New Depths (boyxboy)

Chapter 7

I peeled the skin off the mango with my pocket knife. The cool water splashed against my legs as Daz trailed his fingertips over my exposed skin.

"I don't like seeing you like this." Daz said, taking the knife out of my hands as I had started to carve out parts of the fruit and flick it into the sea. "Let's do something to cheer you up?"

"Like what? Get my Dad to change his mind?" I asked angrily and threw the mango into the water below me. It went in with a splash and sunk to the bottom.

"Alright, don't ruin that pretty face by pouting." Daz smirked. "I'm taking you somewhere."

I let him haul me to my feet and drag me across the hot sand and towards the tress. "I've never shown anyone this place, so you better be grateful." Daz said as we weaved in and out of trees and walked into a cave.

I nodded glumly. I felt bad for being in a bad mood around Daz when he has been trying so hard to cheer me all up morning, but it wasn't my fault, it was my Dad's.

"Okay, wait here." Daz instructed as he began to pull out the small rocks that were stacked over something. He pulled away the seaweed rugs and pushed a wooden chest out into the middle of the cave. I sat down and pulled my hair to one side and nervously played with it.

"What's in there?" 

"Secrets, which you can't tell anyone else about." Daz smiled, brushing away the dirt that covered the chest. "Open it then, Atlas."

I undid the clasp that held it together and looked back up to Daz. "It won't hurt you, you'll love it."

I trusted Daz so I opened the lid and a smile graced my lips as my eyes sparkled with delight.

"How..." I breathed staring at the array of human objects.

I picked up a book with a soft brown cover. I opened it to see most of the pages had disintegrated and the ones that were left; the ink had smudged and ran all over the page, making it impossible to make out even a letter. Next I picked up a red stone that looked rather pretty. It was like all the others so common around here so I put it down and pulled out a doll.

"A human would have played with this?" I asked astonished. It did not look like the dolls the children played with here, nor did it look like any of the dolls I played with as a child. Its blue eyes looked almost like real eyes but when I touched them they felt hard, like glass. Its face looked painted on and its dress had faded in colour and torn at the seams.

"They would have. Humans are strange, watch this." Daz said picking up the doll and lying on its back.
Its eyes closed making me jump. Daz laughed and made it sit up again. The doll's eyes opened.

"I-I don't like that." I said scooting away from the doll and looking into the box again.

I gasped and pulled out a beautiful hairbrush. It was heavy and silver, little diamonds were sparkling around the edge and in the centre, an outline of a human with a funny dress on was standing on one leg. The dress went straight out at her waist and her other leg was in the air. What a funny position.

"I found that with this." Daz said handing me a piece of paper with a picture of 3 humans on.

"Why do they not have colour?" I asked staring at the black and white image of a man, woman and little girl.

"Because of this," Daz said rummaging in the box and carefully pulling out a weird box. "I found the hairbrush, picture and this thing that is called a camera in a watertight case. Everything in there was preserved perfectly; here let me take one of you." Daz said lifting the box thing to his face.