The Stelter City Saga: Ultranatural (57 page)

She rounded up the flight of stairs and burst
through the door on the second floor. "Is anybody here?!" She
finally called down the empty hall. The bright light emanating from
her cell phone cast a ghostly glow all the way down the hall. This
time, instead of assuming no one was here; Lotus shut the door
quietly behind her and strained her ears for a response.

Something quiet and faint came from the end
of the hallway. Something that almost sounded like a whistle.
Lotus's heart fluttered as she raced toward the sound. "Haileigh!!"
She screamed, "Haileigh, where are you?!"

Above the beating of her panicked heart and
the pounding of her shoes as she sprinted down the hall, Lotus was
able to pinpoint the sound coming from a door hanging ajar just
before the hall turned left. Without worrying about the possible
danger that could be behind the door, Lotus threw it open and
shined her light into the another hallway. She had hoped to find
her sister, or at least someone who could reassure her that she was
safe. Instead she found nothing. It was just an empty hallway that
appeared to have been under construction for quite some time
now.

Clear plastic tarps hung over the walls as
the pungent stench of drying paint and metal wafted into her nose.
Exit signs cast their ominous red glow against the tarps almost
making the hall look like a blood stained slaughter house. But
Lotus didn’t care. She swallowed the lump in her throat, ignored
the fear building in the pit of her stomach and proceeded down the
hall.

Empty buckets and rusty tools scattered
around the hallway like land mines. With the aid of her phone,
Lotus was able to avoid stepping into them. With each step, the
whistling grew louder until was sure it was an air conditioning
vent or even an open window. There was no way her sister could be
making that sound, but Lotus couldn't find it in herself to turn
around until she knew for sure.

Her ragged breath seemed to be amplified in
the silence even when she tried to force herself to breath from her
nose. But as she continued down the hall, she realized that the
source of the sound was coming from behind the tarp. She pulled it
back.

The tarp had covered what appeared to be an
unfinished room. Wood frames outlined the perimeter and against the
back wall an open window revealed the beginning of a light rain
shower. As the rainstorm picked up, the wind rushing through the
open widow whistled ever more. Lotus would have felt like a fool
for following the sound all this way, if it weren't for what sat in
the middle of the floor.

It was a chair; a single desk chair that did
not belong with all the mess of construction. When Lotus shined her
phone on it, droplets of drying blood glistened back. But that
wasn’t all. Someone had been tied to the chair. A thick band of
duct tape had recently held thin wrists to the arms of the chair
and another loop of tape had once pressed small shoulders into the
back of the chair.

Lotus took a hesitant step forward and
swiveled the chair around so that she could examine it more closely
and found it peculiar that the duct tape wasn’t broken. It still
looped around the arm rest as if the person being held captive had
suddenly disappeared. With her pale and shaking hands, Lotus ran
her finger over the loop of duct tape around the chair’s back. If
Lee had once been tied to the chair then perhaps the tape had
yanked out a few of her fair blonde hairs. Sure enough, when Lotus
rotated the chair around, a single strand of silvery hair shined
blue in the light of her phone.

Instantly, a hot rage built up inside her.
Her sister was gone and Lotus had no idea where else to go.
Franticly she shined her light on the unfinished walls hoping that
some other address would lead her on a twisted wild goose chase to
find her. But once more there was nothing but wood and fluffy pink
insulation covering the walls.

“
Haileigh!!” Lotus called
once more. Her voice cracked from having screamed her name so many
times. “Please, where are you?!”

Lotus turned her back on the open window and
strained her ears for something else. Once more she used the glow
of her cell phone to peer down the hall full of plastic tarps. She
was listening so hard that she nearly leapt out of her skin when
the phone in her hand began vibrating once more. The image of
Kasper smiling awkwardly in his suit beamed up at Lotus just as she
swiped her thumb across the screen.

“
She’s not here Kasper.” she
said solemnly into the phone. “I don’t know where else to
go.”

“
Lotus!” Kasper exclaimed
franticly. From his end of the phone, Kasper sounded as if he were
talking with his head outside the window of a speeding car. A rush
of wind morphed his words making it hard for Lotus to hear. “You
need to…. Now!!” He sounded frantic, but Lotus couldn’t understand
why.

“
I can’t hear you Kasper.”
She admitted pressing the phone closer to her ear. “You sound like
you’re-”

Just then the floor shifted beneath her feet
so suddenly that she was thrown off balance. It was as if a
stampede of elephants had just slammed into the studio. An
earsplitting roar exploded from somewhere beneath her feet with
such a thunderous detonation that the ground was shaking. Her
footing gave out beneath her and as she toppled to the ground, the
phone in her hand flew out. The room should have faded to darkness
without it. And yet the room was glowing with a horribly familiar
glow.

Lotus recognized the feel of heat before her
eyes could adjust to the burning ember glow emanating from the end
of the hall. Red and orange flames burst through the end of the
hallway she had just come from. Lotus stared horrorstruck as they
licked the walls, turning wood to charcoal in nearly a second. The
transparent tarps lining the hall melted into a pool of plastic
even before the flames could touch them. Black smoke billowed into
the air, curling like snakes above Lotus.

This couldn’t be happening. She had escaped
the wrath of fire once before, but as she tried comprehended the
overwhelming heat and size of the flames, she knew that her chances
of escape were next to none. Quickly she climbed to her feet and
sprinted for the other end of the hall. The flame had already eaten
her ideal form of escape, now she had to hope that there was
something else for her at the end of the hall.

Even as she sprinted the flames seemed to
chase after her like a bullet train. They had burned through the
walls so tremendously that the weight of the roof caving in sent
fireballs sailing for her head. By the time she had reached the end
of the hallway, the black smoke had sunk deep into her lungs and
the flames made her eyes feel as if they were melting. Quickly she
wiped her eyes with the collar of her shirt before looking up.

Through the suffocating black smoke and the
brightness of the flame’s light, Lotus saw what she had been most
afraid to see. A blank empty wall signaled a dead end. There was
nowhere else to go but back into the flames. Lotus wasn’t about to
give up that easily. There were still several unfinished windows
lining the walls, and she knew that surviving a two story fall was
much more possible than this fire.

She whirled around and gaped at the blazing
flames. It was like looking down the throat of a fire breathing
dragon. A flutter of hope rose in her chest when a door that hadn’t
been touched by fire yet caught her sight. Quickly she burst into
the room and peered out the window. What flicker of hope she had in
her chest vanished when she glanced down at the fiery floor beneath
her. The blaze burned so bright, it almost looked like a river of
lava.

This couldn’t be happening to her. There had
to be a way out! A pang of hopelessness rose within her chest when
she felt the heat from the hallway start to eat at the wooden door
behind her. The flames pulled like fingers at the wood, crawling to
get inside the room and incinerate everything that had ever
existed. The room was so small and the fire was so unavoidable that
she felt it begin to singe away at her exposed skin. The fire was
practically licking her back now. Lotus’s whirled around and backed
up against the window as closely as she dared. Her heart leapt in
her throat as she stared horrorstruck at the monstrous flames. If
there wasn’t a way to escape, then maybe there was a way to put out
the flame.

Just out the window, the light shower of rain
had picked up to a steady downpour. Hopelessly, she closed her eyes
and willed the water droplets to circle around her. Instantly she
felt the refreshing sensation that only water could bring and the
smell of Hawaiian rain mixed in with intoxicating odor of smoke.
When she opened her eyes back up, a perfect bubble of water
surrounded her leaving her with a thin shield protecting her from
the scorching heat. But Lotus knew her victory wouldn’t last long.
The heat was blistering. Even to the extent that it evaporated the
rainfall the moment Lotus used it to protect her.

But the fact that Lotus’s protection was
failing wasn’t even the worst part. The fire was so intense that it
was burning the cement floor beneath her. She knew there would only
be moments left before the ground gave out and she plummeted into
her fiery death below. That was only if she was lucky enough to
avoid the fire burning the ceiling above her. There was no way out,
and Lotus knew this. As the thought filled her mind, the shelter of
water around her began to weaken. Gaps in the bubble began to form
and Lotus even wondered if she should even keep trying.

She was going to die. She was going to face
the fate that had taken her siblings away from her. The fire was so
intense, Lotus wondered if anyone would recognize her corpse after
the fire had burnt out. What would her sister do without her? How
would Kasper feel? He had told her to stay put and she deliberately
disobeyed him. She knew that even though it was her fault, Kasper
would never stop blaming himself.

Her death was as inevitable.

Just before Lotus was about to give up
entirely, she witnessed the most peculiar thing. The wall of fire
that seemed to be right on top of her pulled back as if an intense
rush of wind had blown it back. Then the fire was spinning. It rose
up into the air like a tornado of flames. As it spun, the chunk of
ceiling that was moments from crashing down on her was ripped back
and pulled into the whirling fire. Lotus watched it spin, faster
and faster until the flames had extinguished itself. All the flame
within a ten foot radius had been extinguished leaving behind an
area of charcoal and burnt cement.

Perplexed, Lotus couldn’t figure out what
else to do but gape at the relief of flames surrounding her. As she
stared at the space, she could feel the ball of water around her to
strengthen. She commanded the wall of water to strengthen around
until she heard a familiar voice call her name.

When she turned around, Kasper stood before
her standing on nothing but the air beneath his feet. He was
levitating in midair. As Lotus’s eyes widened at his sight, she
noticed another fiery vortex blowing out the flames on the ground
beneath him. His pale hand was open and extended to the fire as if
he were controlling the wind blowing out the flames.

“
You’re a-” Lotus gasped
putting the pieces together. Her tongue was tied and the fire must
have burnt her brain because she couldn’t choke out the rest of her
words.

Kasper glided towards her like a kite caught
in the wind and set his business shoes on the charred cement floor.
Before Lotus could say more, Kasper raised his arms. Every tropical
breeze seemed to obey his single gesture because the moment he
raised his hand, a rush of wind appeared on the scene and pulled
the flames up in pillars. Lotus watched as the air seemed to create
a sort of invisible barrier. It kept the flames away but only for a
moment. She could feel the gust weakening around her. It was only a
matter of time before the persistent flames would fall back onto
the charred studio.

“
I can’t hold the flames
back any longer Lotus.” He said seriously. “We need to
go.”

When Lotus had willed the ball of water
around her to vanish, she was suddenly very aware of the charred
stench in the air and the droplets of rain falling on her skin.

“
Kasper!” she exclaimed as
he scooped her up in his arms effortlessly. “You’re a…
a…”

Before she could say much more, a rush of
wind had blown them up into the sky and then they were soaring far,
far away from the scene. Lotus watched as the raging fire below
continued to incinerate every sliver of the studio that hadn’t been
lit. She watched the black smoke billow up and mix with the grey
rain clouds that seemed to do nothing to extinguish the flames.
They soared higher and higher until the rainclouds and mountains
had made the fiery mess vanish. That was when Lotus finally
remembered she was in the middle of saying something.

“
Kasper, you’re a
half-natural!” She exclaimed over the rush of wet wind.

Kasper smiled down at her and she watched the
droplets of rain run across his pale face like the way rain rushes
off speeding cars. “I’m just glad you’re safe, Lotus.”

“
How could you?!” Lotus
exclaimed ignoring his remark. She had known him nearly all his
life, but he managed to keep that a secret from her all those
years. She was grateful that he had come to rescue her, but at the
same time, appalled that one of her dearest companions would keep
such a massive secret from her. For a moment Lotus forgot about her
sister. She even forgot about thanking him for saving her life. Now
she was focused on the sole fact that she felt betrayed by him.
“You made me keep my secret for years!” She exclaimed, “I thought I
was the only one!! And now… Now you’re just like me?!”