Julia Lelieveld and the fifth element
~31~

I was curious what we were going to do. I got up and followed Rob. When we wanted to get out of the shed, we heard a loud bang on the ground and a painful cry. Startled, I looked up and saw that Leo was lying on the ground.

I sprinted towards him. I don’t know where that came from, but I was fast.

He lay on the floor with a contorted face.

“Leo, open your eyes.”

While I was on my knees next to him, the others came to watch too. They looked startled.

“Did anyone see what happened?”

They all shook their heads.

Slowly Leo opened his eyes.

“Leave me alone,” he said laboriously.

“I need to catch my breath.”

“Would you like to catch your breath? Come on man, stand up.” It was Max and he already wanted to grab Leo by the arm.

“No Max, let him catch up.” Max looked at me for a moment. I saw anger in his eyes. I looked back forcefully. We stared at each other for a moment. Then he jerked his gaze and walked away. The fire in his eyes was still burning.

Leo groaned, opened his eyes and sat down very slowly.

“Leo, what happened?” Now it was Rob who said something.

“I.” He shook his head.

“Sorry, I wanted to do something I’m not ready for at all.”

“Like?”

“Fly.” He looked apologetically at Rob.

Fly? Can he fly then? I didn’t know at all that aerial practitioners could fly. But on the other hand, what did I know? Nothing. Really nothing at all.

I just blew some leaves aside and that was it.

“No, Leo, that’s really not possible yet. come. Come, I’ll take you in, eat something and take it easy.”

Leo nodded and looked grateful. With a contorted face he got up and leaned on Rob and walked inside.

“Plan changed,” Rob said after helping Leo into the shed.

“We will continue training indoors. Come on Max, you too.”

Max walked into the shed grumbling. I watched as Rob flipped the lever to turn off the lights outside and close the large sliding doors.

Everyone looked a little disappointed.

“Thank you, Leo, now we can sit inside again.” Kate looked bored at him.

“He didn’t do it on purpose anyway.” I looked at Kate.

I knew I shouldn’t get involved, but somehow I couldn’t understand Kate’s behavior.

“Please shut up, Julia. You don’t know anything. Don’t get involved, it’s none of your business.”

I walked over to her.

“From the moment I set foot in the detention room, it’s my business. Like it or not, I have to try to deal with it, just like you. So if I want to get involved, I will.”

She began to breathe more heavily. I saw her eyes darken.

“Kate, control yourself!” It was Rob, it was as if I could hear panic in his voice.

Shit, I had gone too far.

“I am going already.” I raised my arms as I said that. I turned around.

“Come on Kate, try to calm down a little.”

Max tried to calm her down.

“Calm? Calm down? What do you think? She joins it without mercy and can suddenly practice her element without any effort.” Her voice sounded hysterical. “And you know what’s worse, she can touch you while you are on fire! No one can touch you, but she can!”

I turned and saw Kate pointing towards me with almost black eyes. Her fingers trembled. Somehow I felt her focus her anger on me alone. I felt the ground starting to shake beneath me. I looked at Kate, startled, but she had a certain look in her eyes that I couldn’t reach. I looked at the rest. I saw fear in their eyes. While the floor was shaking, small cracks appeared in it, out of which came soil and stones.

I did not know what I saw. I blinked, but it was still there. Soil and stones flew above the ground from the cracks. They just floated there.

As if in slow motion, I saw Kate make a movement with her other hand and the ground and stones flew towards me. I didn’t know how it happened, but I knew exactly what to do. I raised my arms and thought of the sky, how it might make a shield around me. I heard the sound of the stones flying towards me at great speed. With all my strength I thought of the protective shield that should come around me, how else would I survive?

It was so much soil and stones, I would be buried alive. The fear grew inside me, at that moment I felt that I needed exactly that. As if a switch had flipped, I felt the protective shield around me.

I looked at the rest a little incredulously.

From the moment Kate fired the ground and rocks at me, to the moment I put my shield around me, maybe three seconds had passed. The rest watched in disbelief. Unable to respond anymore.

The shield was completely closed. Suddenly the sense of time was there again. I could barely look up when the ground and the rocks hit the shield hard. They bounced back with great force. I saw the others huddle so they wouldn’t get hit.

Kate looked at me incredulously, she was still angry. Fortunately, her eyes had brightened again. When the rocks and soil were all on the ground between the rest of the circle, she lowered her hands.

Rob looked up first. First to me and then to Kate. He ran to Kate and stood in front of her. He grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to look straight into his eyes.

“Kate, look at me! Think about yourself. Be calm, concentrate on your breathing.” I got nothing from the rest. I felt the protective shield drip off me. It had cost a lot of energy, I fell to my knees. I was totally out of breath. I felt the sweat on my forehead. I breathed in and out quickly, as if I had run a long way. My hands rested on the broken ground in front of me. I looked at the ground between my hands and knees. I saw how the stones had burst apart from the force of the protection shield. Suddenly I felt nauseous. Surely I didn’t hurt anyone?

They thought I was going to be hit, but instead they were hit themselves.

I looked up carefully. I saw Max standing with Kate and Rob. I still couldn’t hear them because of the ringing in my ears.

Sara sat next to Leo on the floor. Everyone seemed to be fine, at least physically. The first to look at me was Leo. He looked at me in disbelief. I sensed that he did not understand. He didn’t know what had just happened. Sara followed his gaze and looked at me confused. She said something to Leo who nodded and stood up. She walked over to me and knelt down next to me and looked at me inquiringly.

“Are you okay? Are you injured?”

I didn’t know, I concentrated on my body, but nothing was wrong. I cleared my throat.

“I’m not hurt.”

She nodded briefly. She patted my shoulder and got up again and walked over to Kate. In the meantime Kate had also sat down. Bury her face in her hands. Sara sat down next to her and grabbed her. Rob and Max stood up. My eyes met Max’s. He was touched by the whole thing. I saw that his eyes were confused, but also a little sad. He walked over to Leo. Rob came walking towards me.

I didn’t feel like preaching. I stood up with difficulty. I felt my knees buckle under my weight.

Rob rushed to me and supported me.

“What was that?”

I looked at him in disbelief. I thought I was going to get a sermon, but he wanted to know what it was.

“I think it was a protective shield.”

I looked at him carefully. I couldn’t quite fathom his reaction.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Max walking towards us. He stopped right in front of my face and I saw that he was horrified.

“How can you provoke her like that?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Don’t upset her. She still can’t control herself at all. She’s a very strong earth practitioner, if she can’t control herself she can hurt us all.” He pointed around.

I looked at him in disbelief. Was I now to blame for everything that just happened?

“Okay sorry.”

“She doesn’t have an easy time at home, that’s why she behaves like this.”

And with those words he walked away.

I felt a lump rise in my throat. Not easy at home? Is that an excuse? To be honest, it wasn’t always easy for me either. Even if it wasn’t at home or at school because of a teacher who bothers me. That didn’t give me the right to behave the way Kate did. I didn’t want to reveal myself in front of everyone. I shook my head with the hope that I could get rid of these thoughts.

“I’m going home.” I looked at Rob. I’d had enough of it.

I was attacked by soil and stones and then it was briefly explained that it was my own fault.

“No, wait a minute. We all need to talk about this.”

“Not now Rob. I don’t think I can make it up to you tonight after all.”

I turned and walked to the door. Strangely enough, nobody stopped me. I don’t think they wanted me to join them at all. They were fine with the four of them. I bet nothing like tonight had ever happened.

Fortunately the moon was shining brightly and I could easily replace my bike.

Shit, now through that forest. I took a deep breath and walked through the woods with my bicycle. Fortunately, there was already some sort of path. I felt the branches scrape past me. The sky was clear. The stars were clearly visible.

After 10 minutes of walking I was still in the woods. Was the forest really that big?

How long did it take us on the way there? I didn’t know anymore. I decided to pause for a moment. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the environment. I felt life around me. Even though it was night, there was plenty of life. I checked the noise and heard a buzz of the city in the south. I opened my eyes and walked south. Which was strange because I never knew which direction was which. But since yesterday, the instinct that had suddenly happened to me gave excellent insight into the four cardinal directions. In five minutes I arrived at the old industrial estate. I got on my bike and headed home. I saw on my phone that it was after ten anyway.

I wondered if my father would be home? After fifteen minutes of cycling I was home.

No car in the driveway. I put my bike in the garage and went upstairs in a straight line. The fatigue was still in my body. Calling up powers as needed tonight took an awful lot of energy.

I looked at myself in the mirror to see if I would look different from Monday.

Nothing. Still quite the same.

Except for a few scrapes.

I quickly took a shower and crawled under the wool. Despite my fatigue, I let everything go through my mind again from Monday. I could never have known last Sunday what would happen in the last three days. I could barely keep up myself.

I also couldn’t believe that I had only known Renzo since Monday. Even though he was distant and to himself, I felt safe with him. When I saw Lucas this afternoon and saw the anger growing in his eyes when we talked about Renzo, the instinct was strangely enough that there was something behind it. That he may have pretended to be different from what he really was.

And then of course the incident with Ivo. What an asshole. And the worst part was that he just got away with it. I automatically looked at my wrist. You could still tell it had been bruised, but not nearly as badly as it should have been.

How I woke up yesterday morning with my new senses and instincts. How I was automatically aware of the environment. That my body decides for itself what is important and what is less. How I found out that I am a practitioner of an element. How bizarre was that?! I thought things like this only happened in books and movies.

So I was wrong about that. What haunted my mind during the last hours of school today was the question of what else was real and what was not.

The vampire books I loved reading, do vampires really exist? Werewolves, ghosts, demons? Is there a God, are there angels? Does the Devil exist? All the creatures that appear in the standard movies, was it all real?

On the one hand, I didn’t want to think about it, then I would just drive myself crazy with fear.

And then there’s the evil and the e-warriors. I shivered for a moment. What if you came face to face with it? Still, I think I know how to respond.

The feeling I got when Kate turned her powers against me. Somehow I knew what to do. My mind and body told me. How to focus on the shield I was pulling over me. How else could I know that I needed to develop a shield?

Everything was still unreal. How could I still deal with Eva and Bas normally? If I had to train all the time, anyway, if they still wanted to. I wanted to know how I could get stronger. How to fight against evil. But I just have a feeling that the others in the circle would rather not see me anymore. Maybe Sarah will. She was the only one who thought of me in the shed just now. Rob just wanted to know what I’d done. He didn’t even ask how I was doing. I was sure I didn’t look good. At that moment I broke out in a sweat and I was shaking. I probably looked pale.

And then Max. I didn’t expect him to blame me for what had happened. I think Max and Kate have feelings for each other, but somehow can’t combine this. I think that’s why Kate was so mad at me. Otherwise she would never have mentioned that I could touch Max and she couldn’t.

I wondered how they would be? At least they still had each other.

I would like to have someone I could talk to about this. Someone other than the circle or Rob. I had a hard time telling Hannah tomorrow. Then she would definitely have me locked up.

I wondered how Daan would be. Could I ask Hannah? And why Eva and Bas haven’t said anything to me about it yet. Would they even know?

That night I fell asleep with a head full of questions.