The Box People

Everything explained. Or not?

Water everywhere. I hear my name being called as I float around and try to stay above the water.  

"Tori! Astoria! Toriiii!" 

Sydney's going underwater then above then under then above and... Under... Under... Under!

"Sydney! I'm coming!" It's a good thing I can swim well. I paddle over to Sydney and duck my head underwater to find her.  

"Sydney!" my garbled speech echoes through the now quiet water.

I see a head of short blonde hair standing out in the deep blue pool.  

Paddle paddle paddle! I finally swim over to her when I realize I'm running out of air and I need to go refill. I kick up to the surface and find myself being drowned by a huge wave.

Where are the others?! I don't care, as soon as the wave disappears into the water again, I get a breath and then dive back down under and swim all the way to the bottom. Gravestones still everywhere, Sydney's floating to the bottom between two big ones.  

Karolyn and Gregory Wells. Right next to each other.  

I see a name. A name that looks like MY last name. My last name on three gravestones.

My first priority is to save Sydney though.  

"Sydney!"  

"I'm okay!"  

"Sydney I'm coming! Wait- wha?"  

"Tori I'm fine!" her eyes are open and she's now sitting by the two graves.  

I nod and swim over to my last name graves.  

Autumn and Mitchell Carmell. 

And Sylvia Carmell.  

My sister. My older sister. And ny parents! What is this? Some sort of sick joke? I can't take it.

"Sydney, let's get out of here." I don't have a feeling of need for air, and I wonder why but I want to get to land again anyways. 

Sydney sniffles a bit and reaches out for the gravestones. An underwater current takes her away before she can reach it. A sort of sadness for her threatens to overcome me, but I hit it out of the park and swim after her.

"Sydney?"  

"Up here!" she says, her voice trying to stay full of pep but starting to break.  

At least if I cry down here no one can see. No. I won't. 

I push myself to the surface and grab Sydney's hand as I pull her with me up a tree to look for the others and find safety. The water drains now, almost as if there's a big hole sucking it up, but just when I think it's gone, a big wave resurfaces and pushes Sydney and me out of the tree and underwater again, determined to keep us down.

We separate and I struggle to breathe, the weird thing that kept me from not having to breath earlier is now gone. I'm on my own.

As I come back up for air, a second wave, looks about eight feet tall, knocks me down once again. I cough and sputter, but the second time I come up there are pale arms that grab me and make sure my head is out of the water. 

I coughed a few times, spitting up water. 

"Corey?" 

"Sure. Everyone likes Corey. No, I'm not Corey." 

"Sev!?"  

A curt nod was in my eyesight from a boy with perfect brown hair that fell around his eyes but didn't cover more than his brows.  

It was wet though, so it looked darker than his usual chocolate brown. 

"Sev I'm sorry... Thanks for saving me."  

He's still keeping me up. 

"I can keep myself up, I can swim now, you can let go." 

"Um I don't think so."  

"I'm not a child Sev, I can swim. Thanks anyways." I try to wriggle out of his grasp and I do, but as soon as I try to swim away to find Sydney, he grabs my wrist and pulls me back.

"I'm not letting go. "

"Fine." I feel like a child, but in a way I'm flattered that he cares about me so much. Or maybe he just isn't sure about everyone else's conditions and he doesn't want to be left alone. Either way I continue to swim next to him.

I see a blonde dot on the water about one hundred yards away from us and I am assured that at least Sydney is okay.

I wonder about Corey and Aria. "Sydney! Over here!" 

"Aw come on why'd you do that!?" 

"What?"  

"Now something else might happen." 

"Huh?!" 

"When all of us, the white box kids-" 

"We're most certainly NOT kids." 

"Fine, white box people? That okay?"  

I nod, then tell Sydney to go find the others. 

He scoffs. "When we are all together, sometimes a disaster happens. They are the ones who make it like that. Because they know that together we have the power to destroy Them. "

"And we'd kill them all for putting us in those boxes?" 

He paused for a moment while we reached a tree and I helped him climb up it. 

"Now tell me," I ordered once we were comfortably perched on a thick branch. 

"Did you see the gravestones? The names on the gravestones?" 

I nodded, remembering my family and Sydney trying to reach out to hers. 

"Your family right?" 

I nodded again. 

"It was Them. Them who killed your family. Yours, mine, Sydney's, Corey's and Aria. Even poor little Aria." 

A tear tried to escape from my eye, I blinked and made it disappear.

A sort of rage filled up inside of me. Why did they target us in the first place? This was a good question to ask Sev.  

"Because we are the white box people." 

My eyes asked him for another explanation. 

"We have special... Hmm what should I call them... powers. Powers that could destroy them, like I said before, destroy their whole plan. Their plan to rule the world."

"Sounds like a typical comic book, with us as the heroes."

"I know." his voice said casually, as if he'd been through this with everyone already.

"But I'm not a hero!"

"Astoria, you ARE a hero. We all are. We just... haven't discovered it yet."

"Call me Tori."