This story was written by Kai Johnston, and was inspired by the 4 Elements of Nature, which is the Comenius Project of Gairloch High School.

1. Elemental Story
Hi! I’m Vinyl Scratch! I’m an Air
Elemental.
If you didn’t know, Elementals are
people infused with the power of the
elements, air (me), fire, water and
earth. We’re a rare bunch, all bonded
by fate to save the world…
I have a friend in school called Adam.
He’s an Earth Elemental, but most
importantly, he’s my best friend. He
can be a downer sometimes, but
generally he’s really good fun. We met
in primary school, where I used to get
bullied by the older years. By then I
hadn’t really got the hang of my Air
powers. One day it was the same
routine and the bullies were picking on
me again, but then he got there,
Adam. He stood up for me when I was
being bullied, then they got on his bad
side, the worst mistake they ever
made, because when he gets angry,
he gets really, really angry. He took
them out with his (almost scary)
knowledge of pressure points on the
body. From then on we became best
friends and always helped each other
out in a bad situation.
Back then he was happy and carefree,
but after a while he started to sound
depressed and slept in class almost all
the time, as if he couldn’t help it. He
saw a doctor, who said he wasn’t
suffering from depression, just a lack
of sleep, which was the best news I
heard all year. Adam was given some
sleeping pills and I thought it was all
going back to normal, but unfortunately
it was the exact opposite. He took the
first pills just after his dinner, and they
kicked in about 7pm and he was sound
asleep.
But the next day Adam wasn’t in
school. I thought he’d just caught a
bug and was staying off school, but I
was quite glad, because the more time
he took off school, the more time he
had to sleep and get back to his old,
fun self again. When I got home after
school I decided to go and see if Adam
was okay. When I got there, though, I
found his mum putting him in the back
seat of their car. She explained that
Adam hadn’t wakened up since the
night before, for fully 24 hours, so I
went with her, rushing him to hospital
to see what was wrong.
The doctor said all his vitals were fine,
that he was fully awake but in some
sort of coma. We would need the help
of a greater force, he told us, and
directed us to a shack in the middle of
the forest not too far from the hospital.
He’d meet us there. With nothing to
lose, we headed there, with Adam’s
unconscious body.
Just as the doctor said, there was a
shack, but all we found inside were a
few cauldrons and bottles of a strange
liquid. We exited, until the doctor got
there, but this time, before entering, he
knocked on the door four times and
whistled a strange melody. After that
the door flew open by itself and we
found inside a lady in a dark, black
cloak who introduced herself as
Gertrude. She agreed to help but the
only way was to enter Adam’s mind.
The only person strong enough to do
that would be another Elemental, so I
was the only man for the job. She
gave me a drink of the strange liquid to
put me to sleep.

2. I awoke in a strange world where the
ground was as cold as ice and the sky
as black as the deepest void. There
was a dirt path that stuck out as if it
was trying to lead me somewhere. So
I followed it for what seemed like
forever. I walked and walked, seeing
nothing but the dirt path stretching out
into the distance. All I could see was
darkness, no homes, no animals, not
even anything as clichéd as a
tumbleweed, so I just kept on, until the
path led me to two people standing on
what appeared to be a deck of cards –
always Adam’s favourite game – one
standing up, and the other face down
on the stone.
As I got closer I saw the familiar face
of Adam, or the side of it anyway, but I
was still confused about who the other
guy was. I approached him.
He seemed angry, because he
attacked me as soon as he realised I
was there. I prompted him to stop,
and to my amazement it worked! We
sat down and I asked why he was so
sad and how he even got there. He
explained he was actually only a few
years old, and that he was a dream
Elemental, that lives in people’s
dreams and protects them from their
own fears. He used to live with his
parents but they sacrificed themselves
to lock away a gigantic nightmare
within a special music box. Ever since
then he had been wandering through
dream after dream, the only thing
keeping him sane being the occasional
nightmare and the music box,
He had put Adam into a magic coma
because he wanted a host who could
act on a physical plane, but he
discovered he needed a willing host,
and since Adam was in a drug-induced
sleep he wasn’t able to accept this
proposal.
After much consideration, and out of
gratitude to my friend, I offered my
body. The last thing I heard before it
all went dark and I woke up was a loud
“Yes!”
I awoke in the same bed as when
Gertrude gave me the liquid and I fell
asleep, only this time with my best
friend beside me, and an eager little
voice in my head that wanted to play
for a while. After the celebrations were
had, the Dream Elemental told me his
name was Neos. He and I had a lot of
fun, especially when I explained to the
others about him. So, once we got the
whole two souls sharing the same host
thing out of the way, everything did go
back to…”normal”…
Kai J, S2