章 5: Change
The sun was rising from the horizon. Bars and shops were starting to open. The market place were starting to see their first sign of customers. It was the start of a new day in Duskae.
7:00 am.
As usual, sister Maria woke up early to prepare breakfast for the kids. She had a good night's sleep yesterday night. She wasn't worried at all about the fact that she may have just allowed and helped the kids to commit murder. In her mind, Logan did not classify as human anymore. In fact, in Gand, law stated that human rights did not apply to sinners. Sister Maria thought that as soon as the kids learnt that all sinners must be punished, the better.
8:15 am.
Just like in teaching, each sister is assigned an age group; sister Maria was assigned the 7 year olds.
Sister Maria woke up the kids. This was one of the easiest part of the job as the kids were used to waking up early; the majority of them lived most of their lives here.
After making sure that every kid were on their merry way to help put out the dishes, she revised the 7 year old's dorm once more for confirmation that no one was being left behind.
That's when one bed, the nearest one to the window, caught her attention.
The bed was like the other ones except that this one's bedhead was.....full of scratch marks, insults (well, 7 year old insults for Sister Maria tried to regulate language as much as she could), crayon marks and more.
- Maria? Is everything alright? - called one of the other sisters from the the bottom of the corridor. Maria had stayed immobile in the same place for a long time without realising it. She was now the last one on the second floor.
- Yes, everything is alright, I'm coming down now. - she replied with a smile like that of an innocent flower.
Maria closed the door and decided to ignore everything she just saw; it held no importance on her mind and held no weight on her conscience
9:15 am.
Time for praying to Gaia. The refugees for winter and the poor people were praying with them. Gaia was the supreme ruler of all spirits so it was only natural for all born in the region of Gand (the region that receives Gaia's blessing) to venerate her.
10:00 am
Time for the morning class. Usually, all children and sisters would go to the courtyard behind the chapel, whilst all the refugees and poor people would help on menial tasks inside and around the chapel.
But....something would happen today that would stay on their minds forever.
- Amazing.... - a girl announced.
- How? - this time it was one of the sisters that said that.
It wasn't known who was the first one to point it out. Exclamations of shock and awe were heard throughout the courtyard. No one dared to approach for they could not understand anything that was happening in front of them.
The courtyard was still covered in snow and trees were devoid of any leaves; all except one.
Green, red, yellow, blue, white, etc. greeted them. All kinds of colours dressed the tree's leaves. As if that wasn't enough, a big patch surrounding the tree and the tree itself were devoid of snow. A kind of barrier surrounding it, melting any of the particles of snow that entered the area around it.
No one could connect the dots together but Sister Maria had the faintest idea. She looked at the tree's lower trunk. She did not find a corpse as she had thought she would this morning.
She knew this had something to with Logan.
- Contact us immediately if he starts doing anything strange.
That's what they had told her but she did not expect anything of this level. She could not rush things. She needed to confirm the child's involvement in this. And the higher ups could never know she tried to dispose of him.
Now, all she needed to know was.....Where is the kid?
**********
- Now, you've gone and done it Log.
Locus and Logan were looking at the scene hidden where everyone would less expect him to be.....with everyone else.
Locus and Logan had woken up from the trance around the same time everyone else was finishing praying. When they had woken up, the tree behind them was the mirror image of the other trees in the courtyard (its previous state from the night before nowhere to be seen) so they had not put any attention to it.
It was also at this time that they heard something grumble; they were both once again hungry so they sneaked up towards the kitchen to steal some more food.
They had never expected to come back to this.
What had happened whilst they were away?
- Loc.... - whispered Logan as he pointed towards the tree slowly, his face showing nervousness - Do you have a clue of what happened whilst we were away?
- I.....do not know. Sorry - Locus responded whilst she put her 2 hand in front of her.
"I might be in trouble" - thought Logan as he unconsciously put a nervous smile
It seemed like Locus could display an ability similar to the other spirits. She could enter the elemental world and then manifest in the material world. She was invisible to the human's eye. The other spirits also could not notice her.
After yesterday's event, Logan knew he couldn't trust any of the kids from the orphanage. He also knew that the adults were talking bad things about him at his back so he could not also trust them;
Sister Maria, the one he treated like his own mother, also couldn't be trusted. Logan knew she should have noticed that someone was missing last night; she couldn't be trusted because she didn't come looking for him.
He was but a child in a den of monsters but fortunately for him, he had Locus by his side.
Logan had also noticed something strange in his body. Yesterday's trance, had brought him a lot of benefits, from strengthening his body to enhancing his senses. He'd become able to feel elements
around him; he still could not see them like Locus though.
Unknown memories and knowledge had also started to flood his brain. He did not know where they'd come from. He could not access them clearly; they only appeared as fragments. All he knew is that he had knowledge of the world like ever before around him.
He'd suddenly become more intelligent.
******
11:00 am.
Morning class had started later than usual. First of all, the personnel of the chapel had to secure that the area around the tree was free of hazards. For that, they had contacted the higher ups of Duskae which then sent an expert. The expert deduced that what happened there was an elemental hazard.
Elemental hazards were large area events that happened due to the accumulation or increase in density of a certain elemental in small areas, for example, a typhoon might form if there is an accumulation of wind elementals in a small area.
The expert arrived to the conclusion that for some reason or another, there was an accumulation of different elementals just around the tree. This caused elementals to meet their counterparts annihilating each other in the process. The nutrients of the annihilation getting absorbed by the tree in the process which in turn lead to this turn of events.
- Do you know the source? - asked sister Maria.
- Sorry, I do not know. There's no precedents to this.
- Is it any dangerous?
- No. It's not. But we'd appreciate it a lot if you allowed us to study this phenomena.
- Hummmm....What would that involve?
- Don't worry, we'll not disturb you very much, we'll only enter every now and then to get different samples.
And with that done and a lot more things out of the way, the class finally started.
As usual, the kids were sorted to their respective age groups.
Logan did not know what to do at first. He measured the pros and cons of appearing before Sister Maria and in the end decided to appear in front of her; he'd arrived to the conclusion that as long as he was not very conspicuous, he could still fake his disposition as a sinner. He also arrived to the conclusion that he'd not be able to hide for long.
Logan tried to act as natural as possible and joined the group. He was last on line. The one in front of him noticed him and soon everyone knew he was there. Everyone scorned him and laughed at him quietly. It was only this time that he'd truly noticed how infamous he was on class. How stupid he'd been before.
- Do not worry about them Log - Locus said in a worried tone.
- Yes. They can say whatever they want. I do not care about them anymore. I have you with me now.
Locus blushed. She was flattered. Logan payed this no heed.
"The others have noticed me so it's bound for Sister Maria to also do" - Logan looked at Sister Maria. They had connected gazes.
That was the only thing for Logan to know that she was his enemy. Her face was kind but her gaze was ferocious.
"I cannot give her any signs" - Logan thought so he smiled like the anterior Logan would do and waved his hand.
Sister Maria looked shocked for a moment but she eventually returned the gesture.
The other groups left the courtyard and only the 7 year olds were left behind.
- Today, we're going to learn how to apply elements to metals - explained Maria enthusiastically - You will use this piece of metal you are seeing here. Now, I'm going to demonstrate how to do it.
After she said that, the piece of metal turned a golden hue. Logan could feel the piece of metal had been blessed with the sacred elemental.
- This piece of metal does not contain the blessing for a long time. - As soon as she said that, the metal returned to its original grey lustre - The more elementals you put inside the metal, the longer the colour will stay and the longer the colour stays, the longer the blessing. Your objective for this lesson is for the colour to remain for at least 10 seconds.
Come, I will distribute your pieces.
The children enthusiastically approached Maria to get their pieces then went to their respective places with their group of friends.
Logan knew this was the best time to vanish for everyone was busy with something. He knew he could not return to his previous spot so he sought protection underneath another tree. The ground felt cold to him and snow piled on his head. Using a fire elemental was out of the question so he beared with i.t
- Well, I guess this will work - then Logan looked at Locus - We cannot do anything suspicious so I guess more elemental presence training?
- You just have to be careful not to release too much of what you cannot absorb and I have to be careful not to absorb too much at the same time.
Just like yesterday night, Logan and Locus held hands. It looked conspicuous but Logan could not do anything about it. It still felt awkward for the 2 of them but it couldn't be helped.
Both thought how warm one another's hands were.
But just when Logan was about to enter trance....he felt someone looking at him. He opened his eyes and....there she was, looking at him intently, as if she was trying to read his very soul.
Sister Maria stood in front of Logan, the smile she normally wore nowhere to be seen. Instead, an expression that could only be described as demonic replaced it.
She slowly approached Logan. Her normally gentle steps replaced with a ghastly sound.
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