Crystal Waters
By Amber Michelle


Chapter One

Drive.

Oh god, they gave me Drive...... I told them...... I told them......

Clutching her knees to her chest so tightly she could hardly take a breath, Elly pressed her face against her legs, trembling. Try as she might, she could not banish the memories of her Ether-induced rage. Crimson blood, glistening wetly on the walls, bone crunching, fire flying......

Her leg throbbed, and Elly released her death grip. I deserve...... She didn't know what she deserved. How could she have done such things in the first place? Where had that awful, debilitating pain come from? Just thinking about it made her heart clench in near agony. She couldn't understand it, it was so deep down......

And what about when he had come into the hall......?

That woman's voice...... it had sparked memories and feelings she couldn't place. But when the scientist had reached out and touched her......

He seemed so familiar...... a figure from a dream of long ago, something she knew should be there, something she couldn't recall...... He touched her face, his fingers resting there gently, wiping her tears away.

"Elehayym... it is you......" The minute his soft voice had whispered those words, she knew, intuitively, that although he would speak coldly and refuse to meet her eyes, he would never hurt her......

No. She was stupid, to think he would care.

But he was protecting her now, wasn't he? He promised......

"Elly......"

She looked up. Her mother pushed the door open, slipping inside and closing it again, quietly, against her father's yelling in the next room. Yelling -- for her. For what they did to her?

Or for what she had done?

She bit her lip, squeezing her eyes shut as more memories flashed to the surface. She still felt their blood, dribbling down from her collar, her hair...... She had taken three showers, but a thousand wouldn't wash that stain from her soul.

Her mother sat beside her on the bed. "Do you want to tell me what happened?" She avoided looking at the heap of bloodstained clothing shoved into the corner behind the door, eyes resting only on her daughter. "The...... the Drive......"

Elly bit harder, tasting her own blood in her effort to keep from crying. But it was impossible to keep her tears back. Her mother gathered her into her arms, and they flowed, falling like raindrops to soak her mother's dress.

"I couldn't stop it...... tried to........She --" Shan had been one of them. Her best friend for as long as she could remember! Dead, with her handprint burned into his face.

...... he fell back from the force of the blow, sliding along the blood-slicked floor. Fire blazed from her hand, fluxing and whining with a high-pitched keen like the cries of the drow from legend......

"Oh Elly......"


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