--

My world, the one I had once known to be home was slowly coming to an end. I stood facing a void of pure light spreading over my feet. My life finally found meaning.

--

I tossed and turned in my bed trying to shake myself awake but my mind wouldn’t let me avoid the ‘in-flight movie’ playing in my mind. My will power finally won over and my mind let go. My body jolted upwards into the humid air of the room. A cold sweat ran off my forehead. It was another one, another vision. I got up gently and walked over to the door of my room. I slowly but steadily made it to the bathroom. My breathing was shaky but at least I was still breathing. I looked into the mirror.

"Damn you! Why did you have to leave? Why did you give me this so called gift?" I cursed to myself quietly, so not to wake anyone else in the house. I filled the deep empty basin, in front of me, with ice cold water. I just let my face fall into the water, fully immersing my features in the harshness of it, into the harshness of life. It seemed to be the only thing that could bring me back after I had ‘received’ a vision.

I thought about the images that I had seen playing in my mind. I then, as I always did after my visions, walked back into my room and grabbed my big journal and squishy pen. They slept underneath my bed until I required them and now I required them. For me, my journal wasn’t something I poured my heart and soul into to make myself feel better. No, my journal was a unique tool that I had acquired a long time ago. Believe it or not this little pad of paper changed the way I lived. When I decided to use the visions I had to help people, this little thing helped a lot. I needed somewhere where I could write about my visions in as much detail as possible, so I could find out what they were all about.

I sat and wrote in the book. Detailing what I had seen and my immediate thoughts. I tended to always think these things through quite a bit. My mind was an eerie place sometimes, but it was my mind and I had grown to like it. After an hour and a half of musing about my vision I decided to call it a night. I mean I still needed sleep and I had school tomorrow. Great, this means I will have a gigantic headache in the morning. I sighed and just pulled the covers up over my head, blocking out the world once more.

The morning finally arrived with the long ringing tone of my alarm clock. I smacked my hand down on to it apathetically. I felt dead but I couldn’t be, not today. No, today was going to be busy and I had to be prepared for the worst now that there was a new vision. After a good ten minutes of being completely and utterly lazy, I managed to drag myself out of bed. I started in on all my mundane tasks of the day. I had a shower, brushed my teeth, checked over my bag, had some breakfast, picked up my tape player and then I was off, off of course, to school.

Of all my mundane little tasks I always felt going to school was the most mundane. It always seemed to irritate me beyond belief. I mean I guess apart of me really liked school, learning new facts, expanding ones mind but then there was my apathetic side that just told me to say "Em … yeah … right." My conscious mind was a very confusing place. I tried to make it less confusing but it never really seemed to help much. Alternative Rock and Punk music tend to help me with this more than anything. I always seemed to be able to think so clearly when I hear the thrashing tones of "Break Stuff" going on in the background. Everybody thinks I am weird but then again they always have. There was one girl though who did understand me, possibly better than I understood myself.

"Hey Scott!" She bellowed from across the street. I was so busy thinking about the vision that I hadn’t noticed her calling to me, until then. I snapped my head upwards devoting my concentration to her. I smiled as she crossed the street. She had her Limp Bizkit hoody wrapped firmly around her waist, while the logo on her Foo Fighters T-shirt stood out boldly. She was also wearing her big ‘bad-ass’ skating pants, I loved those pants, I always wanted a pair. Her bag was lightly thrown over her shoulder and her skates were attached to it. If you looked at her without knowing, you’d think she had come from some kind of ghetto. This just wasn’t true. She was actually from a very well off family. She spent her parent’s money like it grew on trees and had some of the most modern luxuries in life. She pushed her long, blonde, wavy hair to the side as she smiled.

"Hey Krystal." I said casually, I wasn’t in the mood for heart felt anything today.

"So come on, what’s up?" This question just proved how well she actually knew me. I could put on the biggest smile in the world or even just be completely myself but this girl would know if anything were wrong. I decided to play it cool. I didn’t particularly want to go into last night’s events but I knew I couldn’t put it off forever.

"What do you mean?" I replied with a shrug. She raised and eyebrow at me, and poured in to my soul with her big sky blue eyes.

"You had a vision didn’t you?" She asked accusingly. ‘Damn it!’ I cursed myself mentally. There was no point in fighting it now.

"Yes Krystal. I did." The smile on her face grew with immense glee. She grabbed my wrist and yanked me in the direction of school.

"Explain on the way! We’re gonna miss the bell!" I stumbled alongside her as she dragged me.

We only just made it to school. The bell rang just as Krystal put a foot in to our homeroom. She sighed dragging me to our seats. This was a regular scene in my life. I had explained the rigmarole of last night’s vision to her on the way to school. There was a great plus side to telling Krystal my visions, it usually kept her somewhat quiet for the day. As Mr. Kashido was reading through the register list, another familiar scene in my life played out. The door to the room flung open and there was another of my friends standing at the door, Jake. Surprisingly enough he was wearing a Less Than Jake hoody, along with the long sagging pants and skateboard. He was, as he liked to call it ‘late’.

"Ah, Mr. Jenkins, I see you managed to make it in before first period this time. I’ll have to notify the school board!" Jake duly noted the sarcasm in his voice. "Sit down Mr. Jenkins. We don’t need reprobates like you holding up the school any further." Jake slipped down into the seat next to me and I mouthed a quick ‘Hi’ and smiled. He nodded and smiled in return. After a gruelling 10 minutes of sitting reading a ‘Kerrang!’ in complete silence, the bell for first period finally rang.

The rest of the day seemed to follow suit with homeroom. Jake and I talked quite a bit but Krystal was just dead to the world. She seemed to be emerged in deep thought throughout the day. Krystal and I were finally walking home, when she started to speak for the first time since this morning but I didn’t want to hear her thoughts yet.

"Wait Krys! Keep it in until we get to mine. I want to do a Tarot reading and see what that tells me." She nodded and we continued to walk just making short spliced pieces of conversation.

I unlocked the door to my house and we stepped in. I filled the kettle and put it on in preparation for coffee. We walked up into my room and Krystal sat down on the floor, well what was visible of the floor.

"Can I put ‘Three Dollar Bills’ on?" I nodded.

"Sure. If you can find the CD player that is." She laughed while she moved some books of mine on to the floor. I knew which track she was going to play, it was one of my favourite Limp Bizkit songs. I heard Wes start in on the beginning notes for ‘Faith’ and laughed to my self.

Well I guess it would be nice

If I could touch your body.

I know not everybody

Has a body like me.

I sat down in front of Krystal and with my cards in one hand asked her if she was ready, she nodded silently. This part was serious. I had to concentrate. I held the cards between the flat palms of my hands. I thought silently about my vision, only hearing ‘faith’ faintly in the background.

My mind was focused and I chanted the sacred passage, that my mother and grandmother had taught me, to call forth the powers of fate and the future.

"Oh fate and fate alike. I call for your powers. The ones to predict, the ones to see what is not yet there. Lend me your guides so I may see the future." I repeated this several times, still concentrating heavily on my vision from last night. I drew from the stack of cards and, without looking, placed them in front of me in order of the draw. I drew as many as I was told to draw. The fates guided my hands. I opened my eyes and studied the cards in front of me, reading them out to Krystal one at a time.

"The Lonely Child: The symbol of separation." This brought me back to my vision. There had been a crying child in my vision, maybe this is who I am trying to help. This crying child. "The Fortune-Teller: The symbol that something unpredicted is most likely to happen." Something unpredicted. I disliked this card as it was very vague and did not give an accurate description of exactly what was going to happen. Though I guess that’s why it is unpredicted. "The Hangman: The symbol of death. Someone or something is going to die in this tale." I mused as I read out "The Withered Arm: The symbol of truth." This was turning out to be quite interesting.

"So that’s it then." Krystal stated blandly. "A crying child, a death, an unpredicted event and a truth to be revealed." Her smile came back. "Scott this could be your best vision yet!" Krystal often acted as my ‘assistant detective’ when trying to figure out these visions. The fates tended not to make things too clear and left a lot of it up to my own ingenuity.

"We better get started, grab the map from the shelf!" She did so accordingly. The great thing about having the fates on your side was that they could give you a lot of the information you needed. Such as where we were supposed to be going. We laid the map on the floor. This next trick was also something that was passed on to me from the knowledge of my mother and grandmother. I started in on another chant.

"From the depths of my soul, from the depths of my fate, show me the place that lies next in my path." A small yellow light zipped across the map trying to pin point the position where we were supposed to go. It covered the whole map and turned up nothing. Suddenly it lifted up off the paper and zipped by my head. I had no idea what it was doing but I turned around to see where it had gone. It was sticking in my globe. I forget I had a globe but surely enough there it was, stuck in it. We got up and checked where it was pointing too. Krystal nearly jumped through the roof with excitement.

"EGYPT! EGYPT! EGYTPT!! Scott we’re going to Egypt!" I smiled.

"Yeah, Cairo specifically." I paused and thought the cynical part of my brain kicking into action "If we had anyway to get to Egypt that is." Krys mused for a while. It was like she was trying to remember something that she had been told a while ago, that didn’t have any significance at the time but now it could mean life or death.

"I’ve GOT IT!" She wailed. Off guard I fell backwards and smacked into the floor.

"Ow …" Picking my self up. "What have you got?"

"A way for us to get to Egypt!" I was amazed. She actually genuinely had a plan. This really didn’t seem like Krystal at all. Krystal was the kind of person who just did things, and if there were any consequences, she took it up with ‘daddy’s wallet’.

"Oh really?" The sarcasm in my voice was noted and she pulled her tongue out at me.

"Yes really!" She smiled. "I remembered I have an Uncle who lives in Egypt. We can say we are going on holiday for a week or two. Say it’s a cultural experience or something. I can always pay for your ticket. You know I can. We can stay at my uncles! Come on Scott what do you say?!" I just laughed, she was tying to convince me that this was a good idea, when I was already convinced.

"Well what are we waiting for?" She shrieked. I just motioned to the door, shaking my head, to see if there was anything in there still working. "Come on lets go!"

The next week was filled with lots of preparation for the great trip. To my surprise there was a lot of phone calls and letter writing to be done to get us out of school and all sorts of other obligations and then we had to buy new clothes and such. Which reminds me, is an experience I never want to re-visit with Krystal. Krystal, plus me, plus clothes, plus money, plus way too much time equals a sadistic trip to the mall. This week felt quite stressful but not just because of all the stuff we had to do to get to Egypt, it was something else like a building up of suspense somewhere inside me. I could tell something wasn’t right. Krystal and I may find something we didn’t expect in Egypt.

What had seemed like a week spent in Hell was actually only a week on Earth. It was the day we were going to Egypt. Krystal was standing in front of the boarding gate to the aeroplane, tapping her foot impatiently on the floor, whereas I resided to the more comfortable and lazy position of the chairs that surrounded the boarding gate ‘lobby’. I mean it wasn’t that I wasn’t dying to see Egypt and solve this vision but this week had just tired me out. I needed sleep and now seemed like the perfect time to get what I needed.

Krystal on the other hand was a different story. She seemed to have more energy than ever before. I didn’t quite know how she ran sometimes. Like me she was a complicated person, I guess that’s why we ‘gelled’ so well. We were so similar we knew each others personality’s like our own. It was quite amazing actually I was, for once, favouring the unexpected notes of silence. I tended to always have some form of music with me even if I was just singing to myself but not today I guess that was because I needed to sleep but still, it was strange.

With these notes of silence I thought about my mother. She would have enjoyed visiting Egypt, she loved to travel. I didn’t realise just how much I’d miss her until she was actually gone. She was the one who passed down my visions on to me, my curse. Maybe it wouldn’t be so much of a curse if I had spent enough time with her and talked to her about it. She and my grandmother didn’t have much time to explain things before they passed away.

Krystal stopped tapping her feet as one of the boarding attendants told her that the plane was now boarding and would she like to board now? She jumped in the air with joy, I just sighed and slowly got up off the chair. "This is not my week." I mumbled to myself, as Krystal had kindly decided to drag me across the lobby to the boarding gate.

After successfully getting me to sit down in my seat Krys tapped impatiently the rhythm to ‘American Woman’ on her lap. I could tell this was going to be a long flight. She was so ‘antsy’ it was unlike her. Maybe she just didn’t like flying? Or maybe she didn’t like travelling in general? Well, whatever it was, it was going to drive me up the wall. At least now I could stick my tape player on and ignore the rest of the world for however many hours this flight was. This was how in the dark I was about this trip. I didn’t even know how long the flight was. Krystal and my family had planned everything. I just got told to turn up and go. Which to be honest was good enough for me. I had got some amazing lectures before I left.

"Now Scott we want you to pay real attention in this trip. Learning about another culture can be an exciting thing and Krystal’s family has paid for you to go too. Do not waste this opportunity." My dad droned on for a good ten minutes about what an amazing cultural experience this would be, my mum chipped in too a long the way. I just sat and nodded in agreement. I slept through it, as I did most things in that week.

The flight finally ended. It was longer than I had expected, though I had expected it to be longer than I expected. Wow, another one of my conscious minds messed up statements. It was hot, unbearably so. I didn’t do so well in warm climates. Most of the time, the heat just seemed to make my brain wilt.

Typical of the rest of my life, Krys dragged me off the plane. It was at this point that I officially decided I was being dragged way too much but was I going to do anything about it? No. Krystal seemed to like me attached to her arm so who was I to complain? Besides she did pay for this trip, well her dad did anyway. It would be unfair of me not to make sure she had a good time.

In front of me stood a man, Caucasian, with white hair on his head and some in his moustache. His age was notable but he was still a very ‘cool’ guy. He wore some outrageous coloured shirts but still ‘cool’. He drove us to his villa in the more commercial side of Cairo.

I quickly found out that there were two sides to Egypt. The fun loving commercial side of it that was just screaming "Buy me!" and the more natural and spiritual side of the desert lands. Both parts of Egypt were good in their own respects but I tended to go for the more spiritual sides because it was just something from inside me that was telling me my answers would lie there.

We walked into the Villa and dropped our bags down onto the plush marble floor. This place was the personification of everything I detested about people, their need to own things and make themselves feel better than everyone else. Though I guess I could put aside that hatred for a while and just enjoy the a million and one luxuries this place was offering. Plus I might offend Krystal by acting all annoyed and disgruntled about staying here.

Uncle ‘John’, as I had been instructed to call him, gave us the guided tour of his little abode and told us that although this place seemed quite big there were in fact only two bedrooms.

"So do you kids mind sharing a room?" We looked at each other and thought for a minute.

"Nope." We said simultaneously. I mean Krystal was like my sister so I had no qualms about sharing a room with her. He showed us to our room and we just stared in astonishment. This was massive and also miles away from his bedroom. We could probably play music at full blast and it would seem like a faint din to him. I was, in fact, going to enjoy this trip.

"Well I’ll leave you to unpack. You know where everything is, so just help yourselves." We nodded.

"Thanks Uncle John." Krys added politely. I applauded her manners, usually she just told the world to ‘get lost’. The man smiled at her manors and left us in peace to unpack. This was certainly going to be a job and it was. It took us a good two hours to unpack the whole lot of clothes and other things we had brought. Obviously my first concern was ‘were my tarot cards OK?’

Those things had been in my family for as long as anyone could remember. They were sacred, if I lost them then I couldn’t do readings anymore. The cards had been blessed magically in an ancient time. They were designed specifically to be used for the prediction of the future and were made to be in tune with the fates. You couldn’t destroy them as such because an ancient magical seal protected them but that didn’t prevent against loss. So I was happy to see them still in my bag where I had left them. As we unpacked we talked about various different things, mainly about what was going to happen in these two weeks.

"Here’s what I say we do. We spend the first week exploring the commercial side of Egypt and then we try the other side." Krys was shocked with my plan.

"You mean your actually going to let up and have fun!" I raised an eyebrow and shot her one of my typical ‘oh-ha-ha’ looks. She just giggled.

"Yes I am. We should have fun and I mean, I really need to unwind." She nodded concurring. Although she brimmed with energy on the outside, on the inside she was as wiped as I was.

"I know what you mean. OK, so let me get this straight, for the first week we are going to just generally hang around the shops, go out at night and basically spend as much money as possible. Then in the second week we are going to explore the desert lands of Egypt?" I was about to confirm her assumptions but she wasn’t finished. "Why are we exploring the desert lands?" Good question, I thought.

"I don’t know, I can’t really explain it. It’s just a feeling I have. The answer, I feel lies inside that desert land. Anyway if we need help we can just call on the fates power to guide us."

"Oh yeah!" She smiled. "Well I will make one suggestion."

"Yeah?"

"I suggest we get to sleep. These two weeks sound tiring and to be honest in my current condition I don’t know if I can move another muscle." She flopped down onto the bed and I followed suit.

"Agreed." So we slept the day and night away merrily.

In the first week we managed to pretty much cover the whole of what commercial Egypt had to offer. We hit a skating park, we had found about 20 minutes walk away from the villa, which we went to on Tuesday. We also did lots and lots and lots of shopping, another dragging session by Krystal. Apart from that we really didn’t do much. We did the responsible bit on occasions and checked out some museums and other exhibitions that were on while we were there. I have to admit a lot of them were quite interesting and some part of me enjoyed them.

After the first week was over we were back in our room completely and utterly exhausted, just as we had predicted.

"So are you ready for tomorrow?" I asked gingerly, not pushing the fact that we had tonnes of walking to do tomorrow.

"No. No and NO!" She pouted. "Can’t we just forget you had the vision?" She smiled with false hope.

"No." I said coldly. "Oh come on you knew this was coming, anyway if we’re lucky we could hire a car or something to drive us around the desert lands. That would save us walking. I do have a feeling that whatever we are looking for is quite far away."

"Great." She replied sleepily. "Can we just get some sleep?"

"Yeah, Yeah OK." We seemed to sleep a lot really but we were two very exhausted people. I was almost unable to sleep. I was too excited about exploring the desert lands. It was my entire reason for coming to Egypt, to find out the answers to my vision.

We eventually did hire a car to help us search the desert land. It was such a vast place and it all pretty much looked the same. I tried to ask the fates for help in guiding me but they would not grant me my wish. This was the first time they wouldn’t do something and it somewhat came as a shock. I am used to complete and utter command of the fates. I sometimes forget that the fates are not my tool, I am theirs. With this little fact remembered I decided to use my gut instinct. I had felt something as soon as the plane landed in Egypt. Whatever I was supposed to find I had to find my own directions. If the fates wouldn’t guide me then I would just have to rely on my own abilities.

After four or so days of travelling the entire vastness of the desert, I had only managed to get a more general idea of what the land was like. There was now only one day left we could search the desert. Uncle John was suspicious of why we would want to travel the dangerous terrain but he didn’t have any inclination of stopping us. We were in our room musing over the facts, I was writing what little I had learned so far into my journal.

"Do you think we’ll find what we are looking for?" Krys asked sighing. She was getting tired of spending days in the desert and not turning anything up. The most exciting thing she had had to do in the past thirty minutes was stare at me intently as I wrote into my journal.

"I know we will. I have felt close to it everyday we have been out in the desert. Just never close enough. I think I pretty much have the area where we should be searching down. Once we get there I’ll know." She nodded.

"OK. Well I just hope we get there soon. It would be pointless to come all this way and not actually answer our questions."

"I know and that’s why I am sure we will find it. Something just feels right." Krys smiled.

"OK." After that we pretty much just went to sleep, with some idle banter thrown in before for fun.

It was the next day and the sun was beating down harsher than it had ever done before while we had been here. I was so uncomfortable I felt like I could, quite happily, strangle the sun and cause an eternal winter. We both hoped in the jeep and I gave the driver a map and the area I had marked out. Each place I felt something strong I marked it on the map. With all the travelling that we did it had created an enclosed area where whatever may be.

Everything was feeling the same but it kept getting stronger and stronger and then I felt something so over powering I almost fell out of the jeep.

"STOP!" I yelled. The driver, shocked by my sudden command, slammed the breaks of the jeep on and I hoped out.

"Scott … what is it?" Krys questioned.

"It’s here."

"What it's here?"

"Yes."

"But Scott … there isn’t anything here!" She claimed frustrated. I ignored the comment and concentrated. I walked back the way the jeep had come and I felt it again. This time I stopped. It was a feeling of almost serenity from life. There was something here. I dropped to my knees and started to dig with my hands. I hit something. "Scott?" Krys walked over to me.

"This is it." I stated with a gigantic grin on my face. Still filled with the feeling of serenity. It was like the world was stopping and this moment in time was all that I could experience. I madly pushed sand off the metal block. It was solid gold. Krys stared in astonishment.

"It’s solid gold!" She said in shock. I got over its value quite quickly and studied its face.

"That looks familiar." I said, pointing to an oblong engraved in to the middle of the solid metal block. Krys mused over what it might be.

"It’s a rectangle … there can’t be that many possibilities." It suddenly clicked. It had to be something I had. Otherwise what was the point? So I checked the only thing that had any power what so ever in them. My tarot cards.

"There the same size!" I said somewhat shocked.

"You’re … you’re right!" Krys was just happy we were finally getting somewhere. I rummaged threw the cards as quickly as I possibly could. I checked each surface of each card against the metal block.

"No … No … No … No … No … No." Krystal’s patience was wearing thin. This was becoming pretty monotonous too. Just as I was about to write another card off as a ‘no’, the metal block reacted with the card and shone a beam of blue light out from the ground. I took the card away and it stopped. I kept moving the card towards and away from the engrave in the metal block. The blue light came on and turned off. There was no way this could be happening. I mean there was no place for the light to come from. Though I shouldn’t be too critical. I am the guy who can predict the future using magically blessed tarot cards. I brought the card a little closer to my face. "The Key…" I said with a musing pause.

"That’s not one I have heard you use before." Krystal stated.

"That’s because I have never used this card before." I thought about what meaning it could have, maybe it just didn’t have one. Maybe it was what it was, a key.

"Try holding the card face down over the light. Maybe it will do something?" Krystal suggested helpfully. I did and something did happen. The column of blue light from the gold block held the card in place. It shone brighter and brighter and brighter until you just couldn’t look at it anymore. I looked back quickly after the light had dimmed back to ‘normal’. The card was gone but what was left behind was a key. The exact key to be precise, the one drawn on the card. It was quite amazing. Krystal knelt down beside me and inspected the key. We were so engrossed in this fascinating object that we hadn’t noticed our driver tear off in the jeep. For some reason it didn’t matter.

"It seems to match this groove." I pointed to an indent, which was inside the oblong. It wasn’t a key shape but more a keyhole.

"Do you want to try it?" Krystal asked nervous.

"We don’t really have much choice … will you do it with me?" She nodded. I picked the key up and placed it in the slot, and blue light started to emit from the keyhole. Krystal placed her hand on top of mine. "On three. One … Two … Three!" I shouted loudly and we turned the key ninety degrees to the right.

What happened next seemed to take a split second. From the blue sky a gigantic pillar of light came down and surrounded us both. We weren’t just lifted from the ground we were separated. I felt myself being taken apart at the core and then being put back together on the other side. Where ever we were now. I was just thankful that Krystal was by my side.

An aged man, in what appeared to be long, flowing ceremonial robes stepped forward and looked into my eyes.

"Welcome home Scott, Krystal." What did he just say? I was in complete shock. Home? As in … home? In my mind my jaw was hitting the floor and my eyes were popping out of my head in complete shock.

"Did you just say … home?" The man nodded.

"Yes I did." Before progressing with this conversation further I decided to take a look around and absorb truly where I was. The room I was in was circular and was made from the same gold material that the slab I had just a few seconds ago stuck a key into. It had, what appeared to be ancient hieroglyphics imprinted into the gold. The room itself was very simplistic. The only things that stood in the room were twelve pedestals all of equal height and seemed to be very similar. They were arranged so that there was one in the middle and eleven around the outside in a circle pattern. On the floor in front of each pedestal there was a groove, like a tunnel, that led to the centre pedestal. This all seemed pretty surreal.

"Wait … who are you!" Krystal demanded. In the shock I had completely blanked out her existence.

"I am Nephron. The keeper of the temple of humanity." He smiled. He had such an unexplainable voice. It was almost like he was in complete serenity twenty-four hours a day.

"Nephron? … Where do you come from?" I asked. I mean I think I deserved some answers.

"Ah, I can answer that quite simply. Computer, bring up star map 2546." In front of us appeared a holographic projection of the Milky Way.

"That’s the Milky Way!" Krystal pointed out astonished.

"Yes it is. Computer, magnify map to show Saturn." The computer complied again and enlarged the map to show Saturn. "That is where we live." He pointed to one of the small moons that orbited Saturn.

"You live on one of Saturn’s moons?" I asked astonished. This definitely was a little too surreal for my tastes.

"Yes. After our planet was destroyed we found the Milky Way and colonised its small moon. There, unfortunately, were not many survivors left after the great catastrophe that struck our planet."

"Why what happened to your planet?" Krys queered.

"A space entity, found our quite serene planet. It was what we nicknamed ‘Planet Eater’, for that was what it was. It devoured our planet completely, only to fill it’s never ending stomach." Krys and I looked at each other and gulped.

"But what does this have to do with us?" I had so many questions but something told me that there was not enough time to answer them all.

"You are the Earth’s saviours." Saviours? Us? Since when? All we were, were nuisances to society in the opinions of our parents.

"But how?" The man smiled.

"It is simple." He walked over and stood in the ring of pedestals. "We found that on Earth there was a chamber just like this in a part of Egypt. It was ancient but held vast scientific knowledge and also a key. The key to killing the beast. Someone in the past had for told of this event and created a weapon to stop it from happening." He started to walk past the pedestals on the outer ring. "The ancient Egyptians found that within each generation of people on Earth there were twelve people who were ‘in-tune’ with a certain part of the planet." Touching the pedestals as he went a long. "The Waters, The Earth, The Flame, The Lightning, The Wood, The Wind, The Time, The Dark, The Light, The Dreams, The Song and the most important." He walked to the middle pedestal and touched it, "The People."

"So where do we fit in with all this?" I already knew where I fitted in.

"I am in-tune with the people aren’t I?" He nodded. "I knew it."

"But what am I in-tune with?"

"Krystal my dear, you are in tune with the song." She smiled.

"I like it." We turned to each other and laughed. Music was one of the only things Krystal did well.

"So where are the others?" I knew that the other ten had to be here somewhere.

"The others are in the next room. You must understand that we placed you on Earth when we arrived here. Your families are a part of our culture. You are truly apart of our world. We let you grow up on Earth because we felt it important that the people in-tune with the Earth be people we could depend on. We knew that you kids could save the Earth."

"So we really aren’t from Earth?" He nodded.

"You are who you are." He smiled. Just in this words of wisdom the computer sounded an alarm.

"Warning Nephron, Entity approaching the Milky Way." Nephron’s face turned to one of absolute horror.

"Oh no! We must start the ceremony!" Quickly ten people piled into the ceremony room taking their place each at a pedestal. They were of completely mixed ethnic origin. It almost appeared to be like there was one person from each country of the world there.

"But what do we do?" Krystal asked, confused.

"Stand at our pedestals I think." We followed suit like the others. With me in the middle, which just felt wrong. I never really liked being in the middle of anything, ever.

"Right. Each one of you, say what you are in tune with, in the order you have been told. Putting the palms of your hands down flat on the pedestal in front of you." We all nodded.

"The Waters." My mind was a blur with all different thoughts. "The Earth." So this was it? This was what I had been searching for? "The Flame." To find out that all I was, was an alien? I felt betrayed almost. "The Lightning." Yet it was a happy feeling to know that now I wasn’t as much of a freak. "The Wood." The people around me looked afraid. Why didn’t I feel afraid? "The Wind." This was possibly the most important and scary moment of my life and all I could see was the thrill that I wasn’t a freak anymore. "The Time." Maybe that was how it was supposed to be? "The Dark."

The time was counting down now and the liquid that had been travelling from pedestals to the centre pedestal, filling Scott with power, were melding into one and flashing violently. "The Light." This was the time when dreaming came to an end and reality was to be embraced. "The Dreams."

"The Song." A cream liquid started to travel down the groove in front of the song pedestal. This was it. My world, the one I had once known to be home was slowly coming to an end. I stood facing a void of pure light spreading over my feet. My life finally found meaning. I was ready. I strongly shouted my power.

"The People!" The colours combined to form a pure white beam that surrounded me. I was in the middle of the world’s biggest cannon. From the trough that surrounded me came a gigantic beam of pure white light. It was almost heavenly. Time stopped dead. This one single moment that I was experiencing was the most accomplished and happy I had ever felt in a long time. I felt complete.

The beam reached the on coming entity quickly. The entity was just a mass of black. I could hear it scream out in pain when the light hit it. It was being destroyed molecule by molecule. It’s entire essence for living was being stripped away from it and in the hours that I had felt it take for the entity to be destroyed it in fact only took a mere couple of minutes. The Earth, at least, was safe.

After we could visibly see the entity destroyed we rejoiced. We had saved the Earth! I suddenly felt the arms of my best friend fling around me in happiness. Nephron got us all to calm down and spoke to us all.

"The Earth and my people are in deep thanks for your courageous actions that you just took. You have killed one of the many beasts of the universe. We are in your debt. Though sadly you must go back to Earth."

"Why … I thought our job was done now?" I spoke out for the crowd of us. Nephron shook his head.

"Your job is never ending Scott. You are the guardians of the Earth. You will always be needed for that is the path that was laid out for you." I nodded.

"I think we understand…" I stated, the others mumbled concurring answers. "If you ever need us … you know where to find us." Nephron just laughed.

"I sure do." With some final farewells, the twelve guardians of Earth departed back to Earth.

Right back to where we had opened up the gate, there we were. Krystal and I stood facing each other. We just embraced. What we had just experienced couldn’t be expressed in words.

"Yah know what?" Krystal asked.

"What?" I replied.

"School is going to seem pretty dull after that." The two of us just burst out into laughter. We started to trek back to Uncle John’s villa. Back to our mundane little lives but maybe, just maybe, they won’t be as mundane as they might have seen. When you can predict the future and have the guardian of ‘The Song’ as your best friend, who knows what you can get up to. I guess I’ll just have to find out for myself.