B:
2035
“Oh, please! I could spot everyone no matter where you decide to hide.” I scoffed. “Even if you shape-shift or liquefy yourselves, I can detect heat signatures.”
In the vibrant playground, where the laughter of children with extraordinary powers filled the air, I stood confident with my hands on my hips. The other kids, a mix of elements, were all boasting about their powers. But I, the Boron Kid, as everyone called me, had a unique ability that made me the champion of hide-and-seek. Heat vision.
“Ready or not, here I come!” I declared, my voice echoing with a playful authority that only a five-year-old could muster. I closed my eyes and counted to ten, feeling the warmth of the sun on my face and the cool grass beneath my feet.
As I opened my eyes, the playground was seemingly empty. Some kids had turned into puddles of water, gallium — the list goes on, while others had decided to hide near the playground equipment. But to me, they might as well have been standing in plain sight.
I dashed towards the first heat signature, my best friend Oxidane’s. She had melted into a little puddle of water. It made sense, considering her hydrogen and oxygen combination.
“Found you!”
No response. I tried again. “Oxidane, come on… you gotta wake up. No fair, I found you.”
She remained perfectly still. No response. I scanned the playground for the heat signature of her brother. He was easy to find, having levitated himself up high in the sky.
“Helios,” I called. “It’s your sister. She’s not solidifying.”
Helios’s heart raced as he approached the shimmering puddle that was once his sister, Oxidane. The playground had transformed into a canvas of elemental chaos, and he was caught in the middle of it. Oxidane’s powers were straightforward—hydrogen and oxygen, the building blocks of water. But today, her control had slipped, leaving her liquefied and vulnerable.
“Oxidane,” Helios called out, his voice a mix of concern and urgency. “Come on, snap out of it!” He knelt beside the puddle, reaching out to touch the liquid surface. It rippled like a miniature pond, and he wondered if she could hear him.
Her eyes, once bright blue like the sky, now swirled within the water. One by one, our friends started to grow concerned, and soon, so did the parents. They all surrounded Oxidane, worry in their eyes.
Her own mother and father looked the most worried. The playground buzzed with tension as Oxidane’s liquid form remained unresponsive. Helios’s fingers grazed the surface of the puddle, and he felt the coolness of her elemental essence. But it was as if she had dissolved into a different realm—one where water no longer obeyed its natural laws.
I, observing from a distance, couldn’t tear my eyes away. I was the Boron Kid, the one who could detect heat signatures, yet this situation defied all my understanding. Hydrogen and oxygen—such a simple combination, and yet Oxidane’s mess was anything but simple.
Helios’s voice cracked as he pleaded with his sister. “Oxidane, it’s me. You’re not alone. We’ll figure this out.” His own powers—helium, cesium, and rhenium—felt inadequate in the face of her problem.
Their mother, Selena, paced frantically. “Why is this happening? She’s never lost control like this before.” Tears welled up in her eyes, as she recalled the college days spent trying to stabilize the kids’ father, who just watched silently, standing beside her.
“I don’t know, but… I just hope I haven’t passed down— you know…” he whispered, though I had no idea what was going on. Until I heard a chuckle in the distance. I turned to look and found another heat signature.
It was a trick—a decoy. Oxidane was clever, even in her elemental form.
I approached the source of the chuckle, my steps cautious. The heat signature was stronger here, more defined. And then I saw her, the real Oxidane, hiding behind the large oak tree at the edge of the playground. She was grinning, her form solid and mischievous.
“Oxidane!” I exclaimed, a mix of relief and annoyance in my voice. “You had us all worried!”
She stepped out from her hiding spot, her laughter now a melody that eased the tension in the air. “I had to test you, Boron. You’re always so sure of your abilities to detect us. I wanted to see if you could discern the real from the illusion.”
Helios floated down from the sky, his expression a blend of confusion and relief. “But… the puddle?”
“A simple water clone,” Oxidane explained, her voice light. “A trick I’ve been perfecting. It reacts to heat and touch, but it’s not me.”
Selena and Gallus, their worry lines fading, joined the group. “Oxidane, that was quite the stunt,” Selena said, though her eyes twinkled with pride.
Gallus, still silent, simply shook his head, but his eyes were smiling. The fear of his own elemental instability—was momentarily forgotten in the joy of his daughter’s safe return.
The playground erupted into cheers and laughter as the children resumed their games, the crisis averted. Oxidane’s prank had reminded us of all the wonder and unpredictability of our elemental gifts.
2055
“Haha, admit it. I fooled you all that day, didn’t I, B?” Oxidane chirped. She still remembered what had happened 20 years ago, when we were five years old.
“Absolutely, you did,” I replied with a chuckle, the memory still vivid in my mind. “You had us all in a frenzy, especially Helios. I’ve never seen him so flustered.”
Oxidane’s laughter filled the room, a sound as refreshing as a bubbling stream. We were sitting on our favorite bench in the park, the same one we’d claimed as our base during those childhood games of elemental hide-and-seek. Now, two decades later, the games had ceased, but our bond had only grown stronger.
“You know, B,” she said, her gaze softening as she looked at me, “I never thought that day would be the start of… well, us.”
I reached for her hand, feeling the familiar warmth that had nothing to do with my heat detection abilities. “Life has a funny way of turning playtime into something real. I guess we’re proof of that.”
“Remember how we used to argue about which element was superior?” I asked, a playful glint in my eye.
Oxidane nodded. “How could I forget? You were so stubborn that boron was the end-all and be-all.”
“And you were convinced that your water powers were the pinnacle of elemental prowess,” I teased back.
We laughed together, the years melting away as if they were mere seconds. It was true; we had argued, competed, and challenged each other. But through it all, we had also supported, cared for, and ultimately fallen for each other.
As the sun began to set, casting a golden hue over the park, Oxidane leaned her head on my shoulder. “I wouldn’t change a thing, B. Not the arguments, not the pranks, not even the scares.”
“Neither would I,” I answered, a smile forming on my face, working its way up to my eyes.
ns 15.158.61.55da2
