The Mysterious Box from Dark Ridge

Joe is an eighteen-year-old kid who works hard mining coal. He lives alone and rises with the sun. He lives a simple life, until one day there's a terrible disaster in the mine. He survives the chaos, but finds a box buried inside the broken walls of Dark Ridge Mine #1. Joe takes this box home, opens it...and wakes up three days later. This costs him his job and his safety, as he soon discovers the box has strange powers and so much more. This discovery leads him to elicit the help of his crazy Uncle Ulus, who is not so crazy after all, and it leads him to the lovely Cassandra. She's not just pretty and kind, but there's something "magical" about her, too.

Throw in some intergalactic bad guys with superpowers, an underground shelter, and the metamorphosis that's happening with Joe every time he places his hands or eyes on that mysterious box, and buckle up for the ride of the twenty-first century.