The Chest of the Lost

Chapter 15: Hope and a Plan

Finally, after what felt like forever, Griffin mumbled, "Cyndi?"

It was too dark to see him, but I was relieved to hear his voice. "Yeah?"

"Are you okay?" he asked. I wasn't sure how to reply to that. How okay could anyone be in a situation where they were awaiting an inevitable death?

"Are you?" I asked, unable to think of an answer that didn't make me want to cry.

"I guess we'll see," he said. "I'm just not sure why we're still alive. I mean my Crystal's broken and yours ended right when we left that room."

"Yeah," was all I could say. It was quiet for a moment, but the silence only brought more unease.

"I just wish we were able to see our families one more time," I said, feeling homesick more than anything else. I heard him sit up.

"Me too. I wonder what they're going to think. Do you think they'll come looking for us?" he asked.

"I don't know, I hope not. I don't want my family getting hurt," I replied.

He was silent for a moment, then said, "I wonder if my family knows I'm gone yet."

I looked at him and, despite the darkness, our eyes locked. A certain look of despair lingered in his dark brown eyes. I said nothing, not wanting to make things worse than they already were. If they hadn't found out he was missing, it was only a matter of time before the hospital noticed, and called his family. I thought about Kira and his sisters and wondered what they would do after they found out he was gone. They had been so happy when he came home, I couldn't imagine having a family member disappear twice; once was already too much.

"Do you have any other siblings? You know, besides the ones I met?" I asked, trying to change the subject. It didn't affect the mood, which left a hopeless feeling in the room.

"I did. I had an older brother, Charlie. He and I were so close, but he died overseas when I was twelve."

"I'm sorry. I can't imagine..." I didn't finish. We both knew what I was going to say. Though now I realized it wasn't hard to imagine losing a family member; I had already lost my whole family the moment I stepped into the small Crystal shop.

"He was my best friend. I remember staying up in my room and crying for a week after the funeral."

"He must have been a great brother," was all I could say. Griffin didn't reply and we sat in silence before I finally got up the nerve to ask him the question I had been dying to know the answer to.

I took a deep breath. "Can I ask you something?"

"Go for it," he replied.

"A couple days ago, you told me something happened with your Crystal and somehow Hawthorne found it. What happened?" I didn't know what I expected him to say, but I was curious to know the answer.

He paused in reflection, then took a deep breath. "A couple days before my seventeenth birthday, my mother received news from a friend that someone had tried to break into the Crystal shop. They had tried to steal a Crystal from the Chest of the Lost, but the shop alarm went off and the police showed up right after the thieves escaped. Fortunately, the thieves had dropped the Crystal on their way out, however, they were able to watch part of it before they fled. See, before the Crystal is in the possession of whoever it belongs to, anyone can watch it, but it rarely happens that someone other than the owner watches the Prophecy. Not even Mrs. Carson, the caretaker of the Crystals, has ever watched one other than hers.

"Anyway, the Crystal they had tried to steal was mine, and the thieves, Hawthorne and his men, had watched up to the part when I pushed you out of the way of the tree that night in the forest. When they realized I had powers too, they stopped at nothing to find me. They eventually found out where I lived, but they knew it would be risky to just come and take me, so when I ran into the forest after my apartment burned down, they figured it was the perfect time. Fortunately, I escaped the first time and hid. But they've been after me ever since."