learned almost every trick, for some reason, I was different than the others. The tricks came easily to me. 3 or 4 tries and I could do it in my sleep. But, Delia refused to leave me alone, making me practice over and over again, while doing strange and bizarre challenges. Running, leaping, flying, jumping. Shooting at far away targets, rolling across the ground, it was all weird.

A month had passed, and I’d become a master at my element, which only angered Brooklyn more, who seemed to be struggling.

But, we had stopped receiving signals, the radar had gone completely blank. No trace of  Anubis, Adriano, or Mara.

So, we still kept our precautions, but the days turned back to normal. We resumed to our original schedules, and we were allowed to eat together and have free time.

It was lunch time, and Aria and i made our way to the dining hall. It was deli, and we treated ourselves to ham melts and baked chips.

I kept scouting the room, looking for Sol at one of the buffets, but there was no sign of him.

“MacKenzie! Snap out of it! He’ll be here, trust me,” she gave me a wink, which meant something was going on.

I kept sipping my lemonade, chatting with Aria and Morgan, who was such a sweet girl with such a big personality.

Aria and I were discussing the topic of reality TV, when her eyes lit up and she covered her mouth. I heard her muffled laugh, I felt confused, and then felt a familiar tap of my shoulder.

I turned around, and there was Sol. He stood there, with Feng, Caldwell, and Chi standing, or should I say dancing, behind him. They were doing cheap ballet, lifting their legs and spinning on their heels, I tried not to laugh. But then, they started to sing. Opera, it sounded like, which was then quickly changed to salsa, as they danced in a funky-Spanish sort of way, when finally, they stood still.

Sol cleared his throat. “They forced me to let them do that, I don’t know why.”

The three dinguses took a bow, and tripped back to their chairs. My face was red, from laughter. He took a seat next to me, like always, and took my hand. My heart sped up.

“I didn’t want to make this a big deal, but I guess it’s too late,” he said, laughing as he looked into my eyes.

“I wanted to ask, um, you see, I uh,”

“Seems like I’m rubbing off on you,” I giggled.

“Yup. Anyways, MacKenzie, I wanted to ask you, um, would you like to, you know, uh, maybe, go out?” He held his breath.

The question shook me. I was hoping for this, but now that it was happening, I felt at a loss for words. The answer was yes, but it couldn’t come out of my mouth.

“Ye,ya,ye,” was all I could get out.

“She says yes,” Aria chirped in, and I nodded in agreement.

“Awesome.” He said, blushing.

I squeezed his hand a little bit, as everyone around us clapped. I’d never had a boyfriend before, so I didn’t know what to do. I just cheesily stared into his eyes, a huge grin on my face. He leaned in and kissed my cheek.

“I’m going to grab some food. Wanna come?”

I nodded, and stood up, looking back at Aria, who gave me two thumbs up. Our hands were still interlocked when he spun around to face me again.

“Since we’re, you, know, um, official, you might say, I was wondering if you’d like to go on a date on Saturday?” He smiled, happiness filling his eyes.

“I’d love to,” I responded.

Sol made his lunch and we took a seat once again, and every continued back to normal.

“Nice dancing,” I said across the table to Feng, Chi, and Caldwell. They responded with kissing sounds.

~

I held Sol’s hand as we walked out of the palace, and through the gardens, past the fountain and into the tele porter. Sol made me close my eyes, he wanted where we were going to be a surprise. The familiar shake and blissful feeling of the chair moved e, and when i opened my eyes, we were sitting on a small bench in the center of a shopping center.

Sol took me by the hand and walked me to a large building, which read “10 Pins Bowling Palace” I laughed.

“Not just any bowling center. A palace, for my princess.”

It was cheesy, but still managed to make my heart melt.

We rented our shoes lane. I slipped off my riding boots and buckled on the oversized gray sneakers. I took ball, and rolled it down the lane, but it didn’t take long for it to go straight into the gutter.

“That’s okay. Here, let me show you,” Sol took another ball and placed my fingers inside of the holes. He wrapped his arms around mine, and showed me the swing and direction necessary to knock down ten pins. It was a slow process, but eventually, I was able to knock down about 8 pins.

“See your getting the hang of it! What do you say, play for real now?” He asked.

“Of course!”

Turns out, Sol was amazing at bowling. Well, not amazing, but pretty decent.

“I’ve been coming here for 3 years now,” he explained.

We took a lunch break, and ordered us some 3,000 calorie nachos to share. We talked about our previous lives, and I was in the middle of telling him about my sister when a blood curdling scream erupted through the arena.

I snapped my head back towards the sound, where a large crowd was now formed around two figures, who were yelling out.

I raced over there, Sol at my heels. We pushed our way through the crowd, until we reached the center. I looked down, where two parents were kneeled over a kid. The kid was murmuring things, but I couldn’t make out the words. I peered over the lady’s shoulder, and my heart stopped at what I saw.

The young boy, 7 years old at the most, was lying perfectly still. His skin was pale and he was sweating uncontrollably. His irises had turned black, and his lips were moving ever so slightly, still, with undetectable phrases.

The woman was crying, and the man was shouting, “Benjamin! Ben! Someone call the cops! Ben!”

The words were becoming a little ore clear, and images of the dark animal I had seen at the palace flashed across his cheeks. I stumbled back, and Sol spun me around.

“Its him, I know its him.” His face was flushed, and he looked as worried as I did.

I took his hand and we climbed on top of the counters.

“What are you doing?” He asked, worried.

“Just trust me,” I said, and cleared my throat. “Attention everybody,” my voice projected throughout the building, but no one would draw their attention away from Ben, who was still whispering his phrases.

“Um, people! Please, look this way!” I was struggling to get their eyes on me. Sol produced a high pitched whistle that hurt my ear drums. Everyone finally looked toward us.

“Oh, um, hello, everybody. My, my name is, um, MacKenzie, yeah. And, this, this is Sol. Yeah, I, um, uh. You see, we all need to, just, just calm down, we, need everyone to please, um, take your belongings and exit, this place, like, immediately. Seriously,”

No one took to action.

“And why should we listen to you! You’re just a teenager!” Someone shouted out. Everyone made agreements, losing their patience while Benjamin continued on.

“Because, you should, you know, trust me, because, I, uh, I know what is going on.”

“Oh yeah? Why trust you?”

“Because,” I searched for an answer. People turned their back on me, but I got it.

“Because of this!” I shouted and swiveled my wrist up and into the sky. Flame projected from it, enlightening the room. People gasped, and some children were in awe. It was for once, dead silent in 10 Pins Bowling Palace, even Benjamin’s words stopped.

“We can help you. We, we come from this organization called Order of the Ele–”

But I was cut off when I heard Ben. His lips began to move again, and he whispered the one word.

“Anubis,”

And with that, the whole building shook.