Snippet #2619521

"A lock? Depends on what type it is," Jared said, looking at it over Lok's shoulder. He'd been a bit surprised by Lok when he grabbed the box and ran to the dumpster, but quickly got over it. It was Lok, after all. Jared reached into the brown hip pouch he had on. "Hold on," he said, shuffling through the items and causing a loud clunk to be heard, "lemme check if I still have my - yup, still got it."

He pulled out a pair of paper clip lock picks with a grin. Knew keeping them wasn't a waste, he thought victoriously, taking the book from Lok to examine it. Now that Jared was looking closer, he liked the look of it too. It was seriously pretty, but why did it have a lock? Maybe it was some kind of journal or something? Who knows. Jared examined the book with a professional eye, searching for the keyhole. Lets see if all those years of picking my house locks and some occasional others helps me here...

Ten minutes later, Jared's eyes were tired from squinting at the lock, his fingers were tired from fiddling with said lock, and the book was as close to opening as it was ten minutes ago - near impossible.

"AGGHH!" Jared yelled, throwing his hands up in frustration. He glared at the book, gripping it so tightly that the cover would've been scrunched to pieces if it was a paperback. "What the hell is wrong with this lock?! It looked so simple I thought that I could open it in three minutes tops, but everytime I think I've got it it's not!" His grip tightened, and it was a good thing Jared didn't have heat vision because otherwise the book would've been burnt to a crisp. "It's almost like it's changing shape or - or -"

Three things happened in quick succession. The first was that the dustbin, which had a very weak lid, slammed shut with a loud bang, causing a fiery black blur to race out of it with a snarling hiss and brush against Jared's jeans before disappearing somewhere into the night, causing Jared to jump half a mile into the air and yell "GAAAAHHH WHATTHEHELLJUSTTOUCHEDME".

The second thing was that Jared dropped (more like threw at the blur and missed) the book, which still had his lock picking tools stuck in that damn lock. It clattered to the ground with a thud as the paper clips were jolted upon contact with the ground, and the blur skidded to a halt to reveal a cat, which hissed menacingly at the two boys. Oddly enough, they stayed in the lock even after the book hit the ground.

"WHY YOU -" both angry and embarrassed, Jared darted over to the cat to - well, yell at it probably, causing the cat to back into the wall and the third thing to happen - Jared stepped on the book and slipped, falling flat on his face and sending the book skidding behind him thanks to the force generated from his foot. The book went flying into the wall, jolting the lock picks even more...

Causing the lock to open.

The book burst open, it's pages flipping incredibly fast. A loud explosion was heard, and at the same time a blinding light and a light fog came out from the book...