The Black Box

16

"Peter you should get out of your room more often," says my mom, making a salad for dinner as I walk into the living room.

The living room and kitchen aren't separated by walls. I go on my phone and type in, "What will happen in three centuries on Earth?" 'cause I want to see if where I went is true. It said that we would be in a more futuristic society with flying cars and houses on Mars. I don't think I went to the future Earth. I don't think that was a scientific website either.

"What are we having for dinner?" asks Saige as she comes into the living room and sits on the couch next to me.

"Hamburgers and a salad," my mom replies, getting the salad and burgers and putting them on the table. "Dinner's ready."

Everybody comes to the table and sits down. Toby gets the ketchup and squirts out a ton of ketchup onto his hamburger. It was like he used the whole bottle. And he almost used the whole bottle, but he squirts it at me and onto my shirt. Now I have yet another red stain on a t-shirt.

"Mom!" I say, looking down at my shirt.

"Toby, save some for us!" says Saige, annoyed that she can't have any ketchup.

"No," says Toby, happy that he used all of the ketchup. I start wiping off the ketchup with a napkin. I have to get a new shirt.

"I'll be right back," I say as I leave the table.

"Anyway, Jack asked me to the prom! When can we go dress shopping mom?" Saige asks my mom. She's practically jumping out of her chair 'cause she's so excited.

"Maybe this weekend Saige. Let's see what we have planned and maybe we can."

"Yay!"

"Hey Regina, I have to go to away for work this weekend," my dad says to my mom. He has to go away? Does that mean I have to babysit the devil?

"Ok. Maybe we can squeeze it in Saige. I think Peter will be able to babysit Toby." That's the last thing I hear before I go up the stairs.

I don't want to babysit Toby. It like trying to keep back a tiger. It's a four year old, I keep telling myself.

I change out of my tomato-stained shirt and put on a new one. I go downstairs and finish my dinner while my parents and Saige are arguing about when she's gonna go and get her dress. I walk up the stairs, leaving that catastrophe. I go to my room and close the door.

I open my closet and sift through my junk I buried my clothes, Christie gave me, under. Luckily I found them and put them on. I find the black box in my pocket. I've had the box in my pocket ever since I found it. I hide it in my locked drawer in my desk when I'm sleeping. I flip the switch. I don't black out anymore, which is good.

I'm on the ground of the huge room and she's on her balcony 'cause I see her foot dangling over the edge.
"Hey Christie!" I yell up to her. Her foot immediately disappears from the edge and I see her scale the wall downwards, swords and daggers equipped.

"Hey Peter. Ready for some more training?" she asks me. Her hair's in a ponytail today, or this time I came here.

"Yup. Ready when you are."

She teaches me some more intricate moves and teaches me how to tell where the attacker's attacking.

"Always look at their hips. That's where you can see the most movement," she says. We are standing opposite each other in an attacking stance, daggers at the ready.

I swipe at her but she blocks it with her forearm.

"Told you," she says.

"Ok. Attack me."

We go back into our stances and she swipes back at me. In the nick of time I see her hips move to the right and block her forearm with mine like she did.

"Nice job," she says. We stand straight and stretch out. It aches being in an attack stance for a long time. I'm pretty sure I sweat through my shirt.

I feel my back and sure enough my back's wet like I got out of the shower.

"Lemme get you another shirt," she says as she runs up the rock wall with ease, and goes to her closet. In a few minutes she comes back down again. "This should be good," holding up another gray shirt like the one I'm wearing now.

I turn around, my back to her, and change my shirt. "Thanks for the shirt."

"No problem. Lemme take this one," she takes the sweaty one and runs off to scale a different wall. The wall she climbs has stuff like the kitchen and the laundry room. Except they aren't rooms like everything else here.

She comes back down and we are standing opposite each other. We are just about to start another conversation when someone knocks at the door. How you can here through a stone door I don't know. I freeze and she does too. I wonder if it's an intruder.

She walks over to the door silently. She pushes on a button and the door opens. In the doorway there's a guy that's at tall as the doorway which is roughly six and a half feet.

He's tall, obviously. He has black hair swept to the side, neatly but messy at the same time. He has black clothes on too. A leather jacket, black boots, black everything. He has a tattoo on his neck. It's a dragon too. Like the ones on Christie's wrists. I guess it starts on his back and goes up his spine to his right and ends up a couple inches from his chin.

He has turquoise-aqua eyes. It's piercing my soul like Christie's were when I met her.

"Who's the chump?" asks the guy, pointing to me. A chump?

"Oh. This is Peter. Peter this is my brother," says Christie motioning to each of us when she talks.

"Hello Peter. My name's Navi," says the tall man, cracking his knuckles with a menacing look.