1 Tremors

The ground shakes and I know I'm already too late.

I sprint downhill. My legs are barely keeping up with my momentum to stay underneath me but I can't slow down now. Besides, this is my mountain. I know every loose rock, every dead log in my way. I'm flying. I'm going to make it I—I'm falling. My right foot catches on a root I swear wasn't there before. My ankle rolls and I can hear a 'crack' when the joint bends unnaturally to the side.

As I fall I bring my arms out—not in front to catch myself but to the side, trying to draw on my power. I can feel the water in the creek just a hundred meters away. Too far. I should have used my hands to break the fall like a normal person, whatever that is.

My face meets the ground with a crunch and pain blossoms from where I hit all the way down my back. I should have expected as much when a hundred kilos of body mass is travelling that fast downhill. Instead of bouncing I slide on my face a few feet then I'm unceremoniously stopped by a sapling. At least I had enough foresight to turn my head to the side before I hit the ground. I would have hated breaking my nose, again.

I imagine my mother scolding me. Damon, my son you never listen! The teachings say only rely on our gifts for the things we cannot accomplish with our hands. Most of the time I would have scoffed at her, today I just wish I had protected my face.

When I landed, my lip somehow split open inside of my mouth and the cut is now filled with bits of dirt and rocks. Maliah is going to be pissed she'll have to heal me up again. If the island doesn't sink and all the inhabitants don't drown before I get down the mountain, that is.

I groan as I pick myself up from the dirt. I try to start back down the mountain but my leg with the twisted ankle collapses under my body weight. Shit. I break a few dead branches before I find one that will support me and I continue back down the mountain, much slower this time. My ankle feels like someone has wedged a knife under the bony part and with each step it wiggles around a bit. My mouth feels as stuffed as one of father's quail puffs but as I spit on the ground a stream of blood-tinged dirt paints a different picture.

They told me the earth would part from the island at noon, that I had until the sun was a quarter through the sky until I had to be on the beach. The sun now glares straight above my head, it always seems to move faster when I'm in the wild.

I move slowly, limping past trees and boulders; through the path my ancestors carved. A breeze from the sea floats up with its briny smell as if to say I am close, keep going. Taunting me.

I know I won't make it.

I do make it to the Juniper Spring, a huge pool of water that turns into a creek and eventually joins with other streams before emptying into the sea. The spring is closer to the summit than the base of the mountain but at least it's a checkpoint. I suddenly stop, look down at the pool and the stream flowing from it. I can use it. Propel myself on a vessel to the shore.

But the next shudder from the earth tells me that will take too long. If only I could fly like Levin or teleport like Nico; some gifts certainly have their benefits. But so does mine. Why not do it from here? My sandaled feet nearly touch the rush of water that drains endlessly from the pool and I can feel the potential in being so close.

It's all connected. From the mysterious source of the spring to the stream and into the vastness of the ocean, an endless cycle that I alone can feel. I alone can control. I just haven't tried to control it from this far out before.

I look down the stream. There's no chance I can make it to the coast in time, even after I stop going downhill I would still have miles before the beach. And by the time I reached it, it would be completely submerged. Along with everyone I've ever known.

I take my sandals off and step into the icy stream. I can feel the flow of water rushing endlessly from where it originates high up on the mountain, into the pool, around my feet, down the slope until it meets with the bottomless reservoir that is the sea.

Then I take control of that flow and stop it. Gravity's hold on the water is nothing compared to what I can do. I feel the rocks on the streambed, probe with my consciousness to the depths of the pool a few meters away and can even sense the small crustaceans that live in its depths.

I can feel and then see that the stream is beginning to back up; my Command causing a dam where I'm standing, the water upstream leaking onto the banks of the creek. Trying something else, I focus on the center of the stream and relax the rest. The water recedes back from the banks and rushes downhill again but my power flies straight like an arrow towards the sea.

Had anyone else been around they would have been able to stand on the water, like balancing on rod or a tree branch. At my Command, each droplet freezes in place, the ripples that had been on the top of the water create a rough pattern someone could walk on without slipping. My feet are encased in a solid block of the stuff and it stiffened so much that I can't even bend my ankles. It's a relief to feel the weight lifted from the injured joint. The water isn't like ice but a hardening, fusing the bonds of the water together and creating something that isn't even slick since all the moisture is in stasis.

As my consciousness travels with the stream I find I can Command the entire thing. I can change its course, or cause it to flow uphill if I will. I don't even have to break my focus with each fork in the stream, they just became part of me. All of them.

I'm nearing the sea and can feel the potential of it in front of me. The ground shakes once more and a shadow passes between me and the sun. I continue down the stream as it nears the sea, the stream fracturing into dozens of smaller pathways. In less than a minute I'll have it. The power is intoxicating.

I've never been able to control from this far out before but as my consciousness moves downhill I begin to test myself and move uphill as well. I feel the source of the water; past the pond, deep in the mountain. A great reservoir that's been feeding the pool which has, in turn, fed the stream. An underground lake that teems with life, cut off from the surface for millennia.

I'm downhill again, less than a minute away from communing with that great mass of water when a shadow darkens the sun. My eyes are clenched shut, not willing to look up when I'm so close. I risk losing control from this far away.

There's a steady thrum from above me and I open my eyes. I still have control then. I lose it when the shadow above me shrieks and I look up to see talons the size of daggers rushing towards my face.