The Black Box

33

Annabeth slowly rises from the couch and walks over to Isaiah and I.
"You ready?" asks Isaiah even though he'll answer his own question.

"As ready as I'll ever be to get a tattoo," she says.

"It not like getting a tattoo from a tattoo parlor though, as Peter experienced. It's something in The Tube that senses your tattoo and makes it rise to the surface of your skin. It's been there forever, I just want to make it able for us to see it."

I sit down on the white couch and watch as Annabeth calmly steps into The Tube.

"Ready?" asks Isaiah from a microphone so Annabeth can hear him inside The Tube.

"Yeah," she replies, breathing deeply.

Isaiah closes the doors and presses the same button when I was in The Tube.

Instead of black lightning striking Annabeth, she has white lightning with blue at the edges. It almost has an ombré effect. It starts to hit her back and she screams too, but the soundproof glass can't make me hear her scream in pain. I can't tell where the lightning has gone after awhile 'cause it's just like a light show now.

Isaiah pushes a button and she steps out. She walks over to the mirror and looks at herself. She has white lightning bolts with the tips being light blue, almost aqua like Navi's eyes. It's on her shoulders and arms but not on her back like I have.

Isaiah walks over to the same cabinet where he got my ring, and shuffles through the emptiness. He finally stops and picks something up. He gives it to Annabeth without holding it up to the light like mine. He glances at us for just a second, a hint of confusion in his eyes.

She holds it between her fingers. It's a silver ring with a braided effect to it. It doesn't have anything else to it. It could be just a plain ring.

"Well, " says Isaiah, "let's get back to business." And walks out of the room.

I look around at the training room and see that no one is around. I do see that some of the symbols above the doors are lit up. One is a flame and another is a tree with vines.

"They're already at it. Guess they had more cooperative trainees," says Isaiah giving me a sidelong glance.

Adam and Kevin are staring down at their feet. Isaiah leads us over to the opposite side of the room and stops in front of the last door. As we walked past Adam and Kevin, they were both playing with their rings. I didn't get enough time to look at what they looked like.

The last door's symbol is a lightning bolt, a black one.
"Come on Peter, it's your turn first," says Isaiah pushing a few buttons on the keypad. The symbol lights up and we walk into the chamber.

It's not huge but it's not small. It has a white tiled floor and white walls. There's a keypad in the air near the left side. Isaiah walks over to the keypad. "Get over there."

"Where?" I ask him.

"There." He points to a circle of tile about ten feet from the keypad. I walk over to it and stand on it.

Before I can reply, a glass wall separates me and Isaiah. He pushes another button and the "tank" I'm in is filled with ice cold water and chunks of ice.

I hear Isaiah through a microphone say, "This is your first test Peter. Tell me when you can't feel your body."

"I already can't!" I yell at him.

"Not in that kind of way. You'll see." He pulls a lever that wasn't there before next to the floating keypad.

The water and ice are rising quickly and I'm already up to my chest in it. I guess I was pretty dumb in thinking this but I let myself be immersed into the water.

The temperature of the water drops and ice sheets begin to form on the water's surface. How can I survive this? I punch a hole in the ice but it immediately covers over. I'm trapped in the water. I let myself sink to the floor and lie there. My skin begins to tingle and I look at my arm.

Little ice crystals are forming on my arm. I swat them away but they materialize right after. I'm being frozen to death.