E-Souls

 E-souls: A short story 

By Mallory Thomas

I woke up that morning to find myself alone, my parents already gone to go work. It wasn’t a surprise, I usually woke up alone, and I basically raised myself, my parents were never home. I remember the nights of me and my best friend and neighbor Jason just sitting and wondering how we got there. Jason, just like me, was basically raised alone, with his parents being gone for weeks at a time. We were still about 7 or 8, so we didn't truly know about what wars were going on in the cities around us. 

Those days were before I moved, when everything was simple. Hell, I didn’t even know what I was going to do with my life. I didn’t know how oppressive the government truly was until I found what they did to Jason’s family. There all gone now, all of it. Maybe they should be. As I went to sleep in my new house and new city, I wondered what tomorrow would bring.

***

    Today was the day, the day in which my class will be chosen. People are usually excited since it’s a day where a new door is opening, but the door you came through is being shut. Let me explain how I got here. The city I live in known only as “utopia” which broke through in science and discovered a way for humans to practice literal magic, and the magic abilities can be granted to you when you are old enough, preferably at the age of 18. However, you can only use magic under one condition, use it for the betterment of the city. Whether you go into the military, or use your powers to enhance your crops as a farmer, that's the only way you can use magic freely. I was enlisted at a very young age to be a part of the military since the Placids, the government, thought I had the correct wits and compatibility with magic to be a great soldier. The specially trained soldiers are only known as the souls. They are divided into five groups, A-souls, which practice fire, B-souls which practice water, C-souls, which practice wind, D-souls which practice earth, and E-souls, which are masters of all elements. They say that E-souls don’t exist anymore since there hasn’t been one chosen in decades. There are rumors, however, that the placids terminate the E-soul before they become too powerful, since the placid's always need to be in control at all times. I am now 18, with a long line of B-souls in my blood. My parents are currently both working marine biologists and trying to bring the oceans back as they once were

    I had to hurry to the town hall where my class would be chosen. Town hall is a huge dome with greek-style architecture. When you walk in, it is usually very empty and very quiet. Today was choosing day, so it was quite the contrary. Every 18 year old was waiting patiently in a huge line that curved around an elevated stage in the middle of the building. It looked like the way you were chosen was simply by sticking your hand in a bowl-like machine and it spits your class back at you, along with your abilities. 

    A few hours later, my name was finally called.

    “Emma Peckett to the stage” said one of the placid's. I walked up and as soon as I stuck my hand in, I only remember smelling something strong, then everything went dark.

***

    Then I woke up, on a squeaky bed in a place with a concrete ceiling and an earthy smell to it. For all I know, it could’ve been days. A old, kind looking man was walking by with some sort of trinket around his neck. I squinted to try to get a closer look but was unsuccessful since others blocked his way. What is this place? I got up and had a look around. The place I was in was very dark and the air was hard to breathe in. The walls looked brown and even black in some spots, with cobwebs in the corners. My bed was in a room just like many others that were all circling around a big shaft that had light coming through it. As I approached the fence that divided me from the chasm, I realized I wasn’t in a tall building, but a deep bunker. I looked down to see darkness that seemed like it went on forever. There was little rooms just like mine circling the chasm, going all the way to the bottom. 

    I had to figure out where I was and why so I asked wanders that were on my floor but they all treated me like I a beggar on the street, they ignored me. Then as I went back to my room where I woke up, the old man with the trinket was there, just waiting. 

    “I know you have lots of questions, so ask them,”he spoke slowly and softly.

    “Where am I and what does the necklace you’re wearing mean? It caught my eye when you were walking by,” I said frantically. 

“You are in the abandoned air-force base that the placid's used long ago, which no longer has use to them. The necklace I’m wearing is the symbol for E-souls, which are the people who inhabit this place,” he responded. 

“Why did you bring me here?” 

“When you were about to choose your class, one of our members that work with the placid's took you before the placid's discovered your class.”

“What was my class then?”

“Emma, you never realized that you were an E-soul?”

He caught me off-guard, but I guess the man was right, I should’ve known from the start, I never fit in with my family or friends, I was always the one to think or act differently. I also knew I never fit into a specific class, and had no element that I wished to master.  However, I continued to ask my burning questions. 

“I guess you are right, I should’ve known I was an E-soul. But I never caught your name, what should I call you.”

“My name is Alazar the Wise, but the people here just call me Ali.” 

“How did you get your powers, I thought the program started only 20 years ago.”

“The truth is that I was the first person to have the Placids ‘magic program’ be tested on them, and the results were astonishing. I could do things that people could only dream of, like parting the oceans and starting fire with my bare hands. However, the Placids didn’t want a being to be as powerful as me to be roaming around freely. They attacked, but did not succeed, since I got away. I’ve been on the run ever since, fearing the day they find me and all my students.”

“Then how are there still E-souls today? After the incident they had with you, wouldn’t they change the way the program gave the powers, so people like me wouldn’t be an E-soul?”

“You are exactly right Emma, after me, they changed the program drastically, making the subject only receiving the powers of one element, the one that matches your genetic composition the best. But there was a flaw in the system, if the genetics of the subject had a specific composition, they could become an E-soul.”

“Then that's what happened to me, right?”  

“Not exactly, you see, we think you got your powers a different way.”

“What do you mean, different?”

“When we first brought you here, our doctors looked over your DNA and how they were set up, and it was nowhere near the way the E-souls’ here looked like. It almost seemed that you had your powers your entire life, and the science didn’t need to be applied to you. Yet, we don’t know how they got there in the first place.”

“This must be the reason the Placids enlisted me in the army when I was only 4. They must’ve known I had my powers when I was born.” 

“Wait, they enlisted you? That’s not good. If they did that then they must’ve-”

Before Ali could finish his sentence, the whole room rumbled as if there was an earthquake, the walls crumbling, but still holding the roof up. 

“The Placids, they are setting off bombs.” Ali said, filled with anxiety.

“How did they find us?”

He ignored me, he was too worried to answer.

“Soldiers, stop those bombs and fight off the Placids,” he ordered “Everyone else, go to the lower floors! We aren’t losing this fight!”

So I followed everyone else to the lower floors, going down a large staircase that went around the chasm. 

Were they coming for me?

I stopped, turned around and went back to fight. If the Placids are going to kill others because of me, I’m not just going to sit around in a bunker waiting for them to do so, after all I’m an E-soul. 

When I reached the surface, It was desolate. There were bombs going off, with Placids and our soldiers bodies lining the ground. There was something else however that was truly terrifying. My parents, Hunter and Julia Peckett coming out of a dropship with guns in their hands. At that moment, I realized that my entire life I knew they weren’t what they said they were. I had so much bottled up hate my entire life, and in an instant it all was released.