Chapter 2

Last Day

The days came and passed, and Max found himself enjoying the summer camp a lot more than he had ever imagined, and all of that was because of Sally. Meeting her, and becoming friends with her, had been nothing short of life changing for Max, and they tackled everything the camp threw at them together.

They had even exchanged phone numbers to be able to keep in touch once the camp ended. The thought of getting a girl's phone number, it actually caused him to feel a bit giddy in his stomach, even though he knew that there wasn't anything romantic growing between them.

But all good things must come to an end, and as the final day came to one, Max lay sleepless for a while, thinking of what might come later.

During the past two months, night time had always been a time of peace and quiet, the obligatory sleeping hours making sure that there were no kinds of ruckus or other going on. Max was also thankful that everyone had individual tents, rather than having to share tents, or even worse, everyone having to share the hall in the camp hall, as he had heard they sometimes did.

But for as much as the tent and night time gave him some much needed privacy and calm, the fact that they would go back home the very next morning still weighed heavily on him. Sure, he wasn't exactly thrilled of the three hour hike, or the following four hour bus ride, no, what really kept him awake was the possibility that, despite their promises to each other, he and Sally may not actually see each other again.

He considered her his best friend, which, he admitted, wasn't hard to be as she was also his only friend, but that just made the thought of losing her all the more scary to him.

Eventually though, not even those thoughts could keep him awake, and he drifted off to a blissful sleep.

But that wouldn't last long.

"Psst! Hey! Max! Wake up!" Sally's voice whispered through Max's tent.

"Hmm? Sally…?" he asked groggily, sleep still clouding his mind and senses.

"Shush! Keep your voice down!" Sally hushed, staying quite a while and listening to determine if anyone else had woken up. Luckily, that was not the case. "Quickly! Get dressed, and follow me! You've got to see this!"

Max wasn't sure what was going on, but he trusted Sally, though at that hour, close to one in the night, he questioned whether or not that was a good idea.

Nevertheless, he put on his clothes and opened his tent, moving the zipper as silently as possible.

The night was clear and cool, the stars obscured only by the full moon that hung above them like a night light, bathing the camp grounds and surrounding forest in a soft silver light.

Sally led him through the woods, being very tight lipped about what it was all about, even after they were out of earshot, but Max did recognize the path they took, it was the one that lead to the lake.

"Come on, Sally. What's going on?" Max tried again.

"You'll see. We're almost there." Sally replied, same as before.

Finally, they reached the lake, and Max could help but gasp at the sight.

Framed by the beaches and cliff-sides, the water was completely undisturbed and still, like a silver mirror, and the sky above was perfectly reflected in it.

A beautiful wonder of nature.

"Wow…"

"Told you!" Sally smiled. "It's really something, isn't it."

"It is, I can't deny that. But couldn't you just have taken a picture with your phone and showed me in the morning instead?"

"I suppose I could have, but it wouldn't have been able to really capture just how breathtaking this truly is."

"I guess you're right." Max half sighed, yet smiled all the same. "This does make for a great last memory of this trip."

"You okay, Max? You seem a bit… I dunno… down?" Sally asked, placing a concerned hand on his shoulder.

"I, well… it's just… I've never really had a proper friend, Sally. And I guess… I'm afraid that once we leave camp… that's it. We won't see each other again."

"So that's what's bothering you. Just forget about those thoughts, because that won't happen. Remember, I owe you a round at that paintball arena, and you owe me a trip to the movies, and that won't be the end of it. I will personally make sure to drag you out of the comforts of your own room to do stuff with me from time to time, and some times, I'll hide there together with you. Maybe you can even find a game that I'm actually good at."

"Oof! Talk about a challenge!" Max laughed.

"Hey! Shut up!" Sally laughed back. "But in all seriousness, I'm not gonna let us just stop being friends or hanging out just because the summer camp ends. We still got a few weeks left of the summer before we go back to school again, and I want to make the most of that time, together with my friend. Together with you."

"Thank you, Sally." Max blushed, and he was happy that, even with the light of the full moon, she couldn't see it.

"Any time, Max." Sally smiled. Then she looked out across the lake, and a smirk spread across her lips.

"Uh-oh. I know that look." Max gulped upon seeing the smirk.

"Come on! There's one more thing we've gotta do tonight!" she said as she pulled him along towards the water's edge. "I've always wanted to swim during a full moon like this."

"Okay… well, I suppose we could do that. We just need to go back camp and get our swimwear."

"Nah, why bother with that. Let's skinny dip!"

"Wait, what?!"

But before Max could get an answer, Sally was already tossing off her clothes on the beach, and before he knew it, her naked form ran into the water cheering.

"Come on! The water's great!" she shouted at him, waving for him to follow. "See it as another great memory!"

Max pinched his nose ridge, again happy that she couldn't see him blush as hard as he did. The cool water just might be what he needed at that time.

"Alright, I'm coming." he finally said, and took off his clothes, blushing even harder as he too entered the water, feeling the cool liquid on his naked form.

"See? It wasn't that bad, now was it?" Sally said, splashing some water at him before swimming out a bit further, and Max followed closely behind her.

Despite his initial apprehension, as with pretty much everything he had done during the last two months, he came to enjoy the swim as well, and it was all because of Sally. And as they continued to swim and splash around at each other, laughing and having fun all the time, they soon ended up face to face.

Looking into each others eyes, the water soon became calm, with only the tinniest ripples from them, and the moon seemingly shining down on them specifically.

The moment almost seemed magically frozen in time, as a scene from a story of love and romance, ready to take the next step.

But a new source of light interrupted whatever could have happened, and it wasn't coming from the shore, or even the sky.

No, a bright, almost teal-tinted light shone from the bottom of the lake, below the eastern cliff-side, and it certainly caught the attention of the two naked teens.

"What is that?" Max wondered as they both looked towards the source.

"Don't know, but let's find out." said Sally, and the two swam towards the cliff-side. As they got closer, it seemed like if the light was emanating from some form of underwater cave or tunnel, and it felt like it was calling out to them, the very light basking them with a faint energy, making their skin tingle slightly.

"Wait here." Sally told Max, taking a deep breath and diving beneath the surface, and resurfacing a few seconds later. "It's coming from a tunnel near the bottom. I think… I think there's air at the other end."

"You're not seriously saying that we try swimming there?" Max ask, his blood running cold with the thought of getting stuck and drowning. And yet, he couldn't deny the pull the light had on him.

"Don't worry, we got this. And you got me." Sally said with a reassuring smile, her eyes reflecting the vibrant hue of the light.

With a nod, Max gave her the signal that he was ready, and they both took deep breaths, submerging and swimming to the cave opening. As they swam into it, the light grew stronger, warmer even, and just as it felt like Max's lungs were about to burst, they both surfaced in a small cave, gasping for air, only to find it old and stale. Where ever they were, no one had been there for a long time.

"The… the air pressure… must be what's keeping… the water out…" Max said as he caught his breath. "That tunnel was angled slightly upwards, so that keeps the air from escaping."

"And look, the tunnel continues." said Sally, pointing ahead, her eyes glistering not only with the light from the tunnel, but also excitement.

She didn't have to say that they should continue, for they both did, the light feeling even more alluring than before, but also warm and comforting.

They continued onward, following the tunnel, and it didn't take long before the algae covered rock gave way for smooth metal, a clear sign that things weren't as they were supposed to, and yet Max and Sally didn't turn back. They needed to find what was giving off that light.

And they did.

At the end of the tunnel, they found a large square chamber, clearly not natural, but rather artificial and carefully constructed. There were writings on the walls that they didn't recognize, metallic pillars spread out in a pattern, and a raised platform in the middle of the room, and in the middle of that platform, suspended in a pillar of the bluish teal light, was a crystal of the same colour, composed of twenty triangles arranged in a sphere form nearly two feet across.

"Whoa… check it out." Sally gasped, her eyes wide as she took in the room.

"Incredible… this place… it almost looks like a mix between a temple and a… a room of a space ship, or something… and that icosahedron…"

"The ico-what?"

"Icosahedron. It's the name of that specific shape. A sphere made out of twenty triangles." he explained, and Sally stared at him in disbelief. "Told you I could name and identify a whole bunch of geometrical shapes."

"And you obviously weren't kidding." she looked back at the crystal. "But what is that thing doing here? And what is this place?"

"I don't know. But at least we found the source of the light. And…" he trailed off as his eyes lingered on the crystal, still feeling drawn to it, even more than before, and so were Sally.

They both almost fell into a trance, slowly walking towards the crystal, barely registering the cold metal under their bare feet.

A faint hum started flowing from the crystal, growing stronger and stronger as the two teenagers got ever closer. And when they reached the base of the raised platform, the crystal released a pulse of light the engulfed the entire room, and mere fractions of a second later, two bolts of energy shot out and struck Max and Sally, their mouths opening in silent screams.

And that was just the beginning.

Something within Max, something new, resonated with the crystal, his very essence vibrating in time with the pulses of it. With great effort, he looked over to Sally, only to see her eyes wide with terror and wonder, as she watch her body starting to change, her skin rippling and shifting, almost melting into a mercury like state before solidifying into metal.

"Max!" she called out in a panic.

"S-Sally…" Max responded, but his voice was failing him, horse and with an increasing metallic reverb, for his vocal cords were morphing into something completely new. And that wasn't the only thing, his entire body felt like it was being deconstructed and reconfigured over and over each passing second.

They felt their skeletons shift, become robust metal frames with joints that would be considered mechanical masterpieces. Their muscles coiled and tightened, morphing into powerful pistons.

Their hearts, once organs beating at a steady pace, were now pumps that silently drove the new life through them.

The steady change of their bodies, the organic morphing into mechanical, resulted in intense pain, but the sheer disbelief of the entire process completely overshadowed it.

As their eyes, and ultimately their brains as well, transformed into advanced cybernetic versions, the world around them blurred and faded, their minds overwhelmed by all around them.

With a final gasp, as the light died down, the two teenagers collapsed, their new metal bodies clanging against the metal floor. The sudden influx of energy had overloaded their systems, causing them to fall unconscious, or more accurately, go offline.

The chamber falls silent, the hum of the crystal having faded away together with the light, the crystal hovering in the pillar of light just as before, casting the same soft light upon Max and Sally that had lured them there.

But that soon faded as well, a darkness falling over the chamber, with only the faintest of lights from the crystal still reflecting on the metal surfaces.

That, and a light glowing from inside the bodies of Max and Sally, from the very core of their chests.

Some discoveries are better left buried, as Max and Sally just learned, and their struggles have just begun.