Jason the Elf

Jason sat staring out the bullet-proof glass. He wasn't staring at anything in particular. There was a slug crawling along the masonry surrounding the courtyard garden. There was a man across the street mowing his lawn. Not that there was much to left to mow. He'd been out there everyday, running that push mower back and forth over his own personal desert. There was a cow grazing in the field beyond the mower man's house. There was a vacuous hole in Jason's heart where freedom used to dwell. Languidly turning his gaze to the pudding cup left on his bed tray by the nurse, he thought for a long time about picking up the plastic spoon and actually eating something for the first time in days. Then he thought about what it used to be like before they took him away--what it was like on the outside. Five days ago he was a free elf, exploring the world and having adventures--what elves were born for. If he hadn't been wounded by that gree the day before, he could have fought back when they hauled him off to this glorified guinea pig cage. Now he was really starting to want that pudding...

The sunlight didn't last long in this part of the world, and the even the daytime was dim and stagnant. As Jason sat on his bed, the cold twilight trickling through the window, he looked out across the lawn as the darkness crept into the small courtyard. Jason thought back on the ancient driftwood dwellings of his elvish village, twisting gracefully in the sky. No, he'd probably only ever see them again in his memories. A knife of light cut through the darkness in his room as the door opened. A silloette stood motionless in the doorway. "More pudding?" it asked. Jason, his mouth ringed with gelatinous chocolate, squinted stupidly in the direction of the voice. "Well, I guess not. I'll see you in the morning for the experiments." The figure departed, leaving him in his darkness.

He could feel his elf powers waning. Each minute they grew weaker and weaker and weaker. Without his elf powers, he would become a quivering blob of skin with pointy ears. He'd be like all those humans he had for so long looked down upon. Ack! He couldn't let that happen. His elfness--they couldn't take that away from him. He vowed right there, amid the pile of emptied pudding cups surrounding his bed, that he would not let them take his elfness. Ever. Now he knew there was one pudding cup left: if he could just find it...

"Nehali...menatablu...kalari moshbi...negadli." Jason struggled to remember the beautiful elvish chants of his village. He had to keep them fresh in his mind. Wiping the pudding from his mouth, he tried to think of the rest of the verse. He remembered singing this song on his huntag journey, when he first got his elf powers. He was sitting on a cliff, watching the sunrise. As the brilliant orb crawled up the horizon, vaulting itself over the misty mountain tops, Jason felt a peculiar feeling. It was as if something primordial was awakened inside of him. He hiked on, pushing through the thick foliage. By noon, he noticed puffy, white clouds exploding in the clear blue sky. Within two hours, a wall of dark grey had blotted out the entire western horizon. Jason could feel the deep, low rumble resonate through his elvish being, even as he sat curled in the corner of his room.

"NOOOOOOOO!!"

The rain pelted his face. It was nice feeling rain again. The wind tostled his hair. Wind always made him happy. He could hear the thunder more clearly outside. The walls must have been sound-proofed. That would explain a lot, especially why he had to throw two nurses to break down the wall instead of just one. But the burly secretary was the toughest opponent. What with all her letter openers. All in all, it only took him five minutes to break out after he summoned his long-dormant elvish powers. He would have escaped in three minutes, except he had to search through the secretary's desk for the key to the pudding pantry.