Not yet corpses, Still we rot.
The Koa Forest Halo Spot, Southern Ardeneon.
March 25
"What do you mean?" River asks her confused, 'why wouldn't it be on the map?' He thinks
"But why wouldn't it be on the map?" Dexter voices out River's thoughts, looking over at Skai waiting for her response.
"Esse isn't a place" Skai and Emily conclude in unison, they turn to face each other, bursting into fits of giggles.
"What do you mean?" Elijah turns to face both of them intrigued.
"It's a word" Emily informs us "It means essence"
"Or essential nature" Skai adds "So, would that mean we are to find somewhere that is essential to nature?" she asks.
"I don't know how you guys know this stuff but I'm glad you do" Dexter breathes out.
"I guess you could say hanging out with Emily a lot pays off" Skai shrugs making Emily smile.
"This seems too easy" River mutters under his breath "Can you not be skeptical for once in your life?" Skai groans at her brother.
"'tis perceived that life begins and death doeth cease" Elijah reads out loud.
"That's easy, somewhere that is essential to nature where life begins, and death can't happen... I guess" Dexter says and in the most sarcastic and dramatic tone ever River responds to his statement "Wow, I would have never guessed, OMG Dexter Bardo, you are sooo smart"
"Gee thanks" Dexter mimics River.
"Guys" Emily interrupts them tucking her hair behind her ear "It's the lake of life"
"The answer it seems within a few feet" Elijah assesses the surround as they walk by the lake of life, which they probably shouldn't be around, but as long as Mrs. Bolvera doesn't see them, they'd be fine.
"I'm starting to agree with River guys" Emily looks around nervously rubbing her arm, "What if we're being led on?"
"Better an oops than a sorry, Em" Skai flings her arm around Emily's shoulder in comfort "Right?"
"I guess" she mutters.
"So do we just start digging?" River asks them and they all share stares, not really knowing what to do.
"I think I have an idea" Dexter looks down and they all wait patiently for his suggestion.
He sits on in the ground—criss cross apple sauce style—placing both hands besides him he closes his eyes sucking in a deep breath.
Little flowers begin to grow out of the grass. His friends look around in awe, he lifts his left hand and in a swift movement, plants begin to grow in the far left, he repeats the motion on his right and Elijah notices something different in that region, near a rock. An absence of flowers and plants. Emily seems to have noticed it too as she runs over to the area.
She begins to dig the ground with a rock, Skai soon joins her. Elijah and River walked over to them peering over to see what they found. "Bingo" Emily smiles, pulling a paper out from the dirt.
"Emily no one says Bingo anymore." Skai shakes her head.
"I do" Emily shrugs opening the paper this time the words weren't hidden. "Dexter you can stop" River calls out to him, remembering his friend is still growing flowers.
"Land and sea, across this ditch,
the final dose or thou will tick."
....
It's been two weeks, and they have had zero luck deciphering the second clue, they felt completely hopeless at this point, staying there for that long wasn't a part of their plan...but then again a lot hasn't been working in their favor for a while now.
They'd studied, read and researched everything they could but no luck, all their efforts were futile, they were stagnant.
That aside, Dexter and Elijah have been succeeding in getting close to Mr. Dankles the professor suggested by Mrs. Bolvera, It really helps that they have skills, so they go to him often for questions.
The downside is that they weren't getting much information out of him, but he had been helping them work on their skills, Dexter has been doing really well, but Elijah is struggling, he can't decide when he sees things. On the other hand, Delta and Amari had proven themselves to be menaces to society, their parents practically let them do whatever and they never failed to take advantage of that. They always play pranks on the five, just the previous day one of them put green hair dye in River's shampoo, he was convinced that was the work of Amari Bolvera and he was right, it's clear as day that she leads all their schemes, Delta is much calmer than her, he only goes along with it because she is his sister.
Today is a somewhat special day at LSIS, they brought a machine in two days ago. Its purpose is to speed up the whole skill arriving process.
Usually, skills are meant to show up at ages 12-14. Early bloomers see theirs at 10 and those who get theirs late see it at 16, it's very rare for someone past 16 to gain their skills but it happened to Elijah and Dexter so the others believe that they could still get theirs.
River and Skai were the most excited for the class. The class was held once every two months and the machine is legit, so they're pretty stoked.
"Emily you're burning" Elijah curses taking his hand off Emily.
They currently have a general free period. It's when everyone has a free period at the same time, students usually use this time to work on group projects, but people don't usually like to work with them because they're 'strange foreigners' as they say, so the five don't really have to do anything.
"No, I'm not" Emily lifts her brow "I feel great"
"You're still burning though" Skai says after placing her palm on her forehead then Emily's.
"Maybe you should go to the infirmary" Skai says.
"I'm not sick guys" Emily sighs.
"Yeah, I agree with Skai, just for the sake of it" Elijah pushes.
"Do you guys know how much energy it takes to go all the way to the infirmary?" she huffs "It's literally on the other side of the building"
"I'll carry you" Elijah offers.
"Thanks Ellie, but I'm good" she shrugs.
"Just go to the infirmary Em, we'll all go with you" River sighs.
"We will?" Dexter asks, confusion and unwillingness plastered boldly across his facial features.
"Yes Dexter, we will" Skai says.
"And I said it's pointless, I'm fine" Emily asserts.
"She clearly doesn't want to go to the infirmary, you guys should let her be" Dexter rolls his eyes in annoyance and Emily looks away from him.
"You don't have to be so rude Dex" Elijah reprimands him defensively.
"Yeah, that wasn't really necessary" Skai adds.
"Y'all just mind your business" Dexter sighs.
'Something definitely happened' River thinks knowing Dexter never acts this way, but he didn't want to join the conversation. Things were getting heated fast; he didn't like heated.
"What's your problem Dexter?" Elijah asks him now clearly annoyed.
"Ask your girlfriend" Dexter packs his things and leaves the classroom.
They all turned to Emily who seemed conflicted.
"What's he going on about Em?" Skai is the one to speak.
"Yeah, what's all that about?" Elijah asks clearly vexed.
"It's nothing" she mutters playing with her fingers, something they all know she does when she lies.
"You're lying" Skai and Elijah call her out.
Elijah was dejected, he couldn't understand why she would lie to him, especially when he just defended her.
River and Skai took note of this and understood, what reason would his girlfriend have to lie to him, it's not like she killed a man.
Emily let out a heavy sigh and sinks in her seat.
"Dexter and I had a little misunderstanding" she mutters.
"What type of misunderstanding?" Skai asks Emily and tears start to rush out of Emily's eyes, Elijah immediately wraps his arms around her, petting her.
River was starting to actually grow concerned, He knows Emily. She isn't the type to cry over little misunderstandings, this made him seriously wonder if she did something bad.
"I didn't mean to" she says in between sniffs. "I don't know what came over me"
"What did you do?" Elijah asks.
"I didn't know until after we would do it" she sobs.
'She cheated on him, didn't she?' River thinks 'But who could she have cheated with? Dexter? Is that why he's upset? But Emily wouldn't cheat on Elijah...she loves him.'
"Would?" Elijah pauses "So it happened more than once?" he asks calmly not letting go of her.
"Yes" she admits, still crying "I couldn't bring myself to tell you guys"
River looks at Skai trying to tell her they should leave the room and give the two space, but Skai was too engrossed in what was going on to pay her brother any mind.
"I didn't mean to, I swear" her eyes glass over the desk in front of her as she was rubbing her arm.
"What did you do?" he asks again, still calm despite the evident pain visible in his eyes.
"Did you cheat?" River decides to throw it out there because he was getting tired of her taking so long to get to the point.
"What? no!" She exclaims breaking out of Elijah's embrace and facing River wide-eyed.
"Then why are you behaving like you cheated on your husband at your 35th wedding anniversary?" he asks her, and she wipes her tears, composing herself.
"Her feelings are valid River, whatever she is crying about may not seem relevant to you, but it is to her, and it is to me, allow her to take her time." Elijah warns him and River puts his hands up in defense.
"Chill, I didn't say it wasn't valid" River mutters. "We don't even know her reason" This is why he doesn't talk in matters like this, no one likes the truth, River loves Emily, she's like a sister to him, but he didn't lie, did he?
"Sorry Em, what happened?" River decides to ask her genuinely.
She gives them a straight to the point answer this time "You know how Mr. Bolvera has this special aircraft that he adores?" she asks and they all nod, knowing how the man doesn't ever shut up about it.
She sucks in a breath before telling them "I ruined it and put the blame on Dexter" all their eyes widened.
"So that's why Mr. Bolvera was all frowns yesterday evening?" Skai asks and Emily nods.
"Wait but why?" Elijah asks the question that was going through all their minds.
"I don't know" she confesses "Every day for the past week Amari would take me to the plane room and tell me to do it and I just did." She looks away from all their eyes embarrassed.
"A twelve-year-old girl told you to do something Emily" River pauses and Emily could already sense the mockery coming "And you just said 'okiedokie let's go!' and did it?" he chuckles his face full of amusement.
"River." Elijah warns.
"Chill, chill Elijah" River waves him off "I love you Emily, I really do but it's just funny" he pauses in thought "scratch that it's hysterical" he tries to muffle his laughter then his face turns serious for a moment "Not ruining his property though, that's a crime"
Emily couldn't deny it, she would have found it funny if she wasn't the one in the situation too.
"But why blame it on Dexter? You knew you were wrong" Skai asks, and Emily looks down in shame.
"Because Amari told me to do it" she says.
"Okay Emily why are you doing what she says... and why is she making you do these things anyways" Elijah asks her.
"The real question is how did you even ruin it?" River asks finally taking a break from finding amusement in her pain "Mr. Bolvera said that aircraft is made of some special material, you can't indent it or tear it apart...it can only melt."
"I've been meaning to tell you guys, I have-" the words were stuck in her throat.
Then she realized something, Amari told her not to tell them, Amari saw her during free period when it first happened and the only thing she said to her was 'don't tell your friends'
And for some reason that Emily couldn't understand, she followed every word the 12-year-old had thrown at her. It was impossible to disobey her.
"You were saying?" Skai pushes and Emily sighs in despair then she realizes, maybe she couldn't tell them, but she could show them.
She closed her eyes focusing on the heat coming out of her hand, and just as she had practiced a ball of fire was floating above her palm.
"Amari said I couldn't tell you, but she didn't say I couldn't show you" she mutters glad to finally get it off her chest.
Their eyes widen.
"Your skill is fire dude! Literally." Skai squeals jumping while embracing Emily.
"As cool as it is, Dexter is probably distraught right now" Elijah bites his lower lip guiltily.
"Mr. Bolvera yelled at him, called him ungrateful and a whole lot of other things" Emily looks down again. "It was only this morning that Dexter came to speak to me, he told me Delta had told him the truth of what happened, and that I had planned it from the beginning because I was jealous of him or something, also told him that I said he deserved it."
"But that's not even the case, because I was really happy for Dexter" she frowns.
"These kids are definitely playing at something" River mumbles letting out a sigh.
"I should go talk to Dexter and see if I can get to him" Skai stands up and they nod. "Thank you Skai" Emily smiles sadly "I really don't know how I'd face him" she says as Skai leaves the classroom.
"Guys I really don't know why I did it" Emily mumbles.
"I believe you" Elijah smiles at her planting a kiss on her forehead. "I should really apologize to Dexter" he says in thought.
"Yeah, you're not capable of causing damage for no reason, were you blackmailed?" River lifts a brow up and she gives him a deadpan look.
"Relax, I'm just checking, if not there are possibly some magical forces at work" River adds. "These forces seem to just love you, don't they Emily?" he chuckles.
"So much for friends" Dexter mumbles falling to the floor at a corner in hallway five, no one is ever there, it's the perfect place to sulk.
He brings his knees up to his chest, resting his head on them, desperately trying not to think about it.
He tries to think up good memories they may have shared together and very few came up, no moment before they began LSIS came to his mind.
"Just shows how great our friendship is!" he says to himself.
Sarcasm intended.
Although he found it a little odd, he should at least have something.
"Dexter!" Skai's voice bellows through the hall, instantly breaking him away from his thoughts and he lifts his head up.
"Something is wrong with Emily" she tells him, and he puts his head back down.
"As long as she's alive, I'm sure she's good" he mumbles.
"Dexter, you have to listen to me" he feels her presence as she sits in front of him.
"Why?" he asks.
"I'm sorry okay, I thought Emily was sick and you were just being rude" she sighs.
'Of course she did, no one ever cares to know how I feel.' He thinks.
"I think she is being controlled by Amari" Skai continues when she receives no response from him. "Think about it, Amari is old enough to gain her skills and none of us know what any of the Bolveras skills are"
"Is that what Emily said?" he asks starting to make sense of what she was saying.
"No, she could barely tell us anything, she kept saying Amari told her to do this and that, she couldn't even tell us about her skills because Amari told her not to"
"You think other forces might be at play?" he asks, he'd take Skai's word for it despite how hurt his feelings are, if Skai says that's how it is then that's how he'd take it.
"Yeah" she sighs. "We need to figure this out, you know Emily isn't the kind of person to do that"
"You're right" he agrees "It still hurt my feelings though" he tells her.
"I would be hurt too" she engulfs him in a hug, and he basks in her warmth inhaling her scent, he didn't want to let go, Lavender never smelt so good in his life as it did in that moment. She continues talking breaking him free from his thoughts yet again "But this time we need to stand by each other, we're the only ones we can trust remember?" she withdraws from the hug, taking his hands in hers.
"You're smarter than you let on Skai" he chuckles.
"Ha ha ha very funny" she rolls her eyes, shaking her hands off his.
"Wait" Dexter backtracks a bit "Emily gained her skill?"
"Yes OMG Dexter, she has fire powers" Skai squeals.
"Wait what?!" he jumps to his feet forgetting what had just happened. "That is so cool!"
"I know right, that's what I said!" she giggles.
'Cute.' He thinks.