Snippet #1716031

Animal calls and cries rose from the fetid waters, drifting into the steam and mist and losing their way, to dart here and there until their origin became as muddled as the sound. Trying to find a direction was useless; Any path was swallowed by the shifting reeds in moments. Nor could one linger to catch their bearings, as a million wriggling invisible things in the water swarmed over their feet. Black chitinous things with too many legs and rainbow wings darted through the air, the size of a human fist and buzzing like a nest of hornets, and vanished beneath the water as slimy creatures that could have been frogs tore them from the sky.

In a tree, it was safer, and the full expanse of the swamp could be seen on a clear day. For miles around there was the same view- Dead yellow grass and reeds the height of a man that did not blow in the wind, punctuated here and there by glimpses of the black, oily water beneath. Only occasionally was there solid ground, and here grew twisted, leafless trees, long dead but still growing. If one looked their hardest, they might see the edge of this swamp, where it shifted back to the white mists of the Haze.

At the center was the greatest tree of all. One it had been three trees on the same island, but over time they had grown together. They supported each other, their roots holding the island together and forming a sort of sheltering hut built of brances. At the top they seperated again, three tangle boughs stretching away. Miraculously, there were leaves here, small and green-brown, barely alive but still there.

In the center of that natural structure, there was a girl. She wasn't very old; Not old enough to drink, if there had been any alcohol nearby (that is, edible alcohol. A small colony of extremophile bacteria was making good business at the bottom of a toxic lake nearby in chewing up rocks and spitting out alcohols, but they weren't really a viable source of booze). She certainly hadn't been to a mall or anything else stereotypically teenage for some time, swathed in a massive and thick dark grey cloak that had been ripped and torn to tatters over time over a black dress that had been similarly torn up- No skin showed, but instead an undersuit of grey bandages had been wrappped around her body. Only her head was visible, pale white skin where it was clean and grimy with mud and probably blood where it wasn't. Her thick black hair was long and uncut. She also carried a ball of fire in her left hand, the heat of which was kicking of wind around her and making the thick cloak swirl.

With a flick of her wrist the ball vanished but the heat remained, a shimmering spot in the air. She took a deep breath, shut her eyes, and focused. The shimmering expanded, nearly touching her hand.

Abruptly she gasped and thrust her hand out. The air burst into colored flame while icicles formed on the branches. The girl was flushed and shivering, but the ball of heat now filled nearly the entire space, insulated by another sphere of cold. Then it lost its shape, became a mass of wind and swirling heat, and vanished entirely.

Jordan Foster slumped to the floor, wrapping her cloak around her, wishing the mental cold would vanish from her. She'd long ago learned that making something cold to warm up would only make her skin crawl as it was burning up and freezing at the same time. The only thing she could do was wait.

Eighteen seconds that time, but only two spheres. If I'm going to trap him, I'll need three, and a lot longer than seconds. It was a daunting thought, but her mind was resolute. Someday, surely, she would find a way to hold that prison she'd begun devising. Someday.

But there was some almost imperceptible change in the air, the natural way disrupted. If Jordan hadn't been surviving in this swamp for half a year or so now she wouldn't have noticed, but something was very, very wrong. Or, perhaps, it was something right finally happening. The two were hard to differentiate, here. All Jordan could tell was that someone had intruded in her solitude and study, and that such actions would not be tolerated.

Jordan stood, her cloak wrapped around her but flapping in the wind, and went out to find the intruder.