A Mysterious Box

After getting out of his mom’s car, Andy quickly dashed over to the swing where the three other kids were playing. Nathan, swinging on the swing set, was a year older than Andy at eleven years old. He had short brown hair and wore a plain blue t-shirt and black shorts with two thin white stripes on each side. Tiffany, age eleven was pushing Nathan, her younger brother. She had shoulder length blonde hair that was tied to each side in two braids on either side. She wore a teal-colored tank-top and blue jeans that were very new. And Zach had dark-brown skin and no hair, Zach was a recovering cancer patient. His hair would grow back soon, but not yet. He wore a red shirt with black letters that said ‘I SURVIVED’ on the front. He had black shorts. Andy wore a medium green colored shirt with blue jean shorts and had thin red hair. He also wore glasses.

He turned to look at all the parents gathering at a picnic table under the shade a few yards away. There was Zach’s parents Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, Zach’s way older brother, Darion, Tiffany and Nathan’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Matters, and then Andy’s mother, Andrea. Andy’s father was not present as always. He was way too busy with work to spend any time with him and Andy’s older sister, April, was off in college. Nathan and Tiffany’s older sister, Rebecca, who was supposed to be watching them was sitting under a tree a couple yards away on a blanket, with her eyes glued to her phone and her fingers typing away. Probably texting with her latest boyfriend.

Andy turned his attention back to his friends. “Hey guys.”

“Hey, dork.” Nathan joked. “Do you have the latest Super friends comic?”

Andy new by now that Nathan was just being silly and not actually trying to insult him, so he replied. “Yeah nerd.”

Andy took his dark, blue backpack off and unzipped on of the middle compartments. He pulled the comic book out and showed the front cover to them. Still rapped because, he wanted to keep the comics in mint condition.

“Cool.” Zach smiled. “I bet that’s going to be worth a lot of money someday. Just like my coin collection.”

“Yeah. You and I will be millionaires. With our own yachts.”

“And penthouses.” Nathan chimed in as he came to a stop on the swing and stood up.

“What is that?” Tiffany pointed towards the edge of the swing set.

Everyone looked over to where she was pointing. Andy saw a box about a foot wide, a foot long, and a foot high wrapped in brown packaging. He ran over to the object and the others followed.

Andy reached over to grab the square package, but Zach pulled him back. “I wouldn’t touch that. Could be a bomb.”

“I don’t think so.” Nathan shook his head. “A bomb in a small park where very few gather.”

“Oh.” Zach let go of Andy. “You’re probably right.”

Andy bent down, picked up the item and stood back up. He turned the box around and looked at every side. “There is no label or address.”

He reached to open but was again halted by Zach.

“What if this belongs to someone? Could be drugs.”

“That is more believable.” Nathan agreed. “If we open it, the police could think we bought them.”

Andy pondered that for a moment. “At our age? I doubt it. We are just some innocent kids. If there is something bad in there, we can just show our parents.” He shook the box and heard something rattling. “Besides, I don’t thing drugs would make a sound like that.”

Zach still was not sure. “Let’s take a vote guys. I vote we don’t open the package and either show our parents, or just leave the package be. I vote for the option. Who votes to open it?”

Andy, Tiffany and Nathan all raised their hands.

“Three to one.” Andy shrugged and tore open the packaging. Inside was a black box slightly smaller, with a lid that had gold lining.

Andy opened the lid and inside was a black object shaped like a jewel with a gold platform, circular at the top holding the object.

“Wow.” Andy took the jewel out of the box and held the object out for the others to see.

Before anyone could say anything and hand reached in and snatched the black jewel from Zach. They all turned to see Rebecca standing over them.

“What is this?” She demanded to know. “Does this belong to any of you. I going to tell- “

Suddenly a blue light begin to emit from the object and the light began to grow around Rebecca’s arm and then around the rest of her body. Then the light disappeared and so did Rebecca. The object fell to the ground where Rebecca had once stood.

Then suddenly a blue light appeared again and shot out engulfing the four kids. Their surroundings changed to nighttime and everyone else had disappeared.

“What the heck?” Zach was terrified. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know.” Andy shook his head.

“We are in what appears to be the same park.” Tiffany pointed out. “But it’s night now, and none of the streetlights are on. All objects like cars are still here, but no people.”

Then they all heard a loud scream and Rebecca ran out of the shadows to the playground, her clothes were torn and she was bleeding at the places where her clothes were torn.

“What happened?” Nathan asked his older sister.

“A horrible creature attacked me from behind.”

A loud hissing sound could be heard and then all five of them turned towards the direction Rebecca had come running from. A creature slowly came within sight, three feet away. The creature had the body of a small horse with the head of a cobra and a scorpion’s tail. From the side, near the area where the cobra was attached to the horse body came two large, scorpion claws. They seemed short but both shot forward, one grabbed Rebecca and the other grabbed Tiffany and pulled them both close. The tail shot forward and stung Rebecca in the chest and the creature bit Tiffany with his cobra fangs.

Andy ran up and leaped onto the back of the creature and began to squeeze at the throat while Nathan and Zach ran forward and began punched the chest area. The cobra’s head tried to lunge forward but could not.

Andy felt a sharp pain as the creature stung his back. The pain was horrible as venom began to flow throw his body, but he did not let go as the creature began to slowly loose breath. The creature dropped Tiffany and Rebecca. He grabbed Nathan with one of his claws, but Zach dodged the other claw’s grasp by mere inches.

Then the creature toppled to the ground, releasing Nathan and breathed its last. Andy held on for a minute longer and then released his grasp on the creature. He laid back and started breathing heavily. He could barely move. But he saw the creature disappear and in the place of the creature was the black jewel on its golden stand.

Rebecca reached over and picked the jewel up. Once again a blue light shot out of the mysterious object and they were back in the park in daylight with none of the injuries that occurred in that strange place. A small group of kids who had been playing in the playground ran off towards their parent who were sitting at the same table that their parents had been at.

An elderly man who was sitting on a bench over by the sidewalk stood up and began slowly walking towards them. He had a light brown trench coat on and walked with a black cane with a straight handle that had a rubber cover. His other hand shook a bit from arthritis.

He glanced at each of them, and then Andy and he gasped. With tears stream from his eyes. He got onto his knees and began to hug Andy. “You look so much like him young man.”

“Like who?” Andy was confused.

The old man let go of Andy and then began to touch his young face as one of the other kids parents came up. “Dad, you are scaring this kids. You must let go of the past. That isn’t Andy.”

Andy looked up at the woman with surprise. “But my name is Andy.”

“Oh, what a coinci-“

She paused and then glanced at the others. Then her eyes came back to Andy, and she slowly began to shake. And she got onto her knees and touched his face.

“Andy? How can this be? We searched everywhere for you.”

“I don’t get this. Who are you?” Andy backed up and his friends gathered around him.

“Andy.” She laughed. “It’s me. April. Your sister.”

Andy and his friends glanced at each other with their eyes widened in terror.

“How can that be. Only a few minutes passed for us.”

“A few minutes.” April shook her head. “It’s been twenty-five years. This here is your father, Howard.”

The old man nodded. “I regret spending too much time at work to be with you. I have been trying to find you for years but there have never been any clues. We thought that perhaps you all were kidnapped. There was even a body found that we thought may have been Rebecca a few years after you disappeared. He looked at Rebecca, but obviously not.”

“We found this small black jewel that took us took a similar area.” Andy explained. “But the sky was black and no one else was that except for the terrifying creature which tried to kill us. But I managed to choke the animal to death while the others distracted him. When he died, he changed into the black jewel and then the blue light emitted and took us back here. Time obviously goes more slowly there. What was like ten minutes there is more like twenty-five years here.”

“There was a black jewel found at the sight. Led the police to believe that perhaps you were kidnapped by someone involved in diamond smuggling.” Howard remarked. “Come to think of it. One of the CSI’s investigating the jewel disappeared. Some think that his disappearance had something to do with the case. But perhaps the jewel did the same to him, only he did not survive. Or he will appear in the same place he was.”

April stood up. “Well, I’m sure they have been through a lot. We need to contact the authorities and any living relative.”

Later that day, Angelique, a young Hispanic woman, was at her job, going through past evidence boxes to ensure nothing had been tampered. Her mind was wandering a bit though, excited about her date that night. She could hardly wait. Trevor was a great looking guy, with a killer smile.

As she pulled one box out, she accidentally knocked over a small cardboard box which opened, and a small black jewel fell out.

“What the-“ Angelique picked up the jewel and held it up to the light.

A bluish light appeared and suddenly everything went black. Angelique shook her head. “I wish they would fix the lighting in her.”

She heard a loud hissing sound and turned around. Her eyes widened in horror, and she screamed.