The Wooden Box

Prologue - A Mysterious Past

I couldn't move. I wanted to stay longer after every second I spent sitting on the shore, watching the mellow glowing sunset sink down gradually into the horizon. I sighed and finally looked more downwards to the shimmering sea, which beheld many wonders and confidentially uncovered secrets.

As Dusk began to approach faster, I finally had enough will power to get up from the rocks to walk up to the lighthouse, the place where I had always lived, ever since the day I was born; where my past, my present and most of my future will remain.

I stumbled onto the rocks, as I climbed towards my home with the world darkening around me. When I got to the door, I lit the two lanterns at the door before going in. I then flipped the switch that turned on the main light in the lighthouse.

In the center of the room, sat my presents, still unopened and untouched on the floor. I smiled. Although there were few presents in front of my eyes, everybody I ever knew remembered my birthday: my Auntie Claire, my cousin Maureen and my four best friends Felicia, Hannah, Paul and Daniel. Even though I never minded being alone, I felt like bursting into tears because of my solitude on my birthday.

Now Auntie was away in hospital, suffering from cancer with a slim chance of surviving, while Maureen and my friends lived scattered in different places of the world, working at their summer jobs. The rest of my family had gone. They were in a better place than I was.

I knelt down in front of my presents for a few moments. I noticed that my Aunt sent two presents this year; my birthday cake and something else. I picked up the other present Aunt Claire sent and tore the orange wrapping paper off of it.

I gasped. Aunt Claire sent me her wonderful wooden box, which contained gems and detailed carvings on the lid. I remembered the day when I visited Aunt Claire for the first time. I saw that wooden box on her library shelf, practically falling in love with it.

"One day it shall be yours," Claire always reassured me as the years went by. And yes, it was, in the palms of my hands.

With no further hesitation, I lifted the lid open, suddenly producing a blinding, bright light from within, along with a deafening roar of a tornado in the wind. However, I couldn't escape, or get away from the box, or out of the lighthouse.

This went on for several minutes until suddenly, there an abrupt blackout…

Finally having enough consciousness, I pushed myself to sit up again, lighting up a match from a box in my pocket.

I lead the match to the open box, which revealed creepy, shockingly old pictures in black-and-white instead of color. These photographs revealed a cute, innocent girl with not a care in the world, standing in the garden picking and smelling some flowers. Other pictures showed the same girl with friends; laughing, playing, catching butterflies.

Beautiful and picturesque as the photographs looked, there was still something very eerie and terrifying about them. At every picture's corner hid a swooping, ghostly figure. What was that figure? Who was that figure? Was it someone called…Death?

I gasped when I found a picture of me at my age now, sitting by myself looking up. Somehow though, I felt as if I wasn't just looking at the sky above me in the picture. It looked as though I was staring into my future…