Unexplainable and Unnatural

"Lukas. Calm down… He deserved it. Hahahaha! Calm down… Nothing can be reversed. Calm down…"

The crazed and bipolar tones of Elijah were settled with the mystery that plagued his mind. Who is "they"? Is the King "they"? Why do I have to die? There is nothing wrong with me. I am just as normal as anyone else. Just as weak as anyone else. I can manipulate two elements, which is not a first in the kingdom by any means. What is the meaning of this?

Elijah was only able to connect the similarities of Cora, and now this incident. They were both put up to this, but by who? Cora was a nobody, a girl from a family of miners. No one would pay special attention to her. Damir and Cael were people that seemed like normal nobles, and Trey, was someone he had hoped to become friends with. Both Damir and Cael may have had personal motives, but not to kill me. Trey on the other hand, seemed like he was forced beyond his will.

The only thing that makes sense if something unnatural happened. That purple energy I saw was something I had never seen before. It never left Cora when she died, but left Damir. Maybe it was transferred from Cora to Trey?

Something unbeknownst to Elijah was controlling the minds of these poor children, and dooming them for despair.

Elijah had long since stood up and slowly paced in circles while avoiding eye contact with the disaster he created. His entire right arm was throbbing, and with every movement, a small cracking noise was created. The mana in Elijah's body was no more after that last spell, and with not a single sound in the cavern, he slowly turned his back to his possible death.

The waterfall chasm.

It felt sour to not complete a mission again. It seemed fate was against him, or at least something was against him.

When reaching the top of the chasm and in view of the small opening overtop of a lightly flowing river, he noticed a couple pairs of eyes staring at him from around the corner. Tears of pain began dripping down his eyes once he realized he had forgotten about his friends, and suddenly remembered the ashy and rotten stench when flying up the chasm.

The emotions welling up inside him felt dull, and fake. Quickly, he stopped his crying, and crouched through the entrance with soft words leaving his mouth. "Everyone is dead." Emelia, Aslan, and Harry, did not deserve any of this. The thoughts of their future together as strong hunters had been in Elijah's mind many times.

The moist footsteps were the only noise besides the shallow breaths of the brave adventurers who had just barely escaped death. The saint, who bore the title of savior, also bore the weight of his actions and empty emotions.

"Creveron, five!" Theon was the one to exclaim his desire for safety once they reached Nova40. However, his voice was not loud enough, and shortly followed up with an angered shout. "CREVEVRON, FIVE!"

Five metal wires with harnesses for the chest fell to the floor. With everyone strapped in, the tug of each of the ropes shot them to the sky. The wood gate slid underneath their small frames, and quickly, four out of the five children fell to the floor with exhaustion.

Elijah began walking forward, and up the wooden steps within the dimly lit arched pathway. People were passing by his side, and a shout was heard from behind by the two men who sent the ropes down to the ground.

"Where is the rest of your party?!"

"Wait!"

Once the corner had been turned, and Elijah saw the coast was clear, his figure vanished from the line of sight where the two strong men thought he would be, and rose to the ceiling. Only darkness blanketed the ceiling, which made it a perfect spot for Elijah to escape untimely questions.

Using his space magic, a small divot in the ceiling was carved out into a curving shape that mimicked the moon. A cradle to hold fearsome, yet a troubled youth was created, and was where that youth spent the next couple of hours contemplating his life. Date bars fulfilled his hunger, while water quenched his thirst. Only when he felt himself again, he sneakily dropped down from the ceiling, and began to search for his friends.

While passing by the familiar large wooden door home to Aslan's uncle, the door was quickly opened as a man signaled to come inside. Elijah, was trapped with no way out, and decided to agree to his request while appearing the way a child would appear when they had been through an atrocity as bad as losing three good friends to the spawns of the devil.

"If you are wondering, the rest of your party has already left as you had gone missing per my captains. I have already let my anger out on many poor beasts, so don't worry I won't hurt you." Andal was thoroughly scratching his spiky gray hair as he had down on his cushioned, old wooden chair.

"Why would you want to talk to me if you know the whole story?"

"According to your favorite supporter, you killed three of the people who supposedly betrayed your party. What do you think the reason for their betrayal was?" The head of Andal tilted forward, and rested on his chin.

To Elijah, it seemed he already knew the answer most likely from personal experience. So Elijah told the truth, but not all of the truth. "They were told to kill us. But I have no idea why. We are all simple, just trying to prove our worth and contribute to the kingdom."

"So it seems! This is not the first time something like this has happened. I know a few people who have survived these ordeals, and the one thing they all have in common is that it has happened more than once. I believe these betrayals are not random by any means, but are targeted to specific people. There are probably a numerous number of similar cases we have never heard of simply due to there being no survivors."

"That doesn't make sense. There has to be cases of this happening only one time!" Elijah was baffled by this theory, but wanted more information and put up a curious and angry act.

"I said cases of known betrayal, where the survivors had said openly that they had been betrayed. This is no such thing as crime in the kingdom. While fraud does exist with people eyeing to never work a day in their life in this paradise surrounded by death, everyone draws the line at physical harm."

Even though Elijah had noticed the fact that no one talked about "staying safe" within the streets of the inner city, this still came to a surprise. What would have to happen for evil to not exist, for physical crime to not exist. Back on earth, even when the world was reaching new peaks in the advancement of the race, there were still shootings, civil wars, and internal conflicts on small and large scales. This was why Elijah had also wanted to feel "true peace". It seemed this kingdom was the closest he had ever got, but now something else clouded his judgement on this matter. It didn't seem natural.