“You’re getting me all murky” the water hissed, flicking droplets of itself towards the hard packed ball of earth that swaggered too close to the edge of its pool.

“Well you’re making me all muddy” the earth grumbled back, rubbing at a sticky spot on its surface.

The two elementals glared at each other, their life long battle to keep themselves seperate to the other never ending.

It wasn’t often that the elementals had to gather, but every few hundred years there came something pressing that required their attention. The leaders would leave their centres, travelling through ocean, land, skies, whatever their territory to convene in a long forgotten forest. This time however, that forest did not exist. This was why the earth had called them.

“Can we get on with this,” fire seethed, straining to keep their flame alight as the air breathed against them, “someone is sucking all the air out of the room”

“How can I be sucking the air out of the room if I am the air in the room?!” The wind howled and the fire roared to assert their dominance.

They were all uncomfortable. This was not their forest, it was a tiny cave with a small pool at its centre, barely big enough to keep the elementals from overpowering each other.

“We need to do something about the humans,” the earth rumbled, “the plague of them only grows and we are losing our footing.”

“What else would you have us do?!” the fire smouldered low, yielding to the air, “I burn hotter through your lands every year in the mountains and yet they rebuild!”

“You burn through the forest and let the humans scatter like ants,” the earth bellowed, “you do nothing to block the exits,”

“I cannot block exits that are out of my reach because the water protects them,” the cruel hiss echoed through the cave.

The water was silent, contemplative as it watched the others. The desperation was true, they could all feel it. The humans had grown too many, too powerful, too blind to see that they were destroying the very life that sustained them.

“I can only control so much of myself,” the water whispered, “you should know that better than any of us,”

The water knew that it was time, they looked to the air, coiled into a tight spiral. Only they together had been spread far enough to do what needed to be done.

“It’s time that the age of humans come to an end,” the water whispered.

“We will do what needs to be done,” the air hummed in agreement.

Together they set out to begin the apocalypse.