The Box
a short horror story
The box. The door. The crumbling brick. It begs me to enter. It's screaming my name, if I don't enter it will crumble. If I don't enter it will die. If I don't enter I will never know.
I grab hold of everything I have.
“Come to me,” the box whispers, “leave it behind, come to me.”
It almost seems alive. In fact, it is alive. The box is alive, the door is its mouth, the crumbling brick is its flesh. Whatever is inside its soul. And its soul it screams for me to enter, it screams for me to join it in its thoughts.
I drop what I know, I let go of what I have.
"Come." The box echoes.
I take a nervous stutter forward.
"Don't fear." The box says as a mother would.
I am not afraid. I have to know the soul of this box. Another step, less nervous this time.
A faint tug on my clothing, the box is pulling me towards itself. It pulls me closer. No urge to fight it. The door, it whispers to me until my fingers touch the rotten wood.
The door doesn't even open, I blink and find myself inside, and the door; it's gone. I'm inside the box, one with the box. Its insides whisper all the stories of those who entered before me, those who entered and never left. The closer I listen the more I realize the box is made up of its victims, the crumbling bricks are souls. Still no fear, in fact there is an urge to join them. How did they become like bricks? How did their souls end up like this? I run my fingers along the wall, feeling the untold stories pumping into my veins as if the wall was a tap and I was the bucket assigned with collecting the stories.
The wall grabs at my soul, it tears my body like a shirt being torn off a person right before really great sex.
It's trying to add me to its ranks. I can't help but laugh when I realize that it's taking my life and adding me to the collection it possesses.
The box, it's alive, it's breathing. It's living.
It's killing my body.
Blood pours from my legs and arms and body and face, it’s taking my breath away. Yet I still don't fight. It's digging into me like humans dig into the earth out of pure selfishness.
The box is thriving off of my flesh and living off my soul.
It uses my flesh like bread, my bones like cigars and my blood like wine, my eyes are its eyes, added to his collection of eyes. Eyes he uses to watch over all within his domain.
My soul is amongst his rotten bricks, my body is slowly torn apart. There is a burp and what was my body is gone.
I'm a spirit stuck and unable to escape. I want so badly to escape. So badly I want to be free, but I let him have me, I gave myself to him. I didn't appreciate what I had. Now I'm part of this killer machine, this soul taker.
I let him have me. I let myself go. He has no mercy, he just wants more. The more he has the stronger he gets.
‘The box, the door, the crumbling brick. It's me! It's me!’ I scream desperately to warn its next victim, ‘don't enter! Don't do it!’
I'm just a spirit, I'm dead. I can't be heard, my voice is gone. My warnings are no different than a light breeze warning of the coming hurricane.
I have my story, now it's simply mine. I'm not important, I thought I would be. He killed me. He took my soul.
The box, the door, the crumbling brick. It cries out to its next clueless victim. It pulls them in.
The box. He is us. He is me. I thought I knew. I thought I'd be better.
Now I'm a crumbling brick.