From the stairs I get a glimpse of the person standing in the doorway. A black jacket, brown boots covered in snow. I don't recognise her.
"Uh. Hi?" I say as I get to the door. The girl looks up at me from inside her hood. She looks a couple years older than me. There is a faint but distinct scar on her jaw.
"We need to talk," she says quietly.
"Uh," I say again, "Do I know you?"
"You used to," she says. She's right, I think. I have a vague memory of seeing her somewhere some time, but I can't place her face no matter how hard I try.
"Ok. What is it?" I ask.
"No, not here," she hushes, "And not now. Meet me tonight, down at the mall."
"If you don't mind me asking...." I begin but she interrupts me.
"I do. Here," she puts out her hand, as if to give me something hidden in her palm. I automatically stretch out my hand too, and she presses something hard and smooth into it, the size that it fits comfortably in a palm. I look down and see it's a red stone. It looks exactly like a stone you might find at a seashore, all rounded by the waves. I look back up at the girl with a dozen questions of what is going on, but she's disappeared already.
I turn the stone around in my hand. On the other side there's a circle carved into the stone, and some lines passing through. I stare at it for a moment. A faint thump comes from upstairs and I'm distracted from my absence of thoughts.
There's another thump and I head back upstairs. I slip into my room and find Leea there, trying to get control of the elemental.
"Flame just went nuts," she explains while trying to catch the little creature that's jumping around the room, from ceiling to wall to another one to the floor and back up again. It has the end of one of my threads with it, and it's making a huge mess by spreading the ball of string all around the room.
"Why?" I ask, and just follow the elemental's route around the room.
"How would I know?" Leea says, sounding a little desperate. I slip the stone still in my hand into my pocket and start helping Leea catch Flame before it breaks something or Tony comes up to check what the noise is. Though he might be playing his music so loud he wouldn't hear us screaming, if we decided to do that.
"Maybe it thinks it's fun?" I suggest. The elemental bounces off my head and I almost loose my balance.
"Maybe," Leea says and gets a hold of a leg of the elemental. She pulls the creature close to herself. It's clearly not burning her, so it's not too desperate to get away and running again. When Leea turns to face me it almost looks like Flame is grinning.
"Ok. Now," Leea says and looks like she's going to let the elemental go. Then she looks thoughtful for a moment and apparently decides to hold on to it for a little while longer.
"Who was it at the door?" she asks.
"Oh, right. A girl," I say. She keeps looking at me, expecting an answer that actually gives an answer.
"She said she needed to talk to me, but not here, and told me to meet her at the mall tonight," I explain. Leea's face looks probably exactly like mine did when I was talking with the girl.
"She gave me this," I dig the stone out of my pocket and hand it to Leea, who sits down on the bed and sets Flame down next to herself. She turns the stone around in her hand, examining it.
"What is it?" she asks.
"I have no idea," I say.
"What the hell is going on?" she asks, saying out loud what we're both thinking.
"Again, I have no idea. I could ask the same thing, if I knew who to ask," I say.
"You didn't ask the girl?"
"I tried. She just interrupted me before I got the question out, handed me the stone and disappeared."
Leea keeps staring at the circle on the stone.
"What's this symbol?"
"You do realise you keep asking me the very questions I'd like to have answer to too, right?"
"Ok," she looks up at me, "We need to first figure out what this is. Maybe it all makes sense after that. I'll start googling."
She gets up and adds, "You go get us some food, would you? I'm starting to really get hungry."
Flame jumps up onto her shoulder as I nod and start towards the kitchen.
_______________________________________________________
Don't ask, I have no idea what is going on.
I have to say, though, I'd like to write a little more per day than what we've been writing so far. I've been pretty busy, but I have my last exam today, so I'll have more time from now on. Because if we write this short things, I don't know where we can get in another sixteen days. Our story is a third through already, after all.
Your topic for tomorrow is Cup(s).
~matu
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