The Chronicles of Magic~ The Technologist

Tobias ~ The Cube

Tobias~ The cube

Normal. Funny word. What do we mean by it? Normal as in what is common, or what we believe is right?

Sometimes, normal is different than what you would assume. I learned this the hard way.

I was tired, but refused to sleep. Rain poured down on my windows, the pounding sound causing me to be more nervous than usual. But this time, it was not only the rain. The message should be coming, any time now.

I remembered my father's words as if they had been spoken yesterday. "Son, I must go. Stay here at the orphanage, where they will not find you," he had paused here, as if thinking. "Three years, Tobias. In three years, I will send you a message. We will be a family again. But remember, you are special. More then you could ever know. You know your gift, Tobias. Use it well." He ushered me out from our hiding place beside the run-down orphanage. "Wait!" he had called. He pulled out a small box, no bigger than my fist, giving it to me tenderly. "Never forget."

In the box was yet another box. But the box was made of pure, fine steel, with technology, powerful electricity, surging through it. I had sensed this much since I first saw it. But in the time I spent in this cursed place, I found that there was more than technology running through there, there was magic, too. Dark magic. A deadly combination. After realizing this, I immeadiatly began to study it further. Day after day, despite the extreme danger, I continued to try to take it apart. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years, but my interest with the cube just grew greater.

Now it had been three years, and I missed my father terribly. I had never understood why he said three years. Perhaps he just made it up, or maybe he truthfully knew that in three years, he would send a message to fetch me. Either way, it had been three years, exactly, and I awaited this message he spoke of. I had made up many fantasies in which he sent a letter that said he had found a way for us to stop running, a way where we could find my mother and be a true family again. Recently, as I have grown older, I realized how foolish that was. Now I believed that he would send for me and we would begin to run again, like we had always done before.

There was only an hour left in the day. The clock on the wall ticked away, and with it my hope. Earlier that day, I awoke to find the cube dead. No power remained in it at all. With a last fragment of hope, I got the cube out again. There was now a very faint bit of dark magic, but no electricity remained in it at all. Suddenly, I felt a surge of life run through it, something that I had never felt in this little cube. Then I felt the electricity return, more powerful than ever. It knocked the breath out of me and I fell back on my bed, stunned.

It began to vibrate slowly, then cracked in half, glowing green and blue inside as energy moved through it like blood in my veins. It started to vibrate faster, and faster until it shocked me with the intense power it was radiating. Then a picture started to flicker inside as it became more and more clear.

My father's dull, unshaven face was projected inside.He looked weak and scarred.

A single word was mouthed to me. "Run."

Seeing my father like that had me frozen in place. The only person that truly cared for me, my hero, my father had somehow become like that. His eyes were full of desperation. He looked weak, in pain, and I couldn't bear it. Tears welled up in my eyes. The cube closed again, dead.

Immediately I began to pack. In a moment I grabbed the small backpack I had arrived here with, full of things collected over the years for this very moment, adding the cube and an extra change of clothes. I ran out of the room, down the stairs, and into the main lobby, running towards the door, anxious to get outside, away from here. "And where are you going, Toby? " asked the main manager of the orphanage. "For a... Walk, ma'am," I answered, tingling to get outside. "You know you can't just run off like that, Toby! Especially in the middle of the night! " she shrieked in response, seemingly shocked that I would do something like that.