Oneirominid

Oneirominid t1_iudteds wrote

Reply to [WP] Every day, you pass by the same weird antique shop. And every day, your eyes fixate on this tattered box in the window. Not the gold dragons or the shimmering carpets. Just the box. One day you sneak in and snatch the box when no one's looking. As you flee, you notice the shop is gone. by TipAggravating3362

Wait- what? What am I doing?!

I run as fast as I can, as far from the disappearing shop as possible, until I arrive at the door to my apartment complex. I frantically take the stairs and hide behind my house's door.
The box is sitting, silent, in my arms. But I know.
I know it talks.
It whispers to passerbies, to adults, to children, to whoever is desperate or weak enough to let it speak. It's secrets are revealed to anyone close enough to the old shop's window, entering the feeble minds of mortals.
And the shop? What about the place the box was stored? And the old antiquarian running it? He saw me entering, he saw me stealing it, and still he didn't flinch. Who, what, were they? A bait.
Simply a bait.
The golden statues, the ornate jewels, the porcelain artifacts flooding the whole shop. All smoke and lies. All whispers of one, bland box.

This- this makes no sense! What is this box? Why did I steal it?, I think, but I do nothing. I just stand there, back laid on the door, panting and hardly breathing, still recovering from my run.

After a few minutes, I carefully place the box on the kitchen counter, and observe it's details. The carefully carved wood and the finely modelled metal of the lid are the box's only special details. Otherwise, with it's rough edges and rusty lock, it would be perfectly, absolutely anonymous.

I stand there, in front of it.
It stays silent.
I touch the lock, not knowing what to expect, and it falls to the ground. As soon as it touches my carpet, it disappears in a cloud of smoke, almost like the shop did.
And then, I hear it.
The voice.
"...Open..."
I freeze.
"...Free... ...Please..."
Birds chirp out my window. An old man's blabbering loudly on the sidewalk. But I can't move.
"...You... ...Please... ...F R E E  M E ."
When the voice screams, I finally move. I run behind the counter, croucing and hiding from the box.
Then, my cat turns an angle, appearing with a long meow.
Its eyes start glinting. It looks at the counter and in a second it has already reached it. The cat slowly and aloofly circles the box under my shocked gaze.
It then touches its lid, playfully, innovently, right in the centre.
The box shuts open.
A blinding light explodes from it, hurting my eyes, and I fall backwards.
The same voice as before echoes in my ears as I fall, but now it's less clear and not directed to me.
"Grace be upon you, Saviour of Humanity"
My cat meows.
I suddenly feel a burning inside me, almost like an explosion, and for reason unknown to me, I smile.
Then, everything fades to black.

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