• Introduction;//
    The world, to most, is a normal place where people live, work, and play. Anything out of the ordinary settles back to the boring routine within days.

    For some, though, this vision is very much a nonexistent one. These people were touched by the various elements at birth: pure wind, sunlight, darkness, water from a river, or fire. But their contact didn't last for a brief moment; it was for a week. After this contact, they had acquired abilities, ones that were unlike anything the rest of the world had ever known. And thus their worlds were changed at birth.

    Lore and Ethan are just two of these people. They thought they were alone - until a new family moves to their neighborhood. The older brother is an Earth Shaker, the younger sister a Water Singer. At first Lore and Ethan are ecstatic. But are these siblings as innocent as they seem?
    -~-
    The heavy blast of max air conditioning did nothing to improve the hot, muggy atmosphere inside the beaten-up Volkswagen.

    Lore sighed with frustration, rolling down the window and sticking out her head desperately. Upon meeting more stifling air, she sat back in her chair resignedly, flicking back a strand of hair matted with sweat. It seemed she would have to make do with perspiration running down her back.

    With nothing else to do about the heat, she lost herself to the heavy music leaking from her iPod earphones, her head nodding unconsciously to the pumping rhythm. “Crawling in my skin, these wounds they will not heal,” she sang softly. In her earlier childhood she had put the voice that others claimed a unique wonder to simpler, childlike songs. Now she marveled at how quickly her taste had changed over the years.

    “Lorinda…” Lore flinched at the mention of her real name. There was no way that she would ever switch back to it. She gazed at her mother; Mom threw a worried glance at her child before looking back to the road.

    “I’m fine, mom.” She turned away, drawing her leather jacket tighter around her shoulders, which didn’t really help her sweating issue.

    The library—the place that she had claimed to her mother was her destination—drew closer as they rolled along almost lazily on the traffic-plagued road. Its pearl white color was distorted greatly by her darkened sunglasses, just like the rest of the forsaken world.

    “You be good to the librarian, now. You have all your homework? Don’t forget to—“

    “I told you, I’m /fine/, mom!”

    “Okay,” Mom sighed dejectedly. “I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

    Lore nodded, scrambling out of the car quickly while stuffing her iPod into her backpack. She made sure that every inch of her alabaster skin was covered, from the gloves on her hands to the large hat concealing most of her hair, a result of the astonishing ability to burn in the sun within seconds. A grimace flitted across her face; apparently, her chronic skin condition was called EPP. After completing a thorough check, she walked briskly into the building, very much aware of the van still behind her. Once safely inside the library, it sped away.

    The girl grinned, finally free for a blissful hour. She ran out the door, turning into the next alley and dumping her bag on a pile of trash bags carelessly. Maybe if she had five minutes at the end of her hour, she could study to keep a guilty-free conscience.

    But not now.

    “Where am I supposed to meet Ethan again?” she muttered to herself, thinking back hard.

    /Ah, yes. New York Central Park./

    Lore glanced at the dirt-caked bricks around her. She needed the perfect place to Shadow Surf. A dark corner worked best, but any place with shade was all right as well.

    In her mind, Lore automatically went over the rules of being what a shadow-surfer—what she was.

    Rule one: Don’t stay too long, or you’ll never see daylight again.

    Rule two: Closer your eyes before stepping in the shadow stream. Floating eyes in darkness arouses suspicion.

    Rule three: focus only on your destination. Anything else will leave your mind forever lost and scattered in the stream. If you think of different destinations, you might end up on the other side of the world.

    Lore stripped off her outer jacket and accessories. Bringing anything that could fall off on the shadow stream was a bad idea, and besides, the buildings that towered above her gave her plenty of protection from the harmful rays of the sun. Doing so revealed a night black turtle-neck sweater—made of thin and naturally stretchy material—whose sleeves ended in fingerless gloves. A normal person wouldn’t need gloves while wearing this shirt, but in the sun Lore’s hands could burn as well, and she didn’t fancy wearing a full-body leotard, the only article of clothing she had that ended in full gloves. Tying back her died black hair—streaked through with platinum blond and flaming red—completed the ritual.

    The sixteen year old closed her eyes, breathing deeply for a few moments before slowly entering the shadow stream, the endless continuum of darkness that stretched over the entire world. The only person she knew with the ability to spot this stream and to travel within it was herself; Ethan’s specialty was something else entirely.

    As she walked into it, her entire being became comprised of shadow, and it flowed through the city of New York.

    The pressing dark around her eagerly welcomed her into the stream, whispering all the things that had occurred during the day to her; shadows weren’t entirely lifeless and ignorant as people thought. Lore overlooked this useless information. She only listened to more when something interesting or important cropped up in the murmurs around her—a rare miracle that happened once in a blue moon.

    Upon reaching her destination, she stepped easily out of the stream, following years of practice and experience. A distant memory from when she was young sprang up and she almost laughed at it. Lore had almost lost herself in the shadow stream, not knowing when to get out, or how.

    All of that had changed now.

    At this time of day, the park was pretty full, so it was hard finding a vacant bench. Finally locating one, Lore quickly sat down, stretching out her legs on the bench so no one but Ethan—once he reached it—could take a seat next to her. Luckily the sun was setting, and people were milling all around her, so her skin was safe from burning.

    /He’s here./ She could almost feel the subtle whispers of the wind that always came with his arrival. Suddenly, Ethan materialized right on her legs, grinning at her cockily as she yelped and pulled down her feet hastily. A quick glance revealed that the passerby hadn’t noticed anything—as always.

    “Ugh, Ethan, don’t do that to me,” Lore groaned, slapping him on the back of his head as he laughed.

    “Sorry, Lore, I just had to, couldn’t resist,” he said between chuckles. Even after knowing him for a decade, she still couldn’t help but be in awe of his soft British accent, much more sophisticated than her Brooklyn drawl. At least after ten years of living in America, it was just a faint shadow in his voice. Still, Ethan had to reassure Lore from time to time that his accent was nothing next to the snotty upper-class Englishmen in London.

    “I know.” Lore sighed. “I just hate it when you take advantage of being a wind dancer.”

    “Hey, I still think turning into shadow is much cooler than becoming mere air particles.”

    “Ha! You wish. At least you get to fly.” At those words, Lore knew she had defeated Ethan. They both knew how much he loved soaring through the air.

    Lore was actually quite glad, despite this petty argument, that she was different from the rest of the world. She knew that in order to have such abilities as theirs, you had to be born in very specific conditions. Contact with one of the elements was the main part to it, but the process was complicated. Basically, a baby had to touch natural light, natural wind, natural shadow, real rock, water from a river, or fire for one week straight. It was very unlikely there was ever going to be a person who had a fire ability, she thought, as the burn would probably kill a baby before a week ended.

    Ethan had been born in the woods, when his mother had been on a hiking trip. There had been no hospitals for miles in all directions, and it had been very windy for a week.

    When Lore had been born, it had been in a hospital. But her parents had run tests on her, and upon discovering her photophobia (among other minor diseases), kept her in darkness for exactly seven days.

    Thus they had been created, Ethan a year before Lore.

    And now here they were, sitting next to each other like they were the most normal couple in the world.

    /Yeah, and pigs can fly./