Luna escorted me to my room. It was a different room than the one I awoke in. The door was white polished wood and had a fire symbol on it. There was a gold plaque on the door that read my name, MacKenzie Ann Peterson.

She opened the door and I was dazzled by what was inside. The room was all red and black decor. The bed was king sized and filled with plush pillows. What about clothes? Luna answered my thoughts by swinging open the huge closet. I rushed over and admired everything. There were shirts, jeans, shorts, leggings, skirts and much more. And there were about three dozen different pairs of shoes! Everything was my size? “There more. Let me show you.” Luna said and made her way across the room to the black mini fridge and cabinet, which were filled with my favorite snacks and drinks. She handed me the TV guide and flipped on a channel on the huge flat screen.

“How did you-” I began.

“It’s important that we know all about you.” Luna stated. She grabbed a photo album from the shelf and handed it to me. I flipped through the pages. “These are all the people that have controlled the same element as you,” Luna said. I flipped to the last filled page.

“Is this the one that controlled fire before me?” I asked, pointing to the woman in the picture.

“Yes. This is her when she first arrived. She was 11.” Luna showed me pictures of her each year, getting older. Her 20 year old picture was the last one in the album. She had gorgeous red waves and pale skin.

“What was her name?” I questioned.

“Aden,”

“Isn’t that a boy’s name?”

“Well, I guess it is.” She closed the album and put it back on the shelf. “I’ll let you explore a little more. Be back at the grand hall at 7:00 for the grand feast. If you have any questions, my room is on hall C, room number 4.” She closed the door.

I was alone, once again. I walked over to the curtains and swung them open. The view was amazing. There was a huge lake and a magnificent garden. I could see a barn and mountains in the horizon. I checked out the bathroom. There was a huge tub and shower and a sink counter that covered the entire wall. I explored every nook and cranny of the room. It was all amazing.

These people know how to treat their members right. I thought and collapsed on the bed. It was like sleeping on a cloud. I glanced at the clock. It was about 4:30 pm. I decided to get a shower. I grabbed a red towel and climbed into the shower. There were high quality salon hair washes and body washes. I cleansed myself and climbed into some black leggings and a red knit sweater. I picked up a map on my side bed table. It had a list of everyone’s rooms on it. I scanned for Brooklyn’s room and left my own.

I did not know Brooklyn at all. This was clear. But she looked the oldest out of all of us. I made my way to her room. Her door had a rain droplet on it and her full name was Brooklyn Sage Richards. I gently knocked on the door and Brooklyn opened it. She looked surprised to see me.

“Oh, Hello,” she said softly. “MacKenzie, right?”

“Yeah, um, could I come in?” I asked. She opened the door wide for me and I came in. The layout and decor was the same, except everything was blue instead of red. She closed the door and gestured to the bed. We sat down.

“So,” she said.

“Brooklyn, how old are you?” I asked quickly.

“Sixteen. You?”

“I’m fourteen.” We kinda just sat there and stared at the floor.

“What do you think of all this?” she asked.

“It’s scary. Confusing. Exciting.” More silence. It was now 5:00.

“What happened to you? With your portal and all.” I asked.

“Well, I’ve always been a loner you see. I wasn’t necessarily bullied, I just kinda stood off to the side, yah know?” I nodded. “Well, the pond was my safe haven basically. I could be alone, but didn’t feel loneliness. I felt, belonged. Welcome. But apparently there was this girl, Cassidy, she hated me. I’d honestly given her no reason to. She just had pure hatred for everyone. Kid needs help. Anyway, one day I was sitting by the bank and she was spying on me. I got really close to the water, I saw trash that I was gonna try and fish out. But she pushed me in,” I could tell she was reliving the event, and I suddenly felt bad for asking. “I tried to swim out,” She continued. “But a whirlpool formed in the center of the lake. It then evolved into a portal, and well, here I am.” She said, standing up and opening the cupboard. She tossed me a bag of chips.

“You’ve already eaten some of these? Don’t you wanna save them?” I asked.

“Scarlet says they refill them. Everything is great here.” She said, opening a bag of Doritos.

“I still can’t believe this happened. It all seems like a dream,” I said, munching the chips.

“Trust me, that’s how we all feel. Now, is that all you wanted to ask me?” She asked. Geez girl. Calm down. I thought.

“Uh, yeah. Bye.” I said and left Brooklyn to eat her chips.

~

I made my way to the Grand Hall for the feast. Beautiful aromas filled the room. I was starving. A great variety of dishes covered the table. Mashed potatoes, baked veggies, meat, macaroni and cheese. My mouth began to water. I took a seat next to Morgan.

“Hi,” she whispered.

“Uh, hello.” I said and put my napkin in my lap. Everyone filed into the grand hall. No one was wearing their cloaks, but they were all wearing the same color.

Caldwell had bleached blonde hair.

Scarlet’s was filled with rainbow highlights.

Luna looked elegant in her sleek purple dress and Sol had a yellow sweatshirt on.

Mother Nature gave thanks and we passed the dishes around and filled our plates. The food was delicious. Better than any restaurant I’ve ever been to. Then dessert came. Ice cream, cakes, pies, soufflés, brownies, cookies, I couldn’t decide. I stuffed my stomach to the brim before placing my napkin back on the plate. Everyone finished up and Mother Nature began to talk again.

“Everyone may now leave. Our four new members, please stay behind though.” People exited, and we turned to face Mother Nature and Father Time. “I hope you all found your rooms enjoyable. Your training will begin tomorrow. How will we train? You might ask. Well, obviously, Father and I cannot teach you. But, there is someone, very small, who can.” She pointed to the door and we turned around. Four sparks shot through the air and past our faces. We turned around to see that little fairies, about a foot tall, hovering behind Mother. I was in aw as one with bright red hair flew to me.

“My name is Delia,” She said with a high pitched voice. She was truly amazing. Her wings were a light silver and her dress was made of red and orange feathers. Everyone met their fairies. It felt like a fairytale, it all felt really cheesy.

“They will guide you, train you, help you. But that’s not all. As you might know, every hero needs a sidekick,” A bird swooped above my head and landed right in front of me. I had no idea what type of bird it was, but then I realized. It was a phoenix. It was magnificent. It’s orange, red, yellow and black feather’s shone in the light. The bird outstretched it’s wings to form a huge wingspan.

“MacKenzie, this is your Phoenix. Her name is Edna.” The phoenix walked toward me. I outstretched my hand and felt it’s head. Wow, was my only thought. I looked to see what the other animals were. I heard their names too. Brooklyn had a crocodile named Wade. August had a mouse named Rai. Morgan had a black panther named Kendra. It was all outstanding.

“Training begins tomorrow.” Mother Nature said. And with that, we made our way back to our rooms. I opened the door and let Edna soar in. She landed on the perch in the corner of the room. I was wondering what that was for. It was 8:30 and I was dog tired. I climbed into some red pajama pants and shirt and snuggled into the bed. I fell into slumber.

~                                                                                                     I woke up the next morning by Edna pecking at my hand. She squawked and flew to her perch. I rubbed my hand and sat up. It was 7:03 am. I flopped back onto the pillow, exhausted. But a note on the other pillow caught my attention. I grabbed it and scanned it over. It was a schedule for Monday-Friday. First was breakfast at 8:00. I closed my eyes and finally got up at 7:15. I hopped into the shower and washed. I looked through the cabinets for a hair dryer. I plugged it up and blow dry-ed my hair. I put on some casual clothes and made my way to the Grand Hall.

No one was there.

I walked around, waiting for someone to come. It was five minutes until breakfast. Then the door swung open and hit the wall. Edna flew in, screeching.

“Edna, you know I can’t understand you,” I said, rolling my eyes. She screeched again and flew back out. I followed her down the halls to another room. We opened the door, and sure enough, there everyone was.

“Sorry,” I said and quietly slid into my seat. They delivered our plates. Eggs and sausage along with toast and milk. Yum. It was delicious. Everyone’s animals were present, sitting around the room. There were so many. I saw Fauna stroking a tiger and a nightingale was perched on Aria’s chair. When I finished my meal, I pulled out the schedule.

Next was training. In thirty minutes. And, there was a dress code. I called Edna and we went back to the room. I took another look at the code and pulled out stuff that matched. I put on a red biking shirt and black leggings along with sneakers. I tied my hair up and had an extra 15 minutes to spare. I grabbed the photo album and noticed that there were singe marks on the spine and some pages. I looked at all of the photos this time, noticing that Edna was in some of them. There was a picture of every person before me, posed with her. “Wow, you’ve seen a lot. Huh?” I asked, turning to see her. She chirped in response, and I shut the book and called Edna over. She was stubborn, it took several times and briberies for her to fly over and perch on my arm.

I shut the door behind us and headed down to the training gym. The gym was more like 6 gyms all morphed into one. It was huge! There was open space to run around, small spaces to practice more dangerous tricks and padding on the walls. Delia was awaiting me. She fluttered right over.

“Hi MacKenzie! Are you excited to begin training?” I nodded.

“Great! We’ll start nice and simple today. Then we’ll get gradually harder tricks as your skill grows. We will also work on you and Edna’s bond. Sound okay?” I nodded again. “Alright follow me.” I followed her to one of the smaller sections. We walked through the doorway and the space was the size of a moderate bedroom. Several charts were taped to the walls and a few books leaned against them too. Delia pushed a seat out for me and I took it.

“Okay, first we will focus on small flame. If you take a look at these charts, they show the basic motions to create different tricks of flame. The first one is flicking your wrist and snapping your fingers together. Try it.” I did the motion, and a small candle sized flame appeared on my finger. I expected a burning sensation, but it felt as if nothing was there. The fire was shaking, and I realized that it was actually me. “How do I get rid of it?” I asked, never taking my eyes off of my finger. “Just repeat what you did,” I snapped and flicked my wrist and the small flame disappeared. “Repeat it.” Delia said firmly. I repeated it over and over it again until I could do it in my sleep. “Nice job. Lets move on.” She taught me many more simple tricks to do with my hands. They were all pretty easy. “Your making fantastic progress! And once you become stronger with your power, you eventually won’t even have to do the motions to get it to appear. You’ll even be able to do tricks without even practicing!” She said enthusiastically.

We continued until 1:00. It was tiring, everywhere from my shoulder to my fingers were sore. But I learned a lot. Apparently I was a master, at least as beginners go. It was time for lunch. We made our way to the Dining Hall, following August this time. I asked the girl’s how they were coming, and they all seemed pretty confident. Except for Brooklyn.

“How did your practice go?” I had asked her.

“It was fine,” She said, without even giving me a glance.

“What’d you learn?”

“Stuff. Now, if you’d excuse me, I’m going to go eat. There’s no need for you to tell me how WELL your tricks are coming.” She said with an upturned face and walked away. What is her deal? I wondered. I sat down at the table as they presented the food.

BBQ.

I filled my plate and ate my worries away.