ELIMENTAL

La la la, it's moooorning! La la la.” My phone starts as I open my eyes to see my blurry phone on the nightstand beside me. I groan and reach out to grab it, barely pressing the dismiss button. Throwing the blanket back I grabbed my glasses and walked to the kitchen. My mom was at the table getting ready for work while Charlotte and Max had just finished cooking breakfast.

“Morning,” I said, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, 

“What’s for breakfast?” 

Charlotte looked up from the waffle maker 

“Hey, sleepyhead, eggs, grits, and waffles or French toast?” I asked for a waffle and sat at the table. Looked out the window that took up most of the wall and at the lake.

We had just moved there and settled in a month ago so I had seen most of the house but hadn't roamed the whole building. But since we've been stuck in this house I've been noticing things that I hadn't before. Like how the house had a big closet that used to be a panic room. And the outdoor storage used to be a root cellar. Our house is really old but was renovated before we moved in, however, some things were accidentally left behind. A plate and glass slid in front of me, I looked up at my brother and thanked him.

 After breakfast,

My mom changed into her scrubs and went to drop off Max at work on her way to the hospital. I cleaned the dishes then went to my room to find something to do with my limitless time. My room was at the end of the hall on the third floor right above the kitchen. It was a pretty big room with lots of natural light and a plush carpet. But something I found interesting was that it had a dumbwaiter in it, I thought it was pretty cool and being on the third floor I didn't want to carry all my stuff up to my room. But the key was lost and none of us knew where it was, so that was kind of a bummer.

I rummaged through my desk drawer and closet but couldn't find my headphones. I searched my bag, my nightstand, and the floor but found nothing. I decided to stop looking and just use my speaker. I picked a song and connected to Bluetooth before walking over to the bookshelf to find a book to read.

 My room came with a built-in bookcase and the old owners had left some books for me to read. I had also owned enough books to fill a library so I was pretty happy about the bookcase wall even though I hadn't read much in the last few weeks. I scanned the bookshelves looking for something I haven't read twenty times already and decided to read one of the books that were left here. I spotted one and looked at the beautiful hardcover, it was green with purple flowers all around and gold corner protectors. “Hidden In Plain Sight” is read in gold letters. I decided to give it a try and did a quick flip through of the pages, but stopped when I saw something drop at my feet with a small clink. I bent down to pick up the object and inspected it. A Key, it was a small key that matched the book. Gold with green leafy details and purple flowers at the top.

“Must go with the book.” I assumed and looked for a keyhole on the cover, back, and spine. Nothing, I read the back of the book to see if it had anything to do with keys. Nope, I looked around my room to see if anything had a keyhole. Then I remembered: the dumbwaiter. I walked in my closet and pushed back my hung clothes, exposing the dumbwaiter door. I put the golden key in and turned it in the lock. The door swung open to reveal the dumbwaiter car, I squealed in excitement, took out my phone flashlight, and looked around inside. It had been covered in a layer of dust but other than that looked pretty secure. There was a large rope that was meant to be used to move the cart by hand. I was going to see if it still worked when suddenly I heard the front door open.

“Char, Sam, Jace I'm home! Come help me with these groceries”

I closed the door back and locked it before I went downstairs to say hi to my brother and help with any groceries. 

When I reached the front door my older brother Max was there with an armful of bags.

“Hey,” I greeted, taking a few bags from him and setting them down on the counter.

“How was work?” I asked before going back to get more groceries, Jason and Char now coming downstairs to help as well. 

“It was pretty slow, most people bought a lot of groceries last week so they could stay inside” I shrugged

“That makes sense.” seeing that Jason and Charlotte took the last bags, I sat down at the couch before hearing Jason ask

“What's for dinner?” while putting up the canned food. 

“That's for you and Sam to decide, Jace” Charlotte responded.

“What! That's not fair, why do we have to make dinner?” Jason whined. 

I cocked my head around to my brother,

“Max and Char made breakfast, Jason. It's only fair. Besides it's only 3:00 and we still haven't made lunch yet so you have plenty of time to do whatever.” he groaned louder and much, much longer than needed, and finished putting the food up.

“Speaking of lunch,” Max started,

“I brought home sandwiches,” he said, taking four wrapped sandwiches out of his bag and setting them on the table. We all sat at the table, said Grace, and began to eat lunch. About 20 minutes later, we had all finished up eating but were still sitting at the table quietly to ourselves. I looked around the table, everyone was either listening to music, reading, or some other solo thing. And I was, incredibly bored 

“Hey,” I said, trying to grab everyone. They all turned to me,

“Hmm?” Charlotte questioned, turning her phone screen off. 

“Let's do something together,” I said, trying not to sound too needy.

“Why?” Jace asked, staring at me with an expression telling me I was, clearly bothering him.

“Because we're siblings, and I'm very bored,” I said, slightly puffing out my bottom lip. He rolled his eyes at me.

“What do you want to do,” Max asked. I shrugged and thought for a second, before deciding on a childhood favorite and opportunity.

“What about hide and seek?” Jason rolled his eyes and deadpanned

“That game’s for four to nine-year-olds,” he said, getting back on his phone. I rolled my eyes and suddenly heard Charlotte remark,

“Oh sorry, is that too hard for you?”

I let out an ugly laugh. Jason looked up with a stunned expression but quickly got over it and put his phone down.

“Would you like to hide or seek?” he asked. I tried my best to contain my laughter and got ready to play.

“I call hiding.” I started, getting excited.

“Me too, Max are you going to play?” Charlotte asked

“Sure, I'll beat you guys real quick,” he remarked, smirking at us.

“Yeah good luck, Maxwell” Charlotte snickered as we all stood up to hide. 

“I'm going to count to one hundred,” Jason explained before putting his forehead on the counter.

“ ready, aaannnddd, one, two. Three…” he started as we scrambled off to hide. I ran to my room, already knowing exactly where I was going to hide. Grabbing the key from my pocket, I quickly unlocked the dumbwaiter door and climbed in. About one ½ minute, I heard Jason walking up the stairs and calling out our names. Then abruptly I heard a loud BOO! Charlotte yelp right before laughing as they both continued to look for Max and I. A few minutes later I heard footsteps coming up to the third floor. I heard footsteps coming down the hall and stopping.

“Got you”

  “Awe man!”

I heard Charlotte and Max exchange. Knowing they'd come looking for me next, I panicked and started pushing up the rope to make the car slowly fall down the shaft. (I know it was kind of wrong but hey, it wasn't cheating.) I heard footsteps in my room from above me,

“Sam,” smeone said in a sing-songy voice. My breathing stopped as I shut my eyes tight until I heard my door close. Letting out a sigh of relief, I let go of the rope and let the car fall with my body weight. About five minutes later I had slowly come to realize that I should've hit the ground already. After what had to be minutes but felt like hours I had been in this dumbwaiter, I was getting really tired. My eyes could barely stay open and the darkness around me, mixed with the soft noise of the pulley system only added to the situation  

“just five minutes.” I convinced myself I let my eyes flutter shut and drifted off. When I finally did wake up, I forgot where I was and slammed my head on the roof of the car.

“Ahh” I hissed in pain, I took my phone out of my back pocket and checked the time, 4:10 p.m. assuming we started playing at 3:50 p.m, I had been in this dumbwaiter for about twenty minutes. Just as I was about to call Charlotte when suddenly, I heard a large thump and my whole body slammed down. I had reached the floor. 

After I finished choking on the dust that shot up, I picked up my phone and turned the flashlight on, And tried to open the door. locked, Of Course. I started banging on the door hoping anyone could hear me, 

Nothing. I knew I couldn't pull my way back to the top seeing as the fall was ten minutes and my stupid phone wasn’t getting any signal. Then I noticed a small light creeping through in the dumbwaiter car. I shone my flashlight on it and saw that it was a keyhole,

“Why is a lock on the inside?” I fished the key out of my pocket and twisted it in the keyhole. I slowly pushed the door open and looked around, this was not my house. 

Out in front of me was a large ballroom esque floor with gold detailed walls and a big opening leading to a terrace. I shakily took one step out of the dumbwaiter car and onto the golden marble floor. I slowly walked further out into the astonishing palace and seen purple flowers growing out of the golden vine detail on the walls. I walked out onto the terrace and looked outside. No longer did I see my neighborhood, but a sea of fresh-cut green grass, a large fountain, and a few small stone buildings but I didn't see anyone. I turned around and saw a set of thrones. One gold with purple seating, and the other purple with gold seating. After a while, the shock started to wear off and I started to panic a bit. 

Where am I? Why is no one else here? How do I get home?

I decided to start walking down the hall in hopes I would find someone, I rounded a corner and saw a narrow, curved staircase. I started to

descend downstairs slowly and quietly as not to startle anyone who might be down there. I ran my fingers down the wall of the narrow stairway feeling the grit in each stone and crevasse. Whatever this place is, it's very beautiful. I was almost at the bottom of the staircase when I tripped and fell down the last two steps.

“aghhh” I let out a groan as I patted the ground in search of my glasses. Finding them, I went to put them on. getting in the sitting position, when suddenly something very long and very, very sharp was pointed directly at my neck.

 I froze, I think I even stopped breathing.

“Who are you, what are you doing in the southern tower?” 

my brain had to do a complete reboot before I registered what he had said,

“uh, M-my names Samantha but everyone calls me S-sam,” I whimpered out. 

“I came through t-the dumbwaiter.” After a moment of silence, I finally decided to open my eyes to see the man who was currently threatening my life. I opened my eyes to see a sun-kissed, freckled, brown-haired boy with light curls and hazel eyes. He slowly lowered the spear and his face softened.  

“What do you mean you came through the dumbwaiter?” 

“The small, manual, elevator for mov-”

  “I know what a dumbwaiter is, I meant how did you come through it.” he retorted, cutting me off. I hesitated, not wanting to sound crazy. But it wasn’t like I had much of a choice.

“Well, I found a book with a key inside and it opened the dumbwaiter in my room so later when I was playing hide and seek I climbed inside and the car fell for ten minutes and when I tried to get out I was in this magical golden castle”

 I explained in one breath. After a bit more awkward, tense silence he extended his free hand to me. I accepted it and helped pull myself up to my feet.

He sighed “What are the chances,” he turned around and walked down the hall. I stood there stunned and confused, not really knowing what to do, or where to go. A while down the hall he turned around

“What are you doing? hurry up.” I looked up and quick1y scrambled to catch up to him. Whilst walking down the corridor my brain finally decided to work. I didn’t know this man, and I’m just obeying his every demand. But he was the only other person I had seen and I didn’t really have any other choice. I looked over at him trying not to stare, he looked straight ahead seeming as if he had taken this path often. We turned a corner and entered another wing of this enormous castle.

“Who was this castle built for?” I asked him without thinking.

“A woman called Lady Sage.”

                                   “Who’s Lady Sage?”

“That’s a long story.”

                                  “ I’ve got plenty of time.”

“Well, I don’t. In here.” he gestured to a room on the left of the hall I stepped inside. Looking over the room it was filled with crystals, gemstones, and minerals. I walked inside perusing the rows upon rows of them in single file, their faded light softly illuminating walls. “Follow me back here.” we walked to the back of the room and he opened a large drawer filled with tons of keys similar to mine. 

“What are all these keys for,” I asked, my gaze never leaving the keys.

“They unlock certain forms of transportation here”

 “Like the dumbwaiter?” 

“Exactly, and this key,” he grabbed he took the key from my hand and held it out of my reach. “Has been missing for a really long time”

“That’s mine” I shouted as I launched for the key. He pulled it further away and tried to push me off his arm. 

“This key belongs to the kingdom of Ataris.”

                                                “It was in my book!”

“That’s ours too!”

 I hopped on his back making him wobble. He moved near some crystals, stumbling back and forth before falling backward against a wall and on the floor landing on my stomach. Today has just been a whirlwind of pain for me. He groaned and got off the floor,

“Look what you did now”

Some crystals on the wall we crashed into fell on the ground and were scattered around. 

“What I did!

I looked around at all the crystal and gemstones on the ground, each differing in shape, size, and color. In the middle of the sea of crystals, I spotted the key and lunged for it. He pushed me out the way and grabbed at it. I kneed him, and he pulled my hair.

¨Hey that’s ours!¨

                       ¨ Finders keepers.

¨that doesn’t apply to this¨

He grabbed the key from me and I grabbed a gemstone and hurled it at his chest.

¨stop that!¨ I began to pelt him with crystals and minerals, he put his hands up to deflect the hits. I had picked up this redish-clear crystal and prepared to hurl it at him when suddenly a blinding light started coming from the openings of my fist. I opened my hand to see the crystal glowing in my hand.

¨whats happening?¨

The crystal floated up and hovered above my fingertips, it started glowing even more and I felt a sensation like never before.

¨the Red Phantom Quartz has chosen you¨

                                              ¨What does that mean!¨

The crystal shone so brightly I almost went blind.