“Just go for it, man”, my buddy Sam said, pressing his hand into my shoulder. I stiffened immediately, afraid the box, the box sitting on the desk in front of me, would pull me in if I got too close. Something about it just seemed so… off.
“Yeah, quit being a pussy, it’s just a stupid box”, Kobe, my other friend, joining in on the barrage.
We’d found the box, this charcoal-colored, metallic thing, while snooping through an abandoned house along one of the backroads near my house. It sat, in all its dilapidated glory, nestled deep into the brambles of the woods which surrounded the backroads. The edges of the box were lined with a fur, which remained a brilliant white amongst the dust-soaked table upon which we’d found it.
I could feel another hand press up against my back, urging me forward, towards the box. My adrenaline was soaring, the archaic portion of my brain screaming at me to get away. Far away.
“Quit fuckin’ touching me!”, I yelped, forcing my weight backward, hoping they wouldn’t push me any further.
“The fucks wrong with you dude? Don’t you wanna see what’s inside?”, Kobe remarked, now a step displaced from me. They seem jarred yet intrigued with my fear of this thing. Certainly I could be the only one that felt this energy, right?
“Truthfully, y’all, I’m getting bad vibes off it”, I admitted with a sigh, yet they’d already broken off into fits of laughter no sooner than when that sentence had left my mouth. I pursed my lips, staring at my feet like a petulant child who’d just come home to show Mom and Dad their shitty report card.
I waited for their laughter to subside before continuing, “Fine, fuck it”. As much as I hated, no, feared this aura which surrounded the box, I couldn’t sit here and take their ridicule any longer. The maddening grins they wore on their faces seemed to wane a bit with that.
I turned again, to face the box, that god damned thing. I drew in a deep, shaky breath, allowing my lungs to fill with further anticipation. My heart was bouncing, thundering within the confines of my being. No turning back now.
Hesitantly, I reached my hand out, inching closer to the strange object sitting on my desk. It seemed as though the air began to flex and warp between the space around my fingers, pulling my hand closer to it. It felt like I was watching a scene from a movie, the hand within my field of vision no longer belonging to me as I could almost feel the magnetic energy this object was radiating.
The tips of my fingers planted themselves upon its surface, gauging the material it was made from. I laid the rest of my hand gently against the lid, feeling it out further. It was warm, certainly warmer than my skin. It’s metallic appearance was deceiving, it felt as though I’d rested my hand just above an unnaturally warm pond, thousands of tadpoles angrily bobbing up and down against my palm. It felt alive and yet I couldn’t bring myself to take my hand away. Something about it was just so warm, so inviting.
Rather than recoil in disgust, I began to caress the thing, taking in its odd textures. I’m sure my friends were watching me now, enamored with it just as much as I was. They had to be.
The warmth from the box seemed to travel up my arm, coiling itself around my veins as it infected me. I could feel the warmth reach its crescendo deep in the pit of my chest, a vibrating-like sensation had replaced the urgent screams of adrenaline in my fast-beating heart. Soon, all I could see was that same deep, inky black which the box was wrapped in.
Suddenly, the intoxicating vibrations which had consumed my body came to a stall. The smell of rotting wood, of dirt and Earth began to fill my nostrils. The box was no longer, at least in the world in which I had just gazed upon it. It formed a wall, at least ten feet high, directly in front of me. Massive plumes of perfectly white fur jutted out from the edges of the wall.
I turned now, surveying my surroundings. The other walls and the ceiling seemed to be made of a decrepit stone, as though it were on the brink of collapsing around me. Whatever this place was, it had been here long before I, or any other creature alive today, had been roaming this Earth.
The walls seemed to form an endless corridor, darkness gobbling up whatever might lie ahead. A steady, still pool of water nipped at my ankles as hundreds of lilypads drifted aimlessly about.
I’m sure ordinarily, to any sane mind, I would be on the brink of a panic attack, or perhaps even a heart attack. Instead, I felt at complete ease with this world I had found myself in. I pushed forward, trudging through the murky water which sloshed and echoed endlessly down the corridor. I had to find whatever sat at the end of this tunnel, I felt like a cross country runner on the home stretch of their race.
Great swaths of moss engulfed the walls and climbed up to the ceiling, hanging like green tendrils from above. Mushroom-like plants jutted wildly from various cracks in the stone, their flesh a striking orange with flecks of purple swimming about.
Still, I pushed forward, trying not to distract myself with the beauty of my surroundings. I continued down that stream, that corridor, for a long time. Minutes? Hours? Days? I don’t think I could tell you, time seemed to be nonexistent. Suddenly, a pale light emerged from the darkness. My pace quickened.
As I drew nearer to the light, I could make out a large bump in the middle of the flooded corridor. A campfire was set atop this bump, illuminating four small creatures which had huddled around it. Nothing indicated they were a threat, yet I still approached them cautiously. Obviously, I had no way of moving quietly, the water sloshed and squelched with each step I was taking. I could feel their beady eyes studying me as I was only mere steps away now.
I was upon them, watching the fire as I allowed them to take my presence in. Aside from the comically thin ‘legs’ which sprouted from their underbelly, they looked like any ordinary fish you could catch in any ordinary pond. I couldn’t help but feel I was interrupting them, like I was disturbing their eternal peace. I lifted my gaze from the fire and began to push forward once more, but stopped when they began to speak.
“Nuh-nuh”, the smallest one, to my left shouted. It’s voice was oddly deep, though it’s best not to judge a book by its cover. The others looked to each other and began speaking in this language, surely convening on the protocols of what to do with an outsider like me. They continued like this for a few minutes, their voices shouting over one another with distressing frequency. If I didn’t know any better, they almost seemed panicked. Finally, they fell silent, the smallest one turning to me again.
“Hair… old…”, it’s scaly brow furrowed over its beady eyes, concentrating on whatever it was trying to say. “Smeth”, it barked awkwardly, contorting its lips with a pained expression. I returned my gaze back to the fire, contemplating what the fish had told me. I watched as one of the other fish kicked a dried up piece of moss into the flame, which crackled and popped, burning up almost instantaneously.
Harold Smith. Why did that name sound so familiar? The fish stared at me expectantly, their mouths hung slack as they waited for my answer. Instead, for better or worse, I pressed onward.