The Devil's Box Part 5

Superbia

The world has been covered in the unnatural darkness so long I can’t remember the last time I saw the sun. There were seventeen of us when we first began to hunt the Devil’s box and stop this unholy never-ending night. Now there are three. Once we found the source of the box we had to find a way to get close to it and that was easier said than done. Not only was the darkness thick and menacing, it was alive. A pulsating formless being made of smoky tendrils that not only obscured but lured you in to feed its children. Monsters roamed in the fog and shadows devouring trespassers with stealth and gleeful grins their numbers innumerable. It was as if they were born from the fog itself. But we knew better. We knew there had to be a true and single source. Our first thought was that hell had opened freeing a dimension of creatures so volatile they were forced to cloak themselves in black but when rumors spread of a box, a portal, we decided it was at least something to go on. We didn’t know how right we would be.

Honestly, I thought it was ludicrous that we were going on a wild goose chase for a box. How could all of this evil have come from something as simple as a box? But we headed out, going where the monsters were invading in higher concentrations. We did well for the first few months despite traveling in circles and having to lick our wounds between encounters, but the closer we got to the source the harder it became. The monsters we knew of like skin changers and the blood suckers were the light weights. The thicker the darkness the more horrific the beings and they didn’t just physically destroy you, they could get into your mind and make you think things, do things. That’s when we started losing our numbers, our friends, our hope, but with every loss we were one step closer.

I never believed there was a box but now I’m glad we came prepared with chains and locks because the box is indeed real and I wouldn’t believe it if I wasn’t looking at it right this moment.

“It is just a plain box,” he said, “made of wood even.”

I don’t know where Stef and Christian are but I can hear them somewhere behind me and there is something else in the air, another sound I can’t shake. It sounds vast, an expanse of nothingness and it made me shudder. Then I heard the growls. They are distant but they are indeed here and I wonder how much time I have to do what I came to do.

It was hung from the ceiling of an abandoned house that had at once been a warm and beautiful home. The box had changed that. The walls once covered in cream paint and family photos was now sticky with tar, the furniture was burnt and slowly smoldering and something inky was dripping upwards to the ceiling from the open box.

“It certainly looks like hell,” I said. “Do you hear that either of you?”

If they responded I can’t hear. I can’t tear my eyes from the box. That’s where the growls are coming from. That’s where the darkness has leaked from. I found the source bringing hell to earth and as I peered down into its unfathomable depths I stared down into the face of true horror as millions of creatures clawed their way to my world.

I was too late. I couldn’t even run as the first of many claws groped for me. I promised myself I wouldn’t scream. I promised myself a lot of things. That I would find this damn box, that I would destroy it and end all of this pain. Looking into the face of death I knew I had failed. I screamed.