FicWad

Kara

My eyes shoot open in surprise as I feel the energy of my bedroom completely change. The voices in my head jar together, creating a mob-like sound of shouts and curses. What the fuck! Who the hell is that?
Kara, lock your door!
My headache has ebbed, but it’s still there; I need more time. But I’m not just about to sit around and do nothing while my friends are shouting – mentally and literally – down the hall. I need to see what the deal is.
I manifest myself a baseball bat before stepping out into the hall. The living room seems to be filled with this unearthly glow, bathing everything in its wake with a newfound sort of beauty.
A voice of wind chimes scolds Mira in…is that Latin? “Vultis mihi? Facis omnia perdant! Omnipotens non disiungi Four in hoc loco!”
I step to the edge of the hallway, peeking my head in. At the center of the room stands a lithe woman with hair the color of wheat, skin the color of pearls, dress the image of a sunset, eyes shimmering through each shade of the rainbow.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Mira shrieks. “Get out!”
My mind is whirling. Could it really be…? I notice the silver circlet around her head. My heart hammers. It is.
“The Prophecy is at stake here Mira,” Mother Nature goes on, easily swapping to English. “This is not time for you to cap an attitude just because you feel cats and dogs shouldn’t mix. Nascantur!” Suddenly, Mother Nature turns to face me. Her eyes are a little unnerving, but I manage to stand straight; this is not time to be a wimp. “Kara; so nice of you to join us; is your head feeling any better?” I shake my head no. “What a shame.” An idea seems to spur in her. “Come here, child. Lorem?”
Tentatively I take a step forward. I feel everyone’s laser gazes on me, burning holes into my back. Mother Nature steps forward and places her fingers on my temples and instantly it’s as though this weight has been lifted from my head. I sigh. “Thanks, Mother Nature.”
Mira’s hand flies to her mouth, muffling the exclamation of “Holy shit!” It’s still audible though. Jake’s eyes stop roaming her body and look at her, mouth hanging open. Alex nods to himself, probably already realizing this.
“Why are you here?” Mira looks like she wants to either run like hell or scream; knowing her, she’d probably do both.
“And what the hell – heck – were you speaking earlier?” Jake plops down on the couch, wearing his classic expression of blankness.
Mother Nature motions for us all to sit down. So we do. Once we’re seated, she waves her hands and the doors lock and curtains snap closed.
“Aren’t you not supposed to leave Paradiso except for dire situations?” Alex has taken up his habit of tossing a fireball again.
“I was speaking Latin, my dear boy,” Mother Nature says to Jake, ignoring Alex and Mira. Sighing, she waves her hand again and sits on a chair of clouds that just appeared. This is starting to freak me out.
“Why aren’t you answering any of our important questions?” I blurt out, stomach flipping.
Her eyes are daggers at me. “I thought you were the mild one, Kara. I suppose not.” I wince, waiting for her wrath, but receiving none. “That is good. If you are to fulfill the Prophecy, you need to be courageous.”
“Wha – wha – huh?”
“I think what Kara is trying to say is…” Alex looks at Mother Nature pointedly. “We need to know what you’re talking about if you want us to do anything.” I nod.
“So stop speaking in your damn riddles!” Mira shouts, not bothering to fix her language, even for one of the creators of our world – of us.
Mother Nature twitches uncomfortably in her seat. “I can’t tell you everything. That’s against the Code. But I can tell you some. For instance, you four are part of a world-altering Prophecy that Tim and I made long ago: the beginning of time.”
“Whoa whoa whoa.” Jake backpedals, looking at Mother Nature as if she’s sprouted another head. “Did you say Tim?”
Mother Nature waves it off. “Father Time; I call him Tim; much too long of a name. He calls me Nat; you may call me this too if you feel compelled to. Anyways,” she continues, obviously annoyed to have been stopped for that. “We call it the Great Prophecy. It consists of four Abnormalities – the Almighty Four – and the defeat of the Ancient Ones.”
“But they’re dead,” I insist, not willing for my life to get any weirder. “They were destroyed in the Contritio de antiquis!”
Nat sighs. “So we thought, but a few survived. Then they went into hiding and repopulated, creating the –”
A flash of lightning crashed down onto Nat, and everybody screamed. The lights went out for a minute, and when they flickered back on, Nat was glaring huffily at the ceiling, muttering in Latin. “Deus damno Tim. Acturus sum ad illos stulte!”
“That was Tim?” Mira says, shocked. “Why would he do such a thing?” I don’t know what she’s talking about; nothing was hurt, and now that it’s over, I can confidently say how awesome that was!
“Yes,” Nat says, done with her mumbling. “He was fearful that I would give away too much, which I’m not!”
“Okayyyy.” I’m determined to find out what’s going on here. “You were saying?”
Nat shakes her head and stands up, her chair diminishing. “I only have one more thing to say to you four, and that is the Prophecy.”
“Isn’t that not allowed? For you to tell us the Prophecy?” Alex is looking nervously towards the ceiling.
This time Nat laughs. “There is some I can tell you without angering Tim.” Stretching her arms luxuriously and shaking herself out, Nat opens her mouth and speaks, the light around her growing brighter.

“The Almighty Four will come together to destroy Ancient kind.
Complete the tasks:
Learn your roots
Your powers
And who you are.
Find the ones who go missing
And reunite them.
Defeat the Ancients
Save the Mortals
Or destroy the world.
Complete the tasks or else
Forever serve the Ancients.”


Flash! Bang! Sparkles! Sunshine!
Nat is gone and the weight of the world is on our shoulders.
Nice to know you, world. Goodbye, life; we are all screwed.
There goes my shot at normalcy.
Maybe skipping school wasn’t the best idea, after all…

Alex

Yeah, just defeat the Ancient Ones and you’ll be fine. No pressure. I knew skipping school would bring us bad news. This must be some sort of sick, twisted, cosmic joke. There’s no way that Mother Nature and Father Time would have woven a prophecy involving four eighteen year olds saving the world. The idiocy of such a thing is so great that I feel like I should be rolling around on the floor laughing right now.
Too bad I know that this is totally legit, and there’s no way that this could be a hoax. God damn it all…
Kara has jumped up to begin pacing where Nat stood just a second before. “What the hell are we supposed to do now?!”
“I don’t know,” I reply honestly. What does one do when they’re told that their job in life is to save the world?
Mira’s digging her nails – excuse me, they’re claws now – into a pillow. “This is fucking screwed up, you guys. I mean, what the fuck does that Prophecy even mean?”
“It means exactly what it says,” Kara tells her, sinking back into the cushions beside me. “But what we do about it, I have no idea.”
Jake breaks the silence. “Has anybody ever considered that we just do it?”
“How do you propose we do that, smart-ass?” Mira looks ready to rip his head off. Yeah, she tends to have issues with her temper…
When he shrugs, I can literally see my twin restrain herself from lunging at him. “She never said we couldn’t ask for help; why don’t we? I’m sure somebody knows the truth about the Ancient Ones.”
Kara stands up and resumes her pace. “That’s actually not a bad idea. Our only problem then would be with whom should we trust?” Stopping mid-stride, she looks at me. “Didn’t Ms. Clumpy seem a little, I don’t know, suspicious when the topic was brought up in class? Maybe she knows something.” A look of relief sets into her face. “And she’s pretty reliable; I say she’s as good a person as any to go to.”
Mira stands up. “Well, that’s good enough for me; let’s go!”
“Wait a second,” I say, running this idea over in my mind. “School’s still going on, and we cut. Do you really think we can just waltz back in there? It’s highly unlikely that Mr. Fedner didn’t inform the Headmistress about our escape.”
For once, Kara’s the one with the evil glint in her eye. “So we’ll break in.”

Mira

This new devious Kara is pretty awesome. Still, I have to wonder if it’s really a good thing that she’s letting this Prophecy affect her this much. Oh well. Without her, this entire scheme would have never gone down.
We head off to school on foot, so as not to raise suspicion from a very late-coming car. We approach school grounds through the woods on the east side – the school is settled in a U-shaped clearing amidst the woods – and linger on the fringe of the trees. Kara motions for us to stay put while she runs off with her superhuman speed towards the back of the school, remaining in the woods. When she returns, she gives us the thumbs up. “P.F.E. is doing training outside. We’re in the clear.”
Now we each go to our respective tree shelters as we change into the P.F.E. uniforms Kara has just manifested us. They consist of baggy green shorts (ew) and baggy white shirts (also ew). Once everybody’s changed we head step out of the woods and scurry towards the school building.
Here’s the thing: we’re only using the uniforms as an excuse. If somebody spots us out here, they can assume we’re harmless students who wandered away from the sweat of P.F.E. But really, we won’t be outside long. If this works, we’ll be on the second story of the school in Ms. Clumpy’s classroom. We timed this perfectly: her one free period, since we have such a small senior class. As long as the window’s unlocked, we’re in.
Kara stares intently at the wall for a moment. No one has spoken since we left the house, except for Kara to signal the all-clear. I want to scream at the top of my lungs I’m so pent up with anxiety, but I figured that would pretty much fuck up the plan, so I stayed quiet and listened to the joyous screams and shouts from the other students who were so close, and yet so far. We could never be like them again.
Jake’s nudge scares the shit out of me I’m so spaced out. “What the fuck, Jake?” I whisper, unwilling to be the one to mess anything up.
He looks at me, big brown eyes startled. “It’s your turn,” he says quietly, stepping aside and motioning towards the ladder Kara manifested. Crap. Now I hurt the damn dog’s feelings. And for some reason I feel guilty. This Prophecy thing is totally doing all sorts of crazy things to my already fucked-up brain.
Only once we’re all on does Kara peer over the top of the ladder and into the window. Cautiously, she tries to pry it open.
God damn it, we’re locked out!
“What are we going to do now?” I whisper irritably at Kara’s foot. “Knock?”
To my utter shock, that’s exactly what she does. Her pale hand forms a fist and raps on the glass three times: click click click. “What the fuck, Kara? She’s never going to –!”
Next thing I know, my best friend’s been dragged through the window effortlessly and The Clump’s bright pink hair pops into view. “What are you waiting for?” she hisses, eyes darting furiously. “Get in here!”




Jake

Ms. Clumpy is kind of frightening when she’s royally pissed off. I mean sure, she’s three feet of pure jiggle, but seriously, she can do a mean glare. And the words that come out of her mouth put even Mira to shame, and that’s saying something. Her disapproval rolled off of her in waves as she ranted about our irresponsibility, the danger of doing such a thing (doesn’t she remember we’re indestructible?) and finally, the reason why we did it in the first place. Once we explained the Gym Incident – aka, its burning – she started screaming again, her plump face going red. I thought she was going to go into cardiac arrest at this point. But no, we weren’t done yet; we had yet to explain the purpose for actually coming to her. Let’s just say that we learned an important lesson: elves do not take kindly to people dumping water on them. Yes, that’s right: when we told her about the Prophecy, she literally passed out. The girls freaked.
“Oh my God!” Kara screamed. “Is she dead?”
“No way,” Mira said, nudging Clumpy with her toe. “Does this mean that paper thingy isn’t due tomorrow?”
“Mira!” Kara slaps her arm. “What the hell kind of question is that? This woman could be dead, and you’re worried about homework?”
“I know,” she says, dazed, but still horrified. “I sound like you!”
“Oh my God, Mir.” Kara slaps her again. “Get a grip!”
“Guys,” Alex finally cut in. “Would you stop arguing? She’s clearly breathing. We just need to wake her up.”
One bucket of water and a very wet and very aggravated wake-up call later, Ms. Clumpy is awake and calmed down. We’re sitting in front of her desk in some hard metal chairs and she’s staring at us expectantly, waiting for one of us to begin. Not surprisingly, Kara is the first to speak. She had the whole thing memorized, and she recited it for Ms. Clumpy in a dreamy, lilting voice, sounding, in my opinion, better than Mother Nature herself.
Another beat of silence goes by after she’s finished. Ms. Clumpy’s head rests on her clasped fists, eyes closed in concentration. When she looks up, she picks her glasses up off the desk and taps them against the wood, still thinking. “And you are sure those were the words?”
“Yes ma’am.” Kara still had the Southern manners she had been raised with, even if she lacked the accent.
“And you are quite positive that it was Mother Nature you saw?”
“Yes ma’am!”
Ms. Clumpy’s face falls back into her hands. “You poor children.”
Kara’s eyebrows knit together. “Ma’am?”
Our teacher’s eyes are sharp, and unnaturally dark as opposed to her usual teal. It’s more than a little unsettling. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Don’t know what Ms. Clumpy?” Mira snaps. “I’m really tired of all these damn riddles that are being handed to us!”
Tilting her head to the side like some sort of creepy doll, Ms. Clumpy replies: “That you four are –”
A flash of lightning crashes down in the center of the room. Again, both of the girls scream shrilly. When I turn back to Ms. Clumpy, she looks…older; her hair looks more washed out, and her face is wrinkling. But the new set eyes she has are the same.
“Ms. Clumpy!” Kara pants, “That must have been Mother Nature. You can’t tell us whatever you were about –”
This blinding light and rumble of thunder shake the room, and I can’t see a thing. The room is now pitch black. I feel Kara and Mira grab either one of my arms, their nails digging into my skin. Mira lets out a threatening hiss, and I growl. Kara abandons me – for Alex, I’m sure – and whimpers.
“What’s going on?” Alex demands, voice ringing out. “Ms. Clumpy –”
Flash! Bang! Sparkles! Sunshine! “Suspicabar te ab initio audistis me Tania?” Nat’s voice was rash and loud as she rambled on in Latin, clearly her favored tongue. “Tu excessisse rerum ordinem. Tempus veneris mecum collocaverunt ad. Tu prohibentur Uprising ponatur pro te ita. Nunc dimittis Quatuor omnipotens et abeuntes! Mando it!”
She’s saying that she suspected Tania all along, and that she’s overstepped the Natural Order of Things. Now Nat’s demanding that Tania come with her to be relocated because it is forbidden to put the Resistance in her favor. I guess she was trying to tell us too much? She also wants us released.
Wait. Tania. Wasn’t that Ms. Chambers first name? “What’s going on?” I command, feeling weak next to Mother Nature’s imposing glowing figure and violated from Kara’s invasion of my mind to translate.
“Silentium puer!” An all too familiar voice yelled, and my lips were suddenly sealed shut. I felt Kara’s panic sweep into my mind. Jake! Headmistress Chambers is an Ancient One! And she’s just cursed you!
Where the fuck are you, Kara? For some reason, I knew she wasn’t here.
I don’t know, she answers smally. In a room. Alex is here. I’m seeing all this through your mind. I think Mira’s still there with you. Tania must have separated us for safety reasons. Her voice was growing faint. Jake, I can’t hold on… She was gone.
“Tu quoque naturalibus interrupit!” Tania went on, voice clearly joyful. “Aequum est ut dicamus, accipe oculum pro oculo. Filii nobiscum. Vel ego iugulo slit in praesentia, et non poterunt facere aliquid.”
Now she’s saying that Nat also overstepped the Natural Order of Things. So following the old saying “an eye for an eye,” we have to stay or she’ll slit our throats. Nat won’t be able to interfere; it’s against this old law that really needs to be changed. Apparently Kara got her grip back.
Nat’s face and voice were clearly strained as she sat silent for a moment. Mira’s hand found mine and I squeezed it gently.
“Satis bene. Quod si ita est necesse modo. Oculum pro oculo. Posthac autem per permanere Legibus prophetiae. Ego paradisum Tania spectat, recordare.”
She’s leaving. Nat will be watching, but now they both must follow the Laws of the Prophecy. I don’t know what those are! Kara’s connection goes static-y before once again she’s ripped from my head.
Flash! Bang! Sparkles! Sunshine!
Be careful, my children, Nat whispers before she is gone and Tania stands alone in the center of the room.