the crystal box

what happens when you open a box? a 52 week fiction image entry.

Julie had found a box, in her mother’s house after she passed away. It was a crystal looking box that sparkled in the sunlight. It was bounded by wheat looked like brass holder on the edges and the hinges, all closed with a brass lock.
“Wow!” Julie remarked while holding it up to the light,” It is so beautiful, I wonder why she had it buried in this old box.”
The box’s sparkle held Julie’s attention for a bit. In fact, It made her smile a bit, which is what she needed at this hard time in her life. It seemed to her that all the bad things that could happen to her, happen all at one time. Her Husband left her for another woman, he had been with for the last several years, the kids went to college out of state, and now this, her mother passing away.
“What else could go wrong?” She thought to herself.
Over the next several days she had moved into her Mom’s house, mainly because it was much better than her apartment she was renting at this time, and proceeded to go through her things slowly but surely.
While a lot of it was just trash, as in too far rotted to be of any use to her, while some actually turned out to be pretty good. She had found some old jewelry that she had no idea her mother even owned.
Day after day the trash mound by the street grew larger and larger, which thankfully the city garbage collectors had no problem hauling it away, for a 12 pack of beer, of course. At the end of the day Julie would still gaze into the crystal box she had found.
She didn’t know why she wanted to get into it so badly, it being crystal it was completely see through, so she knew nothing was in it. This feeling confounded her. The sun sank down beneath the horizon as another day drew to a close and she laid down and slept the night away. All the while dreams of the box flowed through her dreaming mind, and into her dreams.
On the very next day, while going through the room, her mother call “the office”, in a hidden desk drawer that she just happened to come across, she found a brass-looking key. Curious about this key, she tried it on every lock she could find in the house. It fit no lock that she could find. Then an image of the crystal box appeared in her head. Then the thought hit her about the brass lock on the top of the box.
“Ah-ha!” she said then she went into the other room to retrieve the box. Not surprisingly the key fit, and as she turned it could hear the lock unlocking the box. After unlocking it, she placed t on a dresser and sat in a nearby chair and decided about opening it.
“What could it hurt?” she said,” after all it is an empty box.”
It had to have been about ten minutes that she thought about opening this box. Before she stood up and walked with a definite sense of purpose, walked across the room and lifted the cover. As she did a small bit of gold colored mist came from inside the box. Then it stopped completely, and the air became silent again, as before.
“Hmm,” she thought wondering what all the excitement was about opening it anyway as she picked up the box,” is that all there was?”
The silence was then broken by the howl of an animal she could not ever remember hearing, in these parts of any other parts, for that matter. The roar was then followed by heavy footsteps coming up the hall towards her, sounding almost as if the creature was fighting it, but eventually the footsteps did give in, and it took a few more steps than stopping as if waiting for Julie to do something.
Julie peaked around the corner, and to her surprise, a giant creature stood there, one of which she had never seen before. With its horns, head and feet it towered over her, forcing her to let out a blood curling scream. Which, when she finished filled the air with fear.
The creature began to move towards her, but never made it as she had basically given a command, that read” go away! Go away!.”
Suddenly the creature vanished and the box was once again closed and its lid locked, while the box itself was as clear as it was before. Julie had a deep seated fear running through her because she couldn’t explain what just happened.
Her nerves were so frayed that she was still shaking an hour after the box found its way back up to the attic of the house were she was determined to keep it, until the day she died when her kids would find it and go through the same thing again.