CHAPTER 2 --- A Day in the Life

	April 22, 2001. The headstone of William A. Morel, a worker for a prominent archaeology organization, stood as a solemn monument to what he had once been. . Black clothed relatives and friends stood about sobbing quietly while a pastor recited the eulogy. His unexpected death at the Deep Darkness excavation had caused the entire project to come to a screeching halt. No word of the unfortunate laborer's death had reached the media, and the strict confidentiality of the dig remained intact. His two young children clung to their mother's legs, frightened at the sudden removal of their dad from their lives.

	Shockingly, the head of the prestigious research company known as ARC, Dr. Andonuts, had come to attend the funereal services. He held a black fedora over his heart somberly and listened with an intense sadness that surprised many of the attenders. His pure white hair and mustache was like a beacon in a sea of dark, in a roiling ocean of sadness. As far as anyone knew, Dr. Andonuts had no connection with the archaeological group that had been heading the dig. Behind the weathered figure of the Doctor, wearing an indifferent expression, was his only son Jeff.

	At 19 he was taller than his dad, about 5' 6", and of a lanky build. Straw blond hair fell down to thick, rounded glasses that obscured his blue eyes. His fingers tapped restlessly against the black suitcoat he'd had to wear for the occasion.

	The true meaning of why an important individual such as his father was attending the funereal of a nondescript dig worker was no secret to him, and it definitely wasn't just compassion. His reasons for attending were not simply to mourn the man's death, as tragic as it was, but to contemplate the bizarre events surrounding it.

	Based on the report that his father had handed him the day after Bill was found dead, there was little to form a solid hypothesis on. Bill Morel, age 34, discovered dead at the mouth of a small, previously untapped tunnel at the base of the excavation. Site was evacuated. Tunnel remains unexplored.

	Unknown to the public, even the mourners at the man's closed casket funereal, ARC had acquired the corpse of Bill Morel through copious "donations" and heartfelt letters to his family. As to the cause of death, after a brief examination by top ARC doctors, Bill was determined to have died of heart failure. He had no previous symptoms, and no family members with a history of heart disease. "What could possibly cause a man's heart to just stop?" Dr. Andonuts had asked, and the doctor, looking dead level at him with the utmost seriousness, responded,

	"Fear. Quite simply, this man died of fear."

	It didn't take a legendary scientist to figure that something deadly lay down that unexplored tunnel. Jeff's memories were dark indeed when he recalled what lay beneath Deep Darkness, when he remembered the events of four years prior.

	The irony of the excavation's location was not lost on Jeff, since he was one of the few in the world who knew of the existance of a strange prehistoric land beneath Deep Darkness known as the Lost Underworld. Had the diggers started only a few kilometers away, they would've drilled right into it. However, Jeff was in no mood for laughter at the prospect. For what lay adjacent to Deep Darkness had been what, until now, Jeff had thought only to be a dark, deserted cavern. It was there that he and his four friends had traveled four years ago, and there that they had discovered what had been required of them to save the world: to travel into that exact same location in the past to confront the greatest threat known to mankind, Giygas.

	The incredible invention known as the Phase Distorter III, the brainchild of Dr. Andonuts and the reclusive tribe of Mr. Saturns, had been able to take them straight to Giygas, but not without taking a terrible risk first. Their human 'souls' had to be transferred into robot shells, since living matter was destroyed in the time traveling process. There was no guarantee that their spirits would return when the battle was ended, since the Phase Distorter III could only travel to the past, and not back. The transfer had been successful, and he and his friends had traveled back to a bizarre cavern of pure white and grey, the Cave of the Past. It was there that they had found Giygas, confronted him, and very nearly lost their lives.

	'And now...' thought Jeff, his eyebrows coming together in thought, 'I thought that that place would have been lost in the interminable amount of time between that battle and now. Could it really still be intact? Worse... could it be functioning?' To a logical thinker such as Jeff, the consequences of that line of thinking were too horrifying to contemplate.

	So he stood in silence, next to his father, as the pastor gave his closing remarks, and the relatives began to throw flowers into the grave. Irritated at his own train of thought, Jeff whispered to the Doctor, "Can we go now?"

	Andonuts took a few moments to respond, he seemed fixed on the sight of those flowers being thrown with eyes that were filled with sadness. "I pray, Jeff..." he paused, taking a deeper look at the grave before turning to his son, "That this does not turn out to be a funereal for our world."

	"Giygas?" Jeff said, though it came out as only a breath. Even today, after all this time, he was hardly able to speak the name. Andonuts nodded gravely.

	"Let us return to the lab. We have some matters to attend to." An understatement. Then, as if the matter of Bill Morel were settled in his mind, he turned and walked swiftly away. Jeff had to run to catch up.

	When they had walked a short distance, they came to some trees standing like sentinels over the rows of gravestones, the Doctor came to a stop and removed a small device from a pocket of his overcoat. He pointed it at the ground and activated it through a few tiny clicks. The air before them shimmered, and a machine nearly as big as the tree it sat under appeared. It was circular in shape, with an extension resembling a nose jutting out of one end, along with two painted-on eyes and whiskers. Along with the ribbon shaped antenna on top, the entire device resembled the odd looking Mr. Saturn. It was an exact copy of the device, the Phase Distorter III, that the Chosen Four had used to travel back in time, although these days it was being put to more practical uses such as easy transportation.

	Andonuts opened a round door in the front and gestured for Jeff to step in. He did so, and took his spot in the cramped interior. The Doctor gave a brief look back at the black-clad crowd, then stepped in and pulled the hatch shut. In a matter of moments, the Phase Distorter gave off a high pitched whine and seemed to pull apart in multiple directions, then vanished.

-----

	In a distant corner of Eagleland, in the town of Alphed, a boy was sitting at a desk and staring at a pencil.

	He was not particularly impressive to look at, with rumpled brown hair and brown eyes, and a build that suggested only marginal interest in athletics. He sat at his desk at Alphed High, half listening to the History lecture, mostly staring intently at his writing utensil.

	His classmates were all steadfastly ignoring him, as they had done the entire time this particular boy had been in their class. There had never been a time when he hadn't been an outsider; to the other guys, he was too different to merit any kind of friendship. To the girls, he was antisocial and just plain weird.

	"Dustin, perhaps you can enlighten us." the teacher said, looking impassively from the white board to where the boy sat.

	Without looking up from his desk, Dustin replied, "October 14, 1066. It was a decisive victory for the Normans." The teacher blinked once or twice in shock. He should have gotten used to how the boy never seemed to be paying attention, but always answered every question correctly. The teacher shrugged it off then said shortly,

	"That's correct. Now..."

	Dustin's excellent grades didn't exactly endear him to his classmates either.

	At the moment, Dustin couldn't have cared less for them or for the lecture. He only stared at his pencil like he would burn a hole through it just with his eyes. 'I know I did this earlier. I know I did.' he repeated to himself for what had to be the fiftieth time. Pushing the thoughts from his mind, he tried his best to stay completely calm. The pencil, however, continued to rest on the desk inanimately. Dustin continued to stare. After a few moments of blanking out his thoughts, the pencil twitched.

	Leaning in closer, Dustin tried to quell the surge of emotion inside and struggled to keep thoughts from entering his mind. The pencil twitched once more, then picked itself up slowly off the desk, moving to balance on it's point.

	"Dustin, since you seem to be quite knowledgeable on the Battle of Hastings-"

	The teacher's sudden interruption caused the pencil to clatter noisily to the desk to roll off and bounce noisily on the ground. Snickers swept throughout the room, and Dustin brought his brown eyes up to the teacher with a flash of annoyance. He answered the question without a second thought and reached down to pick up his pencil, his mind in disarray once more.

	Later that day, his locker closed with an overly loud slam that was drowned by the clamor of school letting out. Dustin sighed to himself, then pushed into the crowd to try and make his way to the exit. The crowd surged around him in a chorus of laughter and raised voices, filling the halls with the oppressive heat of clustered bodies. Eventually the students emptied out into a small parking lot where their rides waited, or where some kids such as Dustin would start their walk home.

	The town of Alphed was a quiet, unassuming suburb in a lightly forested area of Eagleland. It had a drug store, a hotel, a few restaurants, but nothing truly impressive to draw tourists. This is exactly how the citizens of Alphed liked it. For the most part, Alphedians enjoyed keeping to themselves.

	Dustin hefted his backpack and began to walk out of the schoolyard and onto a nearby sidewalk. The streets were always kept in top condition, and the sidewalks were always kept immaculately clean: to the point that Dustin started to feel like he was in some kind of overblown sitcom. He couldn't help but sigh to himself and look up at the clouds. Trying to recall the past few years of his life, everything was one huge blur. Nothing stood out from the haze of class after boring class, the aced tests, the uninteresting people. Once or twice he had involuntarily tried to reach out and find some kind of companionship, and had been completely disgusted at what he found: mediocrity. All around him were people whom he knew for a fact aspired to nothing more than a nine to five job, three square meals a day, marriage, and kids. Every one of them took what came to them and didn't put forth an ounce more effort than what was required to be average, or even below average.

	"You have a special gift, Dustin." one of his teachers had tried to tell him. Seeing his indifference, they all gave up in the end. Continuing the way back home, he passed the bakery without so much as a glance.

	'Why, I wonder?' he thought, watching the cars zip past the calm right angles of buildings and putter quietly under the blinking signals. It was a question he often lobbied to the powers that be, one that he never got an answer for. He wondered why he, of all the people surrounding him, why he alone wanted more than what was given to him. He wondered why, when the world gave him his portion, that when he asked for more all he got was disapproving stares. He wondered why being better than his peers was grounds for being shunned.

	As he typically did, Dustin crumpled up all these concerns and tossed them into the wastebasket of his mind. Nothing good ever came of thinking too hard. Releasing another despondent sigh, Dustin turned a corner at the movie theater and continued his walk.

	The only thing that had occurred recently that was of any interest to him was the surfacing of a peculiar ability inside of him that had cropped up unexpectedly. It had happened the week before, when Dustin had been eating with his parents at the dinner table. His Dad had been prattling on about some news story like he always did, and Mom had been acting like she was listening avidly like she always did. He himself had been picking at the dish before him, not too interested in eating, when he had looked at the salt shaker across the table from him. Amusedly, he thought how funny it would be if the salt shaker tipped over and spilled salt all over his Dad's lap. He wasn't surprised when it didn't happen immediately. He was surprised when, after a few more seconds of staring at the salt shaker, it had begun to lift off the table.

	Just the shock of seeing the shaker in midair without anything holding it up was enough for Dustin to jerk back in his seat, and right as he did the salt shaker fell back to the table, upending itself and spilling all over his father's lap.

	"Whoah now!" his Dad had yelled, jumping out of his chair. "What the blazes? I swear that shaker just assaulted me, hah!" That was Dad all over; something strange or sudden happens and he's either laughing about it or cracking a joke over it. Mom had laughed right along and fixed the salt shaker, while Dustin had laughed nervously to try and seem normal. In reality, his heart had been pounding out of his chest. Had it really just lifted off the table all by itself? Had he really been the one to make it happen?

	Thinking it must have been some crazy coincidence, or a trick of the eyes, he had shoved it off into a mental corner and continued with his schoolwork. Then, remembering the event again a few days later, he had tried a similar feat with a pencil. To his slight dismay, he couldn't move it an inch. He had sat at his desk in his room staring at a pencil for over an hour, with no results whatsoever. Frustrated, he had shoved his chair back to stand up, and the pencil had shot off his desk and buried itself in his wall. That was what had really clinched it in his mind; he possessed some sort of strange psychic power.

	Dustin was sixteen. Since he hadn't shown any evidence of psychic ability before now, he figured that it had something to do with aging and his mental development. He'd scanned some pages on the internet to try and discover more, but nothing was forthcoming about when these things developed, or what sort of things he would be able to do. A few links brought him to fan pages for the Chosen Four, that group of kids who had saved the world from the alien invasion four years ago. Dustin knew enough about them, he'd had to endure more than one stuffy lecture on the events of the War with Giygas, to know that three of the four controlled the mysterious power called PSI. However, to Dustin's mind, there had to be thousands of people with psychic powers who were unable to tap into PSI, chances were he was among them.

	All of these thoughts about psychics had caused him to make another try at controlling his newfound ability during class, and it had looked as if he had been about to succeed. It was exciting to think that he was developing this kind of paranormal ability, but his emotions faded every time he realized that he had nowhere to go with them, and no real use for floating salt shakers.

	At length, the sidewalk ended and Dustin walked onto a dirt path hedged by grass and a few flowering trees. His family lived in a small house in the rural suburbia surrounding Alphed, away from the hustle and bustle of the main area of town. 'At least I get some exercise walking all this way every day' he mused, smirking. A dog started barking noisily in a nearby yard as he passed, but it failed to phase the thick shield of cynicism surrounding the boy. His house came into view, a square two-story with light blue siding and a black tile roof, and after unlocking the door and re-depositing the key in his pocket, he went inside.

	The house was quiet, save for the gentle hum of the refrigerator and air conditioning. Around him were the multitudinous knick-knacks that always denoted a place of long-time residence: a cracked vase that functioned as an umbrella stand, a shelf with pictures of Dustin when he was younger along with an embarrassingly deformed clay figure of his mom he had made in first grade, a wooden sign over the stove that read "Master at Work", a tiny fountain with a ceramic frog sitting in it on the counter in the kitchen. The colors were warm and friendly, with a mustard yellow covering the walls of the dining area and sepia tones all over the living room. It was home, from the carpeted steps leading to the second floor to the soft white of the inset ceiling lights.

	The significance had been lost on Dustin from having to live there every day of his life. He threw his backpack full of books into a corner under the coat hangers and trotted upstairs. His room was the first at the top, and he walked right in, flipping on the light as he went.

	It could be the room of any sixteen year old boy, with it's music posters and overflowing closet, it's cluttered computer desk and unmade bed. As part of the routine he repeated every single day, Dustin stripped off his school uniform and grabbed some jeans off the back of his desk chair, adding a black t-shirt moments later. Thus attired in more comfortable wear, he made his way downstairs and 
walked into the kitchen. A note was taped to the refrigerator, delineating all the food that his Mom had cooked and frozen for him. He ignored it and pulled the refrigerator open, grabbing the first edible thing that came into view and throwing it into the microwave. As the green numbers on it's face started counting down, Dustin briefly considered how much fun his parents were having at the moment.

	At the beginning of the week, after months of planning, his Mom and Dad had gone on an extended vacation at the beach resorts of Summers, leaving Dustin all to himself for more than a month. Mom had given him a hundred extra hugs to try and make up for her absence to come, and had cooked all his favorite meals and frozen them so he could heat them up whenever he wished. The house was mercifully quiet without his Dad's boisterous voice filling it, and Dustin was still reveling in the tranquility. He hoped that they had so much fun in the sun that they would extend their vacation yet another month and leave him be just a little longer.

	The microwave beeped at him, and Dustin reached for a fork before pulling the plate out and moving quickly into the living room. His haste wasn't out of expectation or excitement, but merely the anticipation of lapsing into the void of doing nothing for another few hours, possibly escaping the drudgery that filled his everyday life. He clicked the TV on as he sat down on the big leather couch facing it and channel surfed briefly before settling on some derivative shoot-em'-up action movie. He was utterly disinterested in the content, but chose to get absorbed in it anyway, periodically shoving some food into his mouth and not even checking to see what it was he was eating. Deciding it needed some salt, he got up and took the salt shaker off the table and brought it back into the living room. After lazily seasoning his food, he resumed watching the events onscreen.

	Minutes later, when the meal was finished, he laid the plate aside and stretched out languidly. 'I don't suppose there's much else more for me to do.' he thought, relaxing and continuing to watch the movie. He wasn't truly into it, though, for his gaze drifted slowly from the screen to the salt shaker now sitting on the floor. Propping his head up on an arm, Dustin observed the salt shaker and began to stare at it while gunshots and dialogue chattered over him. 'Now don't disappoint me... I want to see a repeat performance. I know I can do it again.'