In troduction Arc - Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION ARC

Chapter 1: PANDORA’S BOX

I - Fall

Three days later (Saturday)…

“This KLIA Transit is headed towards KL Sentral. The next stop: Bandar Tasik Selatan. This KLIA Transit is headed towards KL Sentral. The next stop: Bandar Tasik Selatan.”

“Why am I here with you guys again?” A long suffering sigh.

“Because you are secretly grateful that our dear tiny cousin has escaped the clutches of death once again and still here with us safe and sound…?” A teasing chuckle.

Sputtering and blushing. “N-No, I am not. I don’t care about that midget any more than I care about you! Which is: not at all!”

A melodramatic sigh. “Oh, dear Emily! Tell me ‘tis untrue! You wound me so!”

A brighter blush. “Sh-Shut up, Harry! And stop doing that! You’re making people stare at us weird!”

“They’re not staring because of his idiocy; they’re staring because of your yelling. Now both of you… shut up!” A hiss.

Syasya sighed. She currently wore all black and had her hair tied in her usual low pony-tail with her glasses in the pocket of her hoodie ready to be taken out when needed. She scowled (something she only did around her family and strangers) from her seat next to her younger – and taller – cousin’s neighbor and mutual crush (not that either of them know it), Emily. Even with her earphones plugged in and the volume on ‘max’ she couldn’t block out her extended family’s constant babble and arguing. The other four of their eight-man party was sitting on the four-sitter across the aisle from theirs.

From the corner of her eye, Syasya could see her cousin Farzana listening enthusiastically to her younger brother’s animated prattle about…Martians…? Across from the siblings sat the second-youngest of their group, Luqman with his iPhone out and his thumbs moving vigorously across its flat screen – most probably chatting with someone on Facebook. The last of their group was Syafiq, who was the closest to Syasya’s age with him being only a year younger than her. He – like Syasya – had his phone out and his earphones plugged in, doing his best to ignore the rest of his family by keeping his bespectacled eyes on the scenery flying past the large window he was sitting next to.

They were all headed to KL Sentral where they would get a couple of cabs to take them to The Curve where they all planned to spend their money on things like clothes, shoes, sports equipment, digital devices and food before they would drag her to the ice-rink to skate and once they were satisfied, they would watch a movie and…

All in all, just thinking of the methods her cousins had planned on using to torture her for the rest of the day was more than enough to leave Syasya exhausted and lifeless.

Honestly, this was not how Syasya had planned to ‘celebrate her survival’. If it had been up to her, she would have spent it finishing her stories or reading as much manga as she could before her next life-or-death experience actually ended in the ‘death’ part.

But of course, her cousins disagreed.

She knew the truth, though. The jerks were just using her ‘miraculous survival’ as an excuse to waste money and have fun.

Well, at least she had been promised no-limits completely-paid meal of sushi for lunch. A wicked smile made its way to Syasya’s lips. She was going to enjoy hollowing out their wallets. She’d make it a mission to make her meal the most expensive thing they would spend on for the entire year.

“The next stop is KL Sentral. The next stop is KL Sentral.”

She glanced out the window next to Emily. They were almost there.

“Arriving at KL Sentral. Please press the button to open doors.”

Syasya stood up with the rest of her family. Emily and Harry were still arguing and Farzana’s little brother hadn’t paused in his long dialogue once – Syasya was begging to wonder if he had even stopped to breathe since he began talking during their wait at the Putrajaya-Cyberjaya Station.

There were many people getting on and off the ERL, so – unlike her impatient cousins – Syasya took her time to get to the doors and waited for other people to get on before she finally stepped out. 

At the time, a Japanese song was blaring loudly in her ears and Syasya had her black eyes plastered on the screen of her phone, scanning through her collection of songs to look for the one she wanted to play. Distracted as she was, Syasya didn’t notice a man wearing a fedora, a tan scarf and a large trench coat with a brown satchel slung over his shoulder running down the stairs to the platform like the Devil himself was hot on his heels.

“Sorry! Excuse me!” he yelled as he barreled through the large amount of people walking up the stairs from the platform.

After the man had nearly ran over Luqman, he shot himself towards the closing doors of the ERL…

…but not before he accidentally slammed into the distracted Syasya and sent her to the floor.

To the girl, everything had happened in slow motion. She had just pressed the ‘next’ button on her phone. When the first notes of the song begun playing, she had lifted her head and was greeted with the sight of a man rushing at her at a high speed.

The first words of the song’s lyrics were sung…

‘In a moment, everything can change…’

“Woah!” the young teen exclaimed before her back hit the floor.

“Sorry!” the man apologized once more with a yell.

Unknown to the two, the collision had caused the man’s satchel to open and spill out one of its contents on to the ground next to Syasya.

When the man finally noticed, it had been too late. The doors had closed and the ERL was already moving. All the man could do was stand behind the doors and watch through the glass with horrified violet eyes as the box that had tumbled out was left behind on the platform next to the girl he had collided with.

Syasya blinked, unsure of what other reaction she should have. The girl found herself torn between satisfaction – because the jerk deserved it for knocking into her like that – and sympathy – if you had seen how horrified the man looked when he realized that he had dropped the box, then you would feel bad for him as well, even if just a little.

Syasya slowly sat up, giving herself a once-over for injuries before she took the box the man had dropped gingerly in her hand. The box was small, barely larger than the palm of Syasya’s hand. It was made of smooth light brown wood and had strange patterns carved onto its top surface. She could see the line that separates its top and bottom half, but she had absolutely no desire to open it – which was quite strange and slightly worrying considering her mother had told her many times that she had the curiosity of a thousand cats.

“Yes!” Daniel Danish (Farzana’s little sister) – DD for short – exclaimed suddenly. Then, with his finger pointed at his sister’s face, he yelled, “Hah! I told you I could talk about any random topic you pick for the entire ride from Putrajaya to KL Sentral!” That explained a lot. “How long was it?” he panted and gasped as he said all this, (looks like Syasya’s theory of DD not breathing since he started babbling about Martians was correct) the last question was directed towards Luqman, the apparent time keeper.

“32 minutes and 17 seconds,” Luqman said after a glance at his iPhone.

“Yes!” DD cheered once more. “Over thirty minutes! Pay up, sucker!” he demanded Farzana who was already rolling her eyes with a hand in her purse.

“Am I the only one who cares that once of our family members just got steamrolled by some suspicious bastard in a trench coat?” Helmi – the one who had hissed at Harry and Emily for making too much noise on the ERL – asked the other three. Never mind the fact that the only thing he seemed to care about of his cousin’s fall was the great photo-opportunity it had given him.

Helmi’s hobby was photography. He liked taking pictures of people, buildings, green landscape (not that there was much of that in the city he lived in) and (if she was present) Syasya and her misfortunes – if only to tease her because of the countless times she had expressed her dislike of getting photographed. Whenever anyone asks why, he would say it was because: “Interesting things always happen when Syasya is around.”

Really, Syasya swore she would one day destroy all of her cousin’s cameras or, at the very least, delete all of the pictures he had taken of her. He knew she didn’t like to have her picture taken!

“Oh, I’m sure she’s fine,” DD said absentmindedly as most of his attention was focused on the money he had just received.

“I’ve never been better,” Syasya growled sarcastically as she stood up from the tiled floor.

“My point exactly,” DD said.

Syasya rolled her eyes before they rested once more on the small box in her hand. She stood up before she glanced at the railway where the ERL had just left. She wondered what she should do with the box. Keep it? Throw it away? Leave it here in case the guy came back? But if she did that, then someone else might-

“Give it to ‘Lost and Found’,” Syafiq – who had stayed silent until then – said when he – somehow – read her thoughts. “They have one of those here, don’t they?” he questioned the others who confirmed it with curt nods.

“Good idea…” Syasya mumbled quietly as she gave the box a closer look. Those patterns looked familiar… if only she could-

“Hey, guys!” Emily’s voice suddenly boomed.

Why does everyone keep interrupting my thoughts? Syasya questioned herself with a blank stare.

Their attention turned towards the stairs leading to the ground level of KL Sentral where Emily’s voice had come from.

“Hurry up! Faiz and Farah are waiting!” Faiz and Farah were their twin cousins living in a shared studio condo there in KL. “Harry’s already in the car!” Emily continued yelling.

Why does she have to yell? Syasya felt like face-palming after a quick glance at the confused, questioning and annoyed looks the people around them shot. Can’t she give us a quick call or text with her phone like a normal human would?

“We’re coming!” Farzana, DD and Luqman yelled back.

“Be quiet!” Helmi yelled louder.

Syafiq plugged his earphones back.

Syasya sighed (something she often did in the presence of her family) again.

Oh, yeah. She forgot. This was her family she was talking about.

No one in her family can be called normal.

It would be two hours – of non-stop shopping – later that Syasya would remember that they never did get to send the box to Lost and Found.

The weight of that small wooden box had never felt heavier than it did then, nestled securely inside the pocket of her hoodie.

‘In a moment, everything can change…’

XxX

II - Picture

Cheerful laughter and booming voices rung loudly in her ears as Syasya made her way up the stairs of her grandmother’s huge house. She was currently in Melaka, having returned from KL last night with Farzana, DD and Helmi – Syafiq and his family were staying with Harry and Luqman in Putrajaya.

Up the stairs, open the blue-green double doors, turn left, walk down the hall and enter the second room on her left. Syasya scanned the room. Countless pictures on the wooden walls (some hung in frames, most stuck to the wooden surface with colorful plasticine and thumbtacks) in front of her and the one on her left where the double-bed was facing. A small black laptop, camera and scanner rested on a plywood desk on her right. The desk was placed between the bed and a small shelf of occupied by a dozen more cameras, CDs and very few school books.

Helmi’s room.

Syasya didn’t waste another second and headed straight towards Helmi’s desk where the camera he had brought to The Curve with them innocently sat. She took it in her hands, switched it on and immediately searched for the picture of her fall.

She does this every time Helmi (or – on rare occasions – anyone else) takes a picture of her. She would hunt for the camera and delete all evidence of the existence of said picture as soon as the device falls into her hands.

But she wasn’t stupid. Everyone in her family (extended and otherwise) knew how hard it was to take her picture without her noticing, let alone to have her let them take one of herself willingly. And Helmi loves his cameras. To him, these cameras, their film and memory were precious, just as Syasya’s flash drive of music and documents were precious to her. He would never just leave his room unlocked and leave his cameras lying around like this. So, why now?

Because he knew.

He knew that Syasya could pick locks and that she would do anything to erase pictures of herself from any and every camera possible. So he doesn’t bother locking his door and instead leaves it open for her to come in and erase the pictures.

But like Syasya previously stated, these pictures meant the world to Helmi. So, no matter how much his cousin hated getting caught on camera, he would sooner shoot himself than let anyone (even his own family) erase any of his precious pictures.

It was a working progress, but Syasya still hadn’t stopped searching for the copies of Helmi’s pictures of her. And, of course, he has copies. She knew that Helmi leaves his cameras out in the open on purpose, for her to find. He lets her delete his pictures because the ones she deletes were just one of many copies he had. So for him, it wasn’t a total loss.

Even knowing this, Syasya deletes the pictures anyway because to her, one copy deleted meant on less picture to worry about.

When her eyes finally found the picture she was looking for in the list of hundreds (Exactly how much memory does this camera have?), Syasya paused.

She took her time to study one of the subjects in the picture. No, not herself, but the man in the fedora and trench coat. At that moment Syasya realized that with how fast everything happened, she never really got a good look at him.

Zooming into the picture, she caught a tuft of muddy blonde hair peeking out from under the brown fedora. So he was a foreigner and… was a cigarette in his mouth? How did she miss that at the station? She did see his horrified face on the train…? Oh. Judging by how loose the cancer stick was held in his mouth, Syasya assumed that it must have just fallen out sometime between then and when he got on the train.

She moved down the picture and caught sight of the wooden box (that she had just remembered was still in her white jacket) falling out of the man’s bag. Even in the picture, she could see the strange carvings on the box. The jagged patterns that was unnervingly familiar… if only she could remember…

Syasya remembered.

She quickly deleted the picture before dashing towards the room she currently shared with Farzana where the box and her laptop were waiting.

XxX

 

III - History

Two days later (Monday)…

“Wow,” Asyiqin breathed out in amazement for the fourth time in the last seven minutes.

Yes, Anis kept count. Simply because there was nothing better to do.

Their class was currently in the school library for BM. Their teacher, Puan Norzilla had to help their school librarian prepare the library for a Malay poetry contest next week and she had decided to rope in the – unwilling – help of Anis’s class.

The moment they stepped into the library, everybody broke off into their usual circle of friends. The Chinese students were at the library counter with the only Indian girl of their class, Lahvanya. The boys were clustered together, chatting loudly at the back of the room. Anis was sitting together with her closest friends (who were not Syasya), Asyiqin, Maisarah, Aida and Ridwana (Almira had wandered off somewhere, mumbling about a Form 4 KP reference book she found a few days before).

Truthfully, Anis was closer to Asyiqin than she was to the other three. Asyiqin had been her first friend in that school and Anis had been hers. And though they were all from the same class, at the beginning of the year, Anis didn’t really know them (she could barely remember their names).

This was understandable since it was the first year of secondary school. The year where you spend the first two months being awkward and doing your best to remember everyone’s names and faces and do everything you can not to stand out and stay on the teacher’s good side. Oh man, thirteen is such an awkward age.

The she first entered this school, Anis nearly had a heart-attack during orientation when she realized that she didn’t know anyone there. It seemed none of her (not exactly friends, more like) acquaintances from her primary school enrolled in this school. Then, she got sorted into a class and took a seat next to Asyiqin, who she realized wasn’t really talking to anyone like most of the others were. That small fact made Anis draw the conclusion that, like her, Asyiqin didn’t know anyone there.

Asyqin might have realized this as well because for the next few days, Asyqin followed Anis without the other girl knowing. Yes, it was a very…stalker-ish thing for her to do, but she was very curious about Anis and she was a little nervous to approach Anis directly!

It was about a week of following (read: stalking) Anis did something happen. Unsurprisingly, Asyiqin was the one who made the first move.

“Want to be friends?” she had asked Anis suddenly.

Anis could swear that, at the time, she was so happy, she could have cried.

Naturally, Anis nodded and shyly mumbled a quiet, “Okay.”

Honestly, even with Asyqin's frequently questioned (mostly by Syasya) sanity, Anis was glad that she had befriended the other girl.

Because it was Asyiqin who had introduced Anis to her best friend.

Granted, Anis already knew of Syasya’s existence. They were in the same class, how could she not? At the time, she saw Syasya as some social butterfly. She had a close group of friends – Aida, Ridwana and Maisarah – and seemed to get along with everyone else – sometimes she would flit away from the earlier mentioned girls and chat with the non-Muslims in their class and the louder girly-girls and (though not very often) even tolerates the boys when she’s not too busy pretending they don’t exist (which is a feat in itself considering how loud they are in class). She was very close with some of the teachers and they would sometimes treat her as an equal, like they were talking to an adult instead of a Form 1 student.

From afar, she looked like Anis’s exact opposite.

Then, one day she came over to Anis and Asyiqin’s seats and began talking to Asyiqin. Anis wasn’t exactly sure what happened, but it seemed like Syasya and Asyiqin had become close friends when she wasn’t looking. Asyiqin told Syasya Anis’s name and Anis had thought that Syasya was going to just smile politely at her before she started another conversation with Asyiqin. Anis didn’t really stand out even when she was standing right in front of someone.

Syasya did just what Anis had predicted.

But what she didn’t predict was for the other girl to try to reel Anis into the conversation as well. It didn’t work, mostly because of the short and quiet answers Anis usually gave which gave Syasya and Asyiqin room to do most of the talking, but it was nice to know that she wasn’t as easily over-looked as she thought she was.

At least, not to Syasya.

Through Asyiqin, Anis and Syasya grew closer. Sometimes Asyiqin would drag Anis from their end of the class to Syasya’s and other times, Syasya would drag her three friends or Lahvanya or anyone who had been available for her to get her hands on to Anis’s end.

Through time, Anis learned a little more about Syasya. She learned that Syasya was the daughter of an English teacher at their school, which would explain her familiarity with most of the teachers. And it wasn’t just the teachers her friend was close to, most of the students would call out to her and greet her in passing whether it be by name, a simple ‘Hey, there,’ or a small smile. To her, it was like Syasya was a friend to everyone and everyone, a friend to her.

But no, that wasn’t it. It took Anis a while to notice, but in the end, she did. She noticed that while everyone knew her and called her by her name, Syasya rarely called them by theirs (because she didn’t know who they were) and when the teachers or upperclassmen called out to her and began a conversation with her, it would always be about her parents or older brother, rarely about her (they never ask her how she was or how she was adjusting to her new school).

And she was most definitely not the socialite Anis had thought her to be. There were times where Syasya would disappear from their circle of friends only for Anis to find her at some other part of the school, alone with a book in her lap either for reading or to writing.

Syasya was close to Maisarah, Ridwana and most of the girls in their form because they had attended the same primary school last year and she was closer to Aida because she had been Syasya’s best friend since eleven. And somehow, despite being able to smile so easily in front of all of them, to Anis, it always seemed like there was this invisible barrier separating Syasya from the rest. It was like seeing someone, knowing they’re there, but at the same time… feeling that they’re not.

Like how Anis sometimes feels when she’s around her friends and family. You know they’re your friends, you know that they’re important to you just as you are important to them and your smile is never fake and comes easily when they’re around, but at the same time… that smile takes too much effort and never lasts long enough for it to feel genuine.

Then, one day – and she can’t really remember how this happened – Anis and Syasya got into a fight. Honestly, she can barely remember what the fight was a bout. Something to do with sharks…? But what she can remember was how upset she felt about it. It was the first time she had seen Syasya mad at anyone – mad at her. After the entire three days the fight had went through (first day: yelling, mostly by Syasya; second day: the cold shoulder treatment, again Syasya, and the kicked puppy feeling, this one was all Anis; the last day: awkward apologies from both parties), for some unfathomable reason, Syasya had announced to the world (that had been within a fifteen feet radius) that she was going to teach Anis English.

And teach Anis she did…in her own – unique – way.

Syasya gave Anis thick English novels – books she had once shuddered at from just a single look – and ordered her to read them. When she finds out that Anis hadn’t read them, then she would just force her pseudo-student to read in front of her… out loud.

Yes, it was greatly embarrassing for her, at first, but she got over her embarrassment after some time.

A few weeks passed and the results of their latest exam came out. For English Anis got 76 out of 100. Only four points short of an A.

Anis was shocked.

She almost got up to ask the teacher if it was a mistake.

She never got Bs for English, let alone one so close to an A.

Syasya just smiled and congratulated her with lollipops.

Speaking of Syasya, her best friend was currently curled up between two tall bookshelves with a small notebook tucked between her knees and chest and a pen clutched tightly in one of her hands. She was mumbling unintelligible words to herself and writing furiously in the notebook. She was expertly ignoring her surroundings and gave the book and pen her complete and undivided attention.

Anis so desperately wanted to go over to Syasya and talk to her – because the others were being girls and it was making her want to puke – but she knew that if she did, she wouldn’t get a response from the long-haired girl.

You see, while Anis had big dreams of becoming an artist, Syasya’s dream was to become an author – a fiction novelist to be more precise. And like Anis, Syasya has moments where she would feel an urge to write something and just writes it, but unlike Anis, Syasya would move away from everyone else and to some quiet empty space and lock herself in her little world of fiction and out of reality. The length of which these random writing sessions last depends on the amount of ideas she has. The shortest had been five minutes before a teacher came into the classroom and took everyone’s attention while the longest had lasted almost two days – Syasya had only stopped because her notebook had run out of empty pages to write in and she had to buy a new one.

XxX

IV – Article

“Wow,” another breathless exclamation of awe was heard.

Anis checked her watch. Fifth time in eight and a half minutes.

What was it that has Asyiqin and most of the girls of her class so awed and amazed that simple vocabulary had all but left them, you ask? Well, if you have to know, it was an article in a business magazine one of their classmates, Ayuni found. The article was glorifying a young American man named David King.

According to the article, David King was a natural born prodigy who had never gotten a less-than-perfect score in his life and could master any sport thrown at him in under a month. He had ended his high school education with high honors at thirteen and graduated from Harvard University two years later.

At seventeen, he had been acknowledged as one of the top 20 richest and most successful business men on Earth. He now ruled the most well-known leading multinational business empire centered on electronics, Pendragon Enterprise along-side his – though not as smart but – equally famous best friend, John Samuel.

A photo of the two was spread onto a good quarter of the page. In the picture, there was a blond man sitting on a large leather swivel chair behind a much larger ebony black desk and a smaller-built brunet standing in front of the desk with his arms behind him in a standard military position. Both men were wearing suits and while the brunet was smiling shyly at the camera, the blond had a devilish smirk on with his cool blue eyes piercing though his narrow glasses and his elbows propped onto the desk with his ten fingers tangled underneath his chin. Behind them, a view of New York’s skyline could be seen through a floor-to-ceiling glass window.

Although Anis couldn’t really make out the small words printed underneath the picture for the purpose of describing its contents, she could guess – correctly – that the blond sitting in the black leather chair Like A Boss was David King and the brunet, his renowned right-hand, John Samuel.

She looked back towards Asyiqin and like most of the girls of their class, her friend was swooning over how good-looking the men were and the rest were gushing at the men’s success and money. The only girls who were not paying the magazine any shred of attention were Syasya and Almira (who Anis spotted sitting at a different table with her face shoved towards a Form 4 reference book – most probably the one she had been looking for.)

Seeing that her best friend was still very much oblivious to the world, Anis decided that she would have a better chance of starting a conversation with Almira and elevating her boredom.

XxX

V - Runes

Syasya sighed when the sound of light chatter from the library flooded her ears once more. That’s the second time it had happened since she began writing twenty minutes ago which was two times more than she liked.

This could only mean one thing.

Syasya was distracted…

…from her writing.

Which was a sin punishable by death in her eyes.

This was all that stupid box’s fault.

That Saturday night, Syasya had been right when she suspected having seen the patterns carved on the box before. It took her little time to recognize the markings as runes.

Yes, runes.

How did she know what runes even looked like?

For the same reason why her head was filled with more information that was never likely to appear on exams than the information that would let her pass them.

She researched it for one of her stories.

She first encountered those runes when she had been researching Norse mythology last year. There were many types of runes in this world all with different meanings depending on which time period they came from. The runes on the box were known as Elder Futhark runes used by Germanic tribes from the 2^nd to 8^th century. Thankfully, Syasya was able to identify all of the runes.

The first was Algiz of Hagal’s Aett. The rune looked like a three-pronged Y and was known to represent elk. But like she said, every rune has many different meanings. In some cases it meant fortune, optimism or friendship but in this case, Syasya thought that it meant ‘protection’, if translated directly from Common Germanic.

Algiz, Syasya remembered reading that Saturday night, the rune of protection, tells of a fortunate new influence entering your life. It’s a sign of the right time to follow your instincts. Symbolizes powerful resistance. A shield that can repel evil.

The second rune, As, which had been carved backwards, represents God. It means wisdom, inspiration and advice.

The next rune, Isa, drawn as a single vertical line, symbolizes stagnation, cooling, energy loss and the state of limbo.

Lastly, Pertho, meaning initiation, the rune of fate and destiny symbolizing the workings of forces beyond our control.

These runes were carved on each side of the box, leaving the surfaces of the top and bottom of the box bare. Those runes – or more specifically, what the runes symbolize – were the reason why Syasya still hasn’t opened the box.

That and because…

“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” Syasya heard a familiar voice exclaim quietly from her left. She turned her head to see Almira squeezed between a bookshelf and a wall. In her arms, she held a thick reference book, like the ones Syasya sometimes reads when she wants to put herself to sleep.

“Al,” Syasya called as an idea came to her. She’d tried this with her relatives many times last weekend and the results were always the same. Maybe this time, with Al… “Look at this,” she said as she held out the wooden box for Almira to look at.

Almira looked at the box.

 Syasya began the countdown.

5… 4…

“

What’s this?” she asked as she took the palm-sized box from Syasya’s hands for a closer look.

3… 2…

Then, just as she brought the box closer to her face, Almira’s eyes fogged over.

1… 0…

Just like before.

“Huh?” Almira suddenly dropped the box and took a staggering step backwards before her eyes narrowed in confusion. Then, she looked at Syasya. “Syasya, there you are,” she said as if she had just noticed her smaller friend’s presence.

Syasya – who hadn’t let the box out of her suspicious line of sight since it hit the carpeted floor – grunted distractedly.

Seeing the notebook and pen in her friend’s hand – and somehow not paying the wooden box she had just dropped any mind – Almira understood that she was distracting her friend from one of her little writing sessions and quietly excused herself to a nearby table to sit down and read.

Syasya barely noticed her Almira’s departure. She was too busy glaring at the – seemingly innocent – box next to her.

The same thing had happened that Saturday when she had asked her cousins – the ones who had been present during her embarrassing fall – what she should do with the box after she had identified all the runes on the box. They had all taken a look at the box before their eyes glazed over and they became distracted by something else. Then, she told of the ones who hadn’t been at the station of the box she had found, but like the others, a few seconds after the box touched their skin, they would just forget about it.

No, they didn’t forget, Syasya though to herself. It was like they didn’t notice or even care about it.

When she tried telling the adults of the house and showed them the box without letting them touch it, they did ask her a few questions about it before her grandmother suddenly and irrelevantly asked the others if they wanted anything from KL because she was going there on Sunday morning with Syasya’s aunts for a doctor’s appointment, easily directing the adults’ attention from the mysterious box. They didn’t even pay it any attention when she placed it directly in front of the big screen TV. Neither Helmi nor Faiz said anything when they were playing HALO on the TV – and yes, this was strange, considering the fact that the cousins would usually kick up a fuss if a fly so much as flew in front of the screen in the middle of their game.

At first, she couldn’t make heads or tails of why such a thing was occurring. Was it a special memory-erasing mushroom that somehow got mixed up in their food? Or the air-travelling spores of a special memory-erasing mushroom? And of course, why was she only suspecting it to be the work of an imaginary special-memory-erasing mushroom?

(Oh, the cons of an overactive imagination.)

It was that Sunday afternoon, while Syasya and her family were on their way back to Segamat, that the answer finally hit her.

Literally. She really did get hit.

Syasya had been contemplating on the questions while tossing the box in her hands – and, naturally, none of her family members paid any attention to the never-seen-before wooden box she was playing with – when the car suddenly screeched to a stop, causing Syasya to lose her concentration and unable to catch the box before it hit her on the head.

For the record, getting hit by a wooden box hurts a lot.

While the rest of her family were preoccupied – her father was growling about jay-walking idiots, her mother talking to her grandparents on the phone, her little brothers fighting over a Bop-It and her older brother blissfully asleep – the teen in question had been glaring at the box that had hit her before it finally clicked.

When she had been concentrating her glare at the box, the surface with the rune, As was faced towards her. That had also been the moment when she remembered that runes when used improperly – or properly, depending on the sealer’s intentions – had reverse effects that cause the exact opposite of what they had been originally intended to do.

And As was the only rune carved backwards on the box.

As soon as she reached her house, Syasya had switched on her laptop and looked up the reverse effects of As and hadn’t been able to decide whether to jump with joy or quiver with worry when she had been given the answer to the questions she had been looking for.

The rune, As is a symbol of inspiration and advice. If reversed, effects caused are their exact opposite which is…

…trickery and interference.

After staring her laptop screen for over five minutes, it finally hit her that the runes carved onto the box actually worked. The reversed As had tricked her family into thinking that the box wasn’t important enough to acknowledge and had interfered with their concentration on the box when Syasya had mentioned it.

The runes worked!

Whoever carved them onto the box certainly knew what they were doing and was good at doing it. But what for? Why carve something like runes onto a simple wooden box instead of flowery elegant patterns like a normal person?

Then, she began thinking of the other runes. The rune, Algiz stood for protection. And if Algiz worked just as well as As, then it was obviously placed there to protect the box. But – again – why?

Then, there was Isa. Stagnation, cooling, energy loss and the state of limbo… It took some time for Syasya to figure out that this rune wasn’t meant for the box, but – most probably – for what was inside it. This led her to her next conclusion of the other runes also being meant for whatever it was that was inside the box. But stagnation and the state of limbo…? Was whatever-it-was inside the wooden box being restrained by Isa? Subdued and forced into a state of slumber – if it was a living thing – unwillingly? Why?

And, of course, Pertho, the rune of initiation, symbolizing fate and destiny. Out of all the runes, that one had confused Syasya the most. So were the contents of the box supposed to be some important part of some great destiny or prophecy or…?

Well, whatever-it-was was obviously important if the mysterious carver had wanted it protected and inactive until the day came for it to be opened. Such as was planned by fate and destiny and blah-blah…

And then, the last of the questions flooded her mind, interrupting Syasya’s earlier sarcastic thoughts.

The way they remained unanswered made her blood freeze.

If anyone who came into contact of the box was supposed to not pay it any attention because of As, then why wasn’t it working on Syasya – whom had spent days trying to figure out its mysteries and had been barely able to sleep without having the box invade her thoughts?

Why had Algiz been carved into the box? To protect it? From what?

If Isa was meant to keep its contents dormant, then…why? Because it would bring trouble to certain people? To who? And did that trouble mean good or bad news for everyone else?

What was in the box? What made it so important for it to have the rune of destiny carved onto its container? And if destiny somehow had Syasya as a part of its plans, then what was she meant to do? Open the box? Give it to someone else?

She groaned silently as she recalled last night. How she had stayed up until three in the morning drowned in endless questions. How terrified she had been by the unbelievably out of the ordinary situation she’d crash-landed in.

She had seen scenarios like this happen many times on tv and many more times in books. How life was just normal for everyone until, one day, one of the main characters discover some mystical object or different world or a terrible secret is revealed and then, someone dies or gets kidnapped and everyone else is roped into doing dangerous deeds to save the world...

Yes, she was slightly excited at the supernatural and paranormal aspects of this, but… she didn’t like it. The possibilities she had come up with that sleepless night were getting more dangerous than the ones before. Maybe, if this had happened a few months ago, before she entered secondary school, she might have looked forward to all the dangers this – whatever-it-was – would drag her in, but now…

…she had Anis.

Danger meant a low chance of survival and a low chance of survival meant a high chance of her dying. If she got herself involved in this, then somehow, someway Anis or any one of her friends would get involved too, which meant a low chance of survival for them too.

She really didn’t want to be the cause of her friends getting hurt or possibly ending up dead.

Just the thought of having to explain their deaths to their parents made her blanch.

No, she wouldn’t get involved. Better to just throw the stupid box away before she could be dragged into it any deeper than she already was.

“Hey, Syasya?”

The aforementioned girl shot her head up in surprise and saw her best friend standing in front of her with a curious look on her face.

How long had she been there?

“What’s that?” Anis asked, pointing to the box in Syasya’s hand with a slight tilt of her head – as if she were trying to get a closer look at the wooden object.

5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

Anis’s eyes grew more curious at Syasya’s silence.

“Syasya, seriously what is that thing?” she asked again.

It’s been five seconds.

Anis was still looking at the box, her eyes as clear as they had always been.

You’ve got to be kidding…

Really, she should have just thrown the stupid box into Lost & Found when she had the chance.

XxX

VI -Waiting

Syasya had been acting weird today.

Not that she’d ever been the prime example of normalcy before, but that day she had been acting weirder than she usually was.

It was almost as worrying as her acting normal for once in her life.

Almost.

Earlier that morning, she had been deep in her Writing Mode – not so unusual – but suddenly, she just stopped writing and kept staring at something in her hand – very unusual.

Only one thing could stop her while she was in her Writing Mode…

…sleep.

Unless her best friend had somehow learned to sleep with her eyes open – which would be so cool – while Anis wasn’t looking, then it was probably safe to assume that she had been very much awake during the long pause.

And another thing, when Anis – who assumed that her chances of not being ignored like the milk carton in Syasya’s fridge were better now that the other girl wasn’t writing – had walked over to her friend, she had caught a glimpse of the object and had asked Syasya what is was.

Then Syasya had gone paper white pale.

Of course, their teacher just had to choose that exact moment to tell their class that her time with them was up and that they all had to return to class.

Really, and just when things were getting slightly more interesting around here.

When they stepped into class, they saw their Math teacher, Ms. Chai waiting for them – that teacher had not once been late for their class, despite knowing that they hate Math and would easily forget everything she would teach over the weekend – and Anis’s chance to talk to Syasya slipped.

It was about an hour before school ended when Anis finally had the chance to ask Syasya about the mysterious object once again.

When, Anis approached Syasya from her end of the class, the already pale girl went paler. Anis had asked Syasya ‘what was wrong’ and ‘what was that thing she was holding’ three times before Syasya spoke.

“I’ll come over today,” she had said. “I’ll tell you everything then.”

Currently, Anis was sitting on her bed, anticipating Syasya’s imminent arrival. But she was late. It was almost 6pm. Her parents usually pick her up from Anis’s house at 7pm or, the latest, 8pm. Will she even come?

Anis was worried. Syasya had looked really spooked at school. And her best friend was one of the bravest people she knew, at least, braver than her. What scared her like that?

But she was also curious. Whatever it was must have been quite extraordinary to have affected the long-haired girl like that. And that thing Syasya had been holding… What was it? Syasya had snatched the object from her line of sight before Anis could get a good look at it, unfortunately.

Currently, Anis was sitting on her bed – (Her housekeeper had changed her light blue sheets with the pink one again, yuck!) – tapping her black PSP, its screen glowing but the images unmoving. She was too distracted to focus on playing Naruto – which was a first.

It was already six in the evening. If Syasya arrived now, they would have less than two hours to spend together, which was two hours less than she liked. Syasya’s mother usually picks her up before eight and Syasya would usually arrive before four.

In other words, Syasya was late.

Great, now Anis was worried.

Where was she?

Was she already on her way?

How much longer-?

*Ding-dong!*

Speak of the devil…

Anis sped out of her bedroom as fast as she could without tripping and stomped down the stairs and headed straight towards the front door.

Despite her seemingly inhuman patience, Syasya – for some unfathomable reason – would somehow lose all of it when standing outside of Anis’s front gate. So if Anis didn’t hurry, then…

*Ding-dong! Ding-dong! DING-DONG!*

And there she goes…

“Hold on!” Anis called out from behind the door as she pressed the switch that opens the gate. Anis opened the door slightly and through the narrow crack, she saw Syasya wave goodbye to her mother before the car drove away. Syasya had her laptop bag slung across her shoulders and a few books tucked in her right arm – she probably thought she could get Anis to study a little while she was there. Yeah, like that’s ever gonna happen.

Her long hair was tied in its usual low ponytail and she had her favorite white hoodie on. In the hoodie’s left pocket, there was a noticeable bulge where…

Oh, that must be that thing Syasya had brought to school earlier that day.

Finally, the mystery of the mysterious object shall unravel.

XxX

VII – Before…

Anis stared at the box.

She stared at it some more.

Finally…

…she blinked.

This was what had her best friend so spooked?

“And tell me where you got this again?” she said to the girl sitting next to her.

“Some guy dropped it at KL Sentral,” was the other’s quick reply.

The two were currently sitting on Anis’s bed. (And yes, the covers were still pink – something Syasya just couldn’t seem to help but point out every time she sees them.) Anis held the wooden box in her hand and was staring at it intensely, wondering what it was that was so special about it.

She stole a glance at Syasya who quickly let her eyes land on Anis’s PSP to make it seem like she had been observing it the whole time.

But Anis caught her. Just like last time in the library, Syasya was watching her reaction to the box.

But what kind of reaction was she looking for? And someone just happened to drop something like this – a box covered in weird markings – and Syasya just picked it up? Really? That’s all there was to it?

No. something wasn’t right. Syasya wasn’t telling her everything.

 
“So,” Anis said. “Have you opened it yet?”

Syasya let her eyes land on Anis once more. She shook her head, “No. I thought maybe… you might… do it, instead. While I watch…”

Anis stared as Syasya took a pillow got off the bed and moved towards the black chaise lounge on the other side of Anis’s room.

“…from way over here,” Syasya finished as she hugged the pillow to her chest like it was a shield.

Yup. There was something Syasya wasn’t telling her. No doubt about it.

“Can you please stop acting so weird?” Anis asked nervously. “It’s giving me the creeps.”

And it really was. Seeing Syasya nervous – fortunately, it was an occurrence that very rarely happens – was making Anis nervous.

“I’m not acting weird,” Syasya said – failed – sounding reassuring. “Go on. Open it,” she urged once more with a nod at the box.

Anis was reluctant, but after a few seconds, she left Syasya’s odd behavior as her being her usual self. It wouldn’t be the first time she acted like this. There was a time when Syasya would write weird symbols on their class’s chalkboard and in her books while mumbling unintelligible words under her breath. And there was also her strange affinity against having her picture taken. Something about Facebook and stalkers…?

In other words, Anis was chalking this behavior up as Syasya being her normally weird self…or it could just be an elaborate prank her best friend came up with…

…hopefully.

Anis placed her hand on the lid.

She held her breath.

Closed her eyes…

…and opened the box.

XxX

VIII – …After

…Nothing happened.

Anis risked a peek at the object.

No weird gas leaking out. No monster jumping at them. No lightning generating baby Demons. Nothing.

Anis gave a sigh of relief.

“Nothing…” she heard Syasya mumble in astonishment. Then, the taller girl scoffed. “Well, that was disappointing.”

“I don’t want to hear that from the one hiding behind a pillow!” Anis shouted back.

Anis diverted her attention to the wooden box. That is – to be more specific – its contents.

The inside of the box was lined with dark blue velvet and snuggled within the soft material was…

“Crystals…?” Syasya questioned absentmindedly once she’d made her way from the chaise lounge to the bed.

And indeed, crystals they were.

There were two of them. One was a dark orange color and the other a deep purple. Both were slightly smaller than Anis’s palm and looked very, very expensive and…

“Hey!” Anis yelped when Syasya snatched the purple one from the box and threw it at Anis’s wall. The precious stone hit her pink wall with a very audible ‘THUNK!’ – leaving a thumb-sized dent in the plaster – before it landed softly on her chaise lounge.

“It’s real…” Syasya mumbled under her breath.

“What?” Anis questioned, still in-shock at her friend’s sudden actions. Normally, people would keep something expensive-looking close to them, not throw it away.

“This,” Syasya said as she got off the bed and picked the crystal up before shoving it into Anis’s line of sight, “is real.  It’s heavy and it didn’t break, so it’s not a fake or made of glass. This is an actual, completely natural crystal!” Syasya explained, her tone sounding more bewildered by the word.

Oh, so she was testing to see if the crystal was real or not… but still, Syasya didn’t have to throw it at her wall! And there’s even a dent…

“Do you think anyone will notice that?” Anis asked uselessly.

“Probably,” Syasya said promptly, her black eyes never leaving the purple stone.

Anis took a leaf from Syasya’s book and ignored the white spot in favor of the remaining orange crystal in the box. It was beautiful, dyed in the color of the late sunset sky…

“They’re both the same size and shape… dodecahedron…” Syasya mumbled as she scratched the back of her neck with one hand and held the crystal in the other. “This one’s purple… probably amethyst and yours is orange… and with its shape like that it can’t possibly be amber… so, maybe topaz… and with that color it could be imperial…?” Then, once she was done inspecting the (possible) amethyst, Syasya used her occupied hand to scratch the back of her neck. Her face was scrunched up in an uncomfortable manner. Must be some itch.

Anis, knowing that these were actual jewels that would probably sell for a lot of money, could somehow understand why the man had looked so horrified (according to Syasya) when he realized he had dropped the box. Heck, she would be horrified if it had been her.

And the stone, this imperial topaz was quite beautiful. If what Syasya said was true and that it was really a man who dropped it, then Anis couldn’t really understand what he would want it for.

He probably wanted to sell it or give it to his girlfriend, Anis deduced as she peered at her room through the crystal. Wow, this was amazing! It was like she was looking at her room through different eyes! Or he could have stolen it and… What’s this?

Through the crystal, Anis could see a blurry shape slowly reveal itself, little by little. First, she could see a circle, then in that circle a pentagon appeared and finally a smaller circle appeared in the upper left corner of the pentagon… What a curious picture it made…

Then, just as suddenly as the shape appeared, a face could be seen blurring into view just in front of it. A mouth curled into a smile appeared first, then a nose and finally two warm eyes…

It was a woman… she looked familiar…

The mouth was moving… but Anis couldn’t hear anything… who is she…?

Huh…?

Suddenly, unexpected pain erupted from her right eye before it rapidly spread through her body. Anis gave a startled yelped and felt her body tense before she fell limply on her mattress…

Before her eyes closed and her consciousness gave into the pain, Anis could see Syasya kneeling on the black chaise lounge with her body jerking a few times, her face scrunched in pain, her jaw tightly locked and teeth barred before she too fell limp…

Wait… where were the crystals…?

Then, she knew no more…