Pandora's Box

♒ She called it a heartbeat ♒

25 days 13 hours and 8 seconds before the incident... 7..6..5...4..3...2..1

Time is running out my dear.

¶ p a n d o r a ' s b o x ¶

.2

Something was off today, it was like the peaceful and anxious countdown of a bomb.

You ignored it until it went off.

At first I thought it was the sake of the State title of our football team, traveling down to Sacramento to play with the Milhouse school of Inc. Bradshaw, or maybe it was Coach White's strange and sudden heart attack the night before surfacing an mourning silence during gym, or maybe it was the energy.

I walked down the hallway today not a single second glance or shove to the metallic lockers, the social outcasts wandered freely, and the jocks stayed out of there way, it didn't seem real, like I was still inside a dream of my own paranoia.

Or maybe it was the strange weather I watched during world history at the down pour beating heavily at the worn out windows, even my faceless and droned substitute eye's didn't belong to her, the color and light were completely gone.

I shook my head and blinked.

If I woke up know I might still be sane.

"Spencer." She beckoned, I looked up a thick packet and permission slip was handed to me, her hand grasped the cast on my forearm, her lips curled at the ends mischievously.

"This is going to be one field trip you'll never forget." I shivered at her touch, gently retracting my arm from her cold hands, only to have her stare at me more intently.

I didn't know then, because the piece's didn't exactly fit.

I stared at the packet's curiously, it was another over expensive field trip to a museum, somewhere half way across the world, taking place a month from know. I turned it over reading a quote at the bottom of the packet.

'Don't worry hell isn't over yet' I frowned thinking more along the lines of wow that wasn't creepy at all.

I sometimes wish I could go back to the that moment when I pondered that decision and screech bloody Mary at night that I didn't turn around at that exact period of time, because if I did I would of realized two things.

Me, Christiana, Ash, Jayden, Tommy, and Ian were in that class all holding the permission slips with quirked eyebrows.

And that our eye's were the only one's with light.

****

Somebody finally lost it today, I knew I wasn't the only one who felt cold all of a sudden, like I was spending hours inside a pschyo ward.

Tommy Peters cracked.

It was so bad, he flipped the foldable tables inside the cafeteria, and cried out loudly begging them to stop, stop whatever prank they were on, whatever twisted game they were playing.

He begged, and shriveled to the floor from a panic attack.

Two tac officers pinned him down, dragging him away from curious eye's, he fought but lost wearily bowing his head.

The air in the cafeteria was so phony, everyone just continued on with there conversation like nothing happening. I bit into my apple rubbing my hands together for warmth, I haven't stopped shivering as if I've been standing right under an air vent.

Even Christiana that wore nothing below the knee or elbow, had on leggings and a varsity jacket from a senior.

One by one I stared into there eye's and every time I tortured myself by taking a glance, I was meet by cold bottomless coals, dark and unaware.

Something was coming, I shivered.

Something big.

****

I feel asleep with a neck cramp, I adjusted my Sony headphones throwing my self back on the pillow and rolled over on top of something warm.

And definitely alive.

I shot up, looking over my bed Pa sat sound asleep at my office chair, I wracked my brain for a memory smiling slowly when I realized he slept here all night, reading my favorite Alice's adventure in wonderland, he would often rant about the brilliance of a good mystery he lived for them.

Mom and dad used to call him an old cook for believing and dedicating his life to unsolved mystery's.

Mom and Dad was like a knowing at the back of my head I wanted to believe they didn't exists and only but a figment of my imagination.

But there memories were like Polaroid films in my head, there actions were thrown on my shoulders, and there names were written in my heart

You see the true mystery's were never in the books I read, they were in me.

I shifted wiggled out of my plaid bed sheets, making sure I didn't wake up Pa, I made my way to the bathroom it was still dark out so I searched blindly for a light switch and nearly had a heart attack when I meet the girl in the mirror.

I had on an Artic monkeys shirt, with homer Simpson's comical face on my pajama pants, I looked extremely pale with bed hair sticking out like a compass, I grabbed a brush throwing my hair in a bun and walked back out to my room.

Before I settled inside my bed, I looked over at the stack of books piling on top of desk until one of them caught my eye, completely black and falling apart I picked it up and turned it over, some words I could make out.

pa dor s box.

Pandora's box?

When did I get this one?

I looked over at Pa who was sound asleep, I cracked open the book, instantly dust bunnies clouded my vision, the leather bounding looked as if it's been threw a war, I flipped threw pages, suddenly something fell fluttering to the floor.

I bent down picking it up, thinking it was a grocery list I nearly crumpled it tossing it into the trash bin. Until I recognized my parents hand writing.

I read the first sentence it was smudged and barely readable.

September 26th, 2009

Spencer, if your reading this.... you must understand one of two things.

The date, I took a sharp breath my parents anniversary, blinking wildly I read the rest that wasn't destroyed by age.

For one, I, we apologize for bringing you into this world, a world of destruction and war, a world of pain and vengeance.

A world where tears are hidden and smiles are artificial.

But you must live, because you live for a purpose.

(Incoherent words)

Lastly,

remember if you look at the world with your eyes closed....... your looking at the world as an illusion.

A number was the only thing left on the letter that I could make out.

219

What did that mean, I flipped the page over, but that was it, that was all my parents left me a number.

"Spencer?" Pa croaked behind me. Quickly I dried the tears I found at the apple of my cheeks, and hid the letter inside my t-shirt. "Is everything alright." I heard him take heavy strides until he was right behind me resting a hand on my shoulder.

"I'm fine." I've started to believe my lies, swiftly I turned around so he wouldn't see my face and crawled inside my bed, he stood for a second and glanced at the book I dropped to the floor from shock.

He picked it up and read the cover, his eye's instantly snapped over to me. "One of my favorites." he whispered, Pa walked out of my room closing the door softly.

I opened my eye's grabbing the letter from the inside of my shirt, searching for anything, anything on it I could of missed, I looked over at my desk.

My eyebrows snapped together, the book was gone.

****

a/n : Nolan Gerard Funk as Ash Millers to the side