Fun Box

On our plane, and separated from its two fellow beings, the entity stood in the middle of darkened room. To humans, it appeared as a swirling shape of black smoke, with dimly visible facial features and limbs. As they looked into its shadowy face, its features were smooth and non-threatening, however where there should have been eyes were only two black holes, and the dim outlines of fangs were visible in its mouth.

It had flown away from them as they chased it at length, however it was finally cornered in this trap. In this room with walls completely composed of ki-shielding, the creature knew it was trapped. As it stood in the dead center of the square room, it faced them and stared at them, awaiting their move.

Enraged at the belief that this entity was responsible for the disappearance of his brother, David was the first to approach it, "You can not leave this room," and he flicked on the harsh incandescent ceiling light.

With the light diminishing its power, the entity screeched, and cowered down to its knees, shielding its head and eyes from the horrid, power-draining light.

David continued, "You must lead us to him… where's my brother," and he dared to approach a pace toward the dark entity. With a second pace, it seemed to float over the ground to retreat a few feet. With another advancing pace and another retreat, it was now literally cornered in the ki-walled room.

Revealing his ki-knife, David made a dramatic show of it, now standing only two feet from where the entity cowered. For a better vantage of the threat, lowered the arms covering its head to reveal the dark emptiness of its eyes. Terror and fear were its only true weapons, and in a final effort at provoking terror, it hissed at them, in a long and drawn-out, hideous manner.

With set determination, David knew that this cowering creature was powerless and unable to injure him in any way. He knew that in the brightly lit room, it was out of its element and instead of provoking fear, it felt fear!

With one final step, David's feet were mere inches from the amorphous dark mist. Pressing the ki-knife against what appeared to be form of its cowering back, it turned its face, ever so slowly, so that the nothingness of its eyes were first focused on the knife, and then on David.

His voice deepening with impatience, "You tell me where I can find my brother, or I will hurt you..."

At this threat, David thought that the entity might have quivered in fear, "Don't test me," and he raised his knife with the intention to strike.

Immediately, the creature made a quick move to shimmy away from him and along the wall, in the general direction of the only exit. Shrugging his shoulders, David quickly followed and plunged the blade down into what appeared to be the top of its shoulder or arm, withdrawing the weapon a fierce counter-pull.

Recoiling and possibly inhaling for a moment, it shrieked the most horrid, preternatural howl that had ever met their ears. The dark mist of its nothingness appeared to lighten to a paler shade of gray, and though it was quickly losing power. Clutching at the wound, the formless mist of its body seemed to convulse in agony, visible as spasms and quavers in the mist. Continuing its piercing wails, it jumped up to cling to the ceiling, and desperate to escape what it considered to be three-dimensional ghosts, it dived toward the exit just beyond Thomas and Lilly. However as both Tom and Lil drew their own ki knives, it tumbled to an ungraceful halt only to bounce back in a painful and unwilling retreat to the farthest ceiling corner of the ki-room.

Determined to find his sibling, David was unscathed by its shrieks and threats, "Damnit, tell me where he is," and he lunged at it once more. Again, it circled the room above their heads, barely avoiding their multiple strikes.

Recalling a last defense against supernatural beings, David instructed the others to leave the ki-room. Focusing his thoughts, he willed the box of ki to shrink. As the ki-box shrank, the creature was caught inside. In a moment, the box was no more than 5 feet by 5 feet, and then shrunk to 3 feet by 3 feet– the smallest size most humans could bear without any bones breaking. However, David knew that although supernatural creature could stand much, much more, even they would be destroyed in a ki-box with their life-force crushed and squeezed into oblivion. When the box diminished to 2-feet by 2-feet, it screeched in the same tone as before, except with more out of despair and fear than out of true pain.

With its face pressed against the inside of the translucent-blue ki-box, its features were the clearer than ever before. Again, its face was smooth and was generally humanlike, with the exception of empty, black eye-sockets and translucent and the fluid, gray-mist substance that composed its body. Kneeling down next to the entity imprisoned in the box, David pointed the knife at its face, "Now, you tell me where he is," and he noticed that what initially had appeared as empty eye-sockets, actually did hold eyes. It was as though its eyes were completely black, with no iris or white cornea, and as though the "skin" surrounding its eyes were painted black as night. Both features together implied the empty eye sockets of a skull. However, at this close proximity and with its vulnerable, gray-mist face presses against the 'glass' of the ki-box, David thought he may have seen black eyelashes blinking rapidly and fearfully.

As the wetness of the black, beady eyes reflected the overhead light,. it stared expressionlessly at the knife– focusing on the threat of the weapon rather than on the content of David's words.

Again shrugging his shoulders, David willed the ki-box to constrict to a mere 18-inches by 18-inches. Although it did not have bones and was tightly confined in such a small space, it wailed in clear agony. For the first time, it vocalized something intelligible, "No, please….," its voice like a distant echo, coming in and out, as though from another dimension, "…pl….ease…."

"Where's my brother? Tell me…"

"…stop…hurting …."

"What?"

"No… hurting…."

"Tell me, damnit!" and he slammed his fist on the box. His jaw set with grim determination as he spoke to Tom and Lil, "Listen, I don't know what's going to happen when I do this to it.. so you might not want to look…," and he willed the box was reduced to one-foot by one-foot.

The scream that began as a low wail soon escalated into a series of high-pitched, Tasmanian Devil-like howls, shortly followed by what might have been a gasping inhale, then another series of deafening shrieks that were painful to listen to. Lil covered her ears, and even David had to avert his eyes from the entity's face contorting in anguish.

After a minute, he could not bear to hear the shrieks, or more accurately, he realized that the entity was unable to answer his questions while in such agony. The ki-box was increased to two-feet by two-feet once again.

Its screams ending, it hid its face again, its shoulders rising and falling. Kicking the ki-box over, David screamed at the creature, "Tell me where he is or I will keep doing this. Do you understand me? Do you fucking understand me!"

"…yes…,' came the distant echoing voice.

Exhaling in relief, David continued, "Well, then… where…is…he…,"

"…let me go… then tell…."

"Fuck no!" and the box was reduced to ten-inches by ten-inches.

After an excruciating, shriek-filled minute, the entity finally begged for mercy,
"Stop… please stop…"

"Tell me!" David was quickly losing his patience for the malevolent thing.

"…yes… I tell… no…hurt," followed by shrieking the word, "Please!" and the box finally expanded to a merciful three-feet by three-feet. Collapsing into a quivering ball of formless mist in the corner of the larger box, it was obvious that the creature was fully defeated and terrorized.

"Where is he," and David kicked the box to elicit a response.

Recoiling into an even smaller ball, it hissed its answer, "…at the end of dead road…"

"What? What did you say? He's at the end of his rope?"

"No, … at the end dead…."

"Damnit, don't play games with me!" and David readied for another round of
'shrink-the-ki-box'.

"The dead end! The dead end road," Lilly realized aloud, and then spoke directly to the entity, "His brother is at the dead end? Is that what you mean?"

"Yesssssss," it hissed in acknowledgement.

"Which dead end!" David fumed.

"C'mon city boy," Lil interjected, "There's only one dead-end in this little town…. He must be at the end of Mark Street!"

"Well, let's go!" and David turned away from the creature still imprisoned in the box.

"Bastard! Pig! Liar!" it admonished for not immediately letting it go, the black mist furiously swirling around the box.

Narrowing his eyes in disgust at the creature, he seethed with anger, "Awww… You want out? Well, too bad. I don't trust you…,"

Its cries were degenerating into mournful pleas, "I tell you! End dead! Bastard! Pig!"

"Let it go, David," Lil persuaded.

His features distorted with disgust at the cursing and wildly circling entity, "How do I know it's not lying?"

"You don't know. You made an agreement…,"

"What agreement? I certainly did not shake its hand! This is my brother's life we're talking about!" and with extreme reluctance, he expanded the ki-box even further to six-feet by six-feet, "There you go… whatever you are," he spoke to the entity.

It stopped its frantic whirling and stood up to its full height before whispering, "Liar,"

"I'll let it go when I have my brother back,"

"Bastard! Pig! Liar!" it screamed repeatedly in frustration at being tricked, its cries slowly receding as they departed, "I tell you! End dead! Bastard! Pig! Liar!"