Glimpses of Magic
Sarah Yordy Age 13
The Middle Lands: Battle of the Elements Grief, fury, and shame; that’s all she could feel, not joy or excitement, just pain. It was dark and gray, with a chill in the air that seemed to be getting colder by the second. This was the Middle Lands. This was the land before rest for her people. How was she here? Was she dead? Celeste looked at the pale skin of her hands, different from the gray of the people around her. She wasn’t dead. She wasn’t sure how; only dreamers could visit the Middle Lands. Unless she was dreaming. Impossible. Dreamers were extinct, leaving her people to grieve their loss for half a century. There had to be a reasonable explanation to this. Whoosh! Air spun her whole body as it whipped at her hair. “What is happening?” she whispered to herself. Another powerful slash of air, forcing her to roll as she narrowly escaped it. The ground trembled as the air became thicker. Think Celeste. Of all the tales she had read as a child, only one mentioned anything like this. Elementals! Immortal beings that controlled the elements Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. She was being attacked by two Elementals, Air and Earth. She was thrown with more wind, her thoughts coming and going. Elementals only fought other Elementals—she had heard about that somewhere. They were making a mistake. They had to be making a mistake. She narrowly avoided another slash of air. She wasn’t sure what to do, or how to end this, but all she knew was that she was going to try and fight. She really didn’t know how. If by some miracle, she was an Elemental as the people trying to kill her seemed to think, how would she channel it? Water began to flow around her like a flash flood. The third Elemental. To her surprise, the water never touched her as it was thrown at her attackers. She took the distraction as her chance to fling herself behind a mound of thrown rocks. She looked at her hands; the cold and the chill this world was bringing with it was almost suffocating. She thought about Fire. It had to be Fire! You’re not an Elemental, a god like them. She knew that; she thought she would always know that deep down. The sounds stopped, and a moment later, a girl appeared before her. She was in a hood. It was dark,
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