Amaya awoke some time later to the feel of Tai climbing up into the tree beneath her. He was quiet for a while, staring out over the campsite.
"It's a nice view from here" Tai's voice was quiet, which was a surprise to Amaya since he seemed to be a generally loud boy.
"Yeah," she whispered back.
"Have you been up here long?"
"Yeah, since I got up. It's peaceful up here."
"Yeah…" Then they were quiet, both enjoying the sunlight and the quiet babble of the river. Amaya's eyes slid closed again and she felt calm blanket her. Suddenly she was jerked out of her daze by something cold falling on her face. She sat up, her hand flying to her face to try and find the source of the cold. Finding nothing she looked up at the sky to find it covered in clouds and…it was snowing!
"What? Snow?" Amaya was confused "In the summer?"
"What is going on here?" she heard Tai's confused comment from below her. Suddenly the snow and wind picked up drastically, so much so that Amaya was knocked off of the branch she had been sitting on. She caught herself on a lower branch, stopping her fall, before letting herself drop to the ground. She started running towards the boy's cabin, which was closer than the girl's cabin and she could feel Tai hot on her heels. Once inside she looked around and noticed that everyone else was inside the same cabin.
"Is everyone all right?" Mr. Fujiama called, trying to be heard over the wind. There were affirmatives all around and they gathered into a bunch to keep warm as best as possible. From her position near the edge of the group, not touching any of the others, Amaya could hear T.K.'s quiet crying. Eventually the wind and snow died down and Amaya was in the front of the group who moved to the door to look outside. Everything was covered in snow and—
"Wow…" Amaya couldn't help herself, the sky was covered with what looked like an aura, but that wasn't possible, they were too far south.
"Let's have toboggan races instead of canoe races!" Tai's voice cut through Amaya's musings. She moved off to the side as several people pushed passed them, T.K. among them with Matt chasing after him.
"I'm gonna built the biggest snowman!" T.K. was rather cute…
"Hey T.K. be careful. Slow down!"
"Oh it is freezing and I didn't bring a jacket." Sora had her arms wrapped around herself to attempt to keep warm.
"Man, I was worried that I would catch a summer cold, but this is even worse." Amaya blinked and looked at Joe, was he always so negative? Even she wasn't that bad.
"Wow, why didn't I pack my fluffy pink snow boots?" Three guesses on who said that, and the first two don't count. Amaya chuckled slightly and followed the others out into the snow, taking care to be sure that her shoulder bag was in place. No one else had seemed to notice the lights in the sky.
"Wow. What's that?" Now they'd noticed them.
"Hey, what's your name? Izzy! Come on out here! You gotta see this!" Tai called back towards the cabin where Izzy was still messing with his computer. Amaya agreed, the lights were amazing, if only she could figure out what they were.
"Wow, it's beautiful! Magical even." For once Amaya agreed with Mimi, it really was beautiful.
"Yeah…but what is it?" Izzy voiced Amaya's opinion perfectly.
"Maybe an aurora?" Sora didn't seem too sure about her suggestion.
"You mean aurora borealis? The northern lights? That's impossible, you see that in Alaska. We're way too far south." Amaya fought a smile; Izzy appeared to be the group realist.
"Tell that to the snow." Sora had a good point, none of this was making sense.
"I think we should all get back in side. Before we all come down with pneumonia." As much as Amaya hated to admit it Joe had a point.
"And miss this? The sky is like, short shortcutting." Matt was right, who knew what was going to happen next! Suddenly what looked like a huge, green, swirling wormhole formed in the sky!
"Wow, what's that?" Tai's voice was quiet, almost reverent. Suddenly the center of the wormhole lit up and beams of light shot from it, hurtling towards the ground, towards Amaya as and the other children. Amaya jumped back, away from where the lights were heading. Amaya huddled to the ground, covering her head with her arms as the lights hit the ground all around them. After a moment of silence she looked up and looked around.
"Everyone! Are you all right?!" Sora's worried voice cut through the silence.
"We're still here." Leave it to Matt to keep his sense of humor when the sky was practically falling.
"That was scary." Mimi's voice was quiet and, well, scared.
"W-What was it?" Joe's voice asked the question on everyone's mind. Izzy was still on the ground and crawled carefully towards one of the holes that had come from the falling lights.
"Meteors?" Before he could finish his question faint beams of light began to rise from each of the holes, and something was rising out with the light "Ok so it's not meteors." Tai was the first person who dared to reach forward and grab the rising item. Everyone else soon followed, Joe being the last one, though Amaya wasn't too far before him. She opened her hand and looked at the strange device that she was now holding. The others appeared to be doing the same.
"What are these?" Sora had the thousand dollar question.
"My guess is some sort of miniature remote digital apparatus."
"No instructions?" Amaya ignored Izzy and Joe in favor of staring at the device that was now lighting up.
"Forget the instructions surfs up!" Amaya's head shot up at Tai's words, sure enough there was a huge wave coming out of the ground! It wasn't even coming from the river, which was on the other side of the campsite. Amaya screamed and held her bag tightly to herself as the wave swept her and the others away. It felt like she was falling!