Folded In

One day while sitting at my apartment, I was kicking back in my seat. My neighbor Julie had stopped on by to hang out for the day. With a stack of chicken thighs in the oven and Minecraft YouTube videos playing on the TV, today was going to be a lazy day no matter how you spelt it. After a morning workout and having entered in a few more poems onto Vocal, I was exhausted even before it had already turned 09:00. Nothing was going to unglue from my place of comfort today.

*Beep!* *Beep!* *Beep!*

Well, at least nothing except the fire alarm.

"Son of a gun," I said, rolling off the side of the couch, running over to the alarm. "Julie, crack the kitchen window for me please."

"Sure thing."

Closing my bedroom door just in case to make sure that the smoke didn't set off the alarm in there, I jumped pressing in the button on the hallway smoke detector.

"Still burning your chicken again, huh?" She chuckled.

"Oh puh-leaze, even if it was burnt you'd still eat it."

"Uh, duh, everybody likes extra crunchy chicken. Especially if it's got a nice char to it."

"I'mma crack the TV room window." Moving a couple potted plants out of the way, the cold outside air greeted me like an unrequited lover stalking me for a kiss. "Goodness, it's freezing outside."

"And smoking inside," Julie waved her hands around, trying to dispel some of the smoke. "You really need to head to the store to buy yourself a new set of grill slates. You've got a cooling rack in there, and things that are meant for cooling don't bode well with the heat."

I hung my head, "Ugh, when you're right, you're right. Wanna head over to Meijer."

"Nah, I'd rather stay here and binge another episode of Primal on HBO."

"Hey, no getting ahead of me on that. You promised we'd watch that together. I'm not a guy who normally cares about spoilers, but I wanna have my own connection with the show and not through somebody else."

"Well, I guess you'd better hurry then cause I'll be re-watching an episode or two, and you know how well that storytelling is. It's like Oreos, one is never enough."

"Ooo, you a make'a me so mad." Grabbing my keys, I threw my jacket overtop myself. Slipping on my shoes, I opened the hallway door, and just as I was about to step outside of my apartment, I noticed something from the window. "Hey Julie, do any of the neighbors' kids have a drone?"

"No, but I have seen a few of them play with model airplanes before. Though, they're not remote control."

"Well, did you order a package then?"

"No? Why do you ask?"

"An Amazon drone's dropping something off."

"Well, bring it in. You don't want it to get stolen do you?"

Rolling my eyes, I thought to myself, "Well, if it was for me and was at work I know that one of m other neighbors would bring it inside at least and place it near the mailboxes. I should, at least, extend the same courtesy to them."

Walking outside, the drone was still attached to the box. Hearing the sound from one of its many electronic motors, I saw a camera lens turn to face me. Staring into the big glass eye, I was perplexed, since I figured that most of these were piloted by GPS. Yet, it would make sense for them to have pilots just in case autopilot wouldn't be enough.

With a flash of light, I was momentarily blinded, as my photo had been taken unexpectedly. Rubbing the brightness from my eyes, I heard a robotic voice say, "[Package delivered. Identity confirmed. Mission successful.]" Then with a simple release of its tong like appendages, the drone took off into the air, as if it were competing for a race.

"Geez, SCP-079 much?" Looking down at the box, I picked up the package, bringing it inside, reading the address statement, I noticed that it was meant for me.

To the delivery of T.Y. at [insert address here].

Taking my shoes off, Julie looked at me quite perplexed. "It's for you?"

"Weird, right?"

"Nah, wouldn't surprise me one bit if you had a secret admirer."

"Kind of hard to admire me secretly, when I'm pretty vocal about who I am."

"Yeah, but that's your heart, not theirs. People are still afraid of rejection, Thavien. Besides, you proclaiming who you are would probably only out them more on edge."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Care to help me open this up?"

"Sure thing."

"Grab the scissors from the sink. They should be soaking in the bleach water."

Setting the box down on the table, Julie met handing me the pair of scissors. "So, who do you think its from?"

"I can't tell, it doesn't have a returning address."

"Well, what do you think is in there?"

"I'm not shaking it to find out, I'd hate to break something."

"Well, go ahead and open it."

Dragging one of the scissor's blades across the packing tape, the sound of carboard filled the air. Placing my thumb underneath the fold, it felt just like and ordinary normal box to me, nothing out of normal was here. Except-

Julie placed her hand on top of the box, looking at me with a smile, "You ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be."

"You sure?" She pouted her lips, batting her eyes, trying to tease me.

I scoffed, "Enough. Just let me open it."

"If you say so."

Grabbing the folds, I opened both sides, spreading them wide. Looking into the box, we saw a yak walking through a snow drift on a mountain. The coldness filled the room, and snow had flown all about. Some of it sticking to my sweater, and some of it sticking to Julie's hair. I closed the box.

Our mouths were agape, I turned to Julie, she faced me, we exchanged expressions. Our curiosity was all that was expressed in one moment. Though we were curious, it ranged from every part of the spectrum from fear to wonder and even scientific theory.

Raising my eyebrow at her, she nodded and I peeled open the folds again. This time it was just a sand dune within a desert. Closing it once again, I reopened it to find cold, blue waters. A humpback whale was surfacing, blowing its breathe partially up the hole. Covered a bit in whale snot, I closed the box again. Trying to figure out what was going on, we were surprised that something that seemed so harmless was this powerful sitting in the hands of two veteran goofballs.

"Thavien, what the hell is going on?"

"I don't know. If I did I'd have an answer for ya'."

"Well, we can see through it, and it's obvious that things can pass through it, but we've only seen that from one side. Can we pass through it on our side?"

"I don't know, nor do I think we should know. Every time we opened it so far it's showed us someplace new. What if the next time we opened it would be the last time?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that what if the next time we open this box, we're incapable of closing it."

"Alright, shoot. Give me something to work with here."

"Okay, what if the next time we're at the bottom of the ocean and seawater just comes pouring in. Due to the amount of pressure, it'll be heavier than trying to bench press one thousand pounds, especially with how small the surface area of the box lid is in comparison to the rest of the ocean. Plus if it was by a hydrothermal vent, we'd probably get out skin burned off worse than a lobster in boiling water."

"Ohhh, now I get it."

"Yeah, like what if the next one would be in outer space, and we get pulled in to the other side since there's such a great big pressure difference. The box could close on us and we'd be stuck. We have access to open it on this side, but nothing says that it exists there on the other."

"Well, what do you think would happen if it appeared right next to us, like it was hovering above us or something?"

"Well, what if it wouldn't be us, but a different version of us. It could be a version of us from a different universe, from a different timeline, maybe us from a different time dilation."

"Time dilation?"

"Before or after us, potentially even at a different rate of time."

"Ohhh, I never thought about that. Well, what should we call this?"

"Simple, Pandora. We don't know what good or evil could come of it."

"Really, Pandora? Isn't that a little cliché?"

"Doesn't matter, sometimes allowing too many bad things to happen isn't worth the risk for one good thing to barely correct anything."

"As always you're no fun."

"Alright, fine, what do you suppose?"

"Well, think about it like this, so far all of the destinations have been in air correct? Sure it was over the ocean, on a mountain, and even a sand dune, but it had to be opened somewhere. What it the box has to be opened in a similar medium?"

"We can't make a law based on a small sampling of unrecorded experiments."

"So, now what? We can't return it. There's no address. Plus, that was a basic Amazon drone, you said. What if somebody was just using it or making their own personal drone mimicking Amazon?"

"Fair point."

"Besides, this is so much cooler than just sitting back watching YouTube all day. Come on, you can't tell me that you're not the least bit interested."

"Alright, I give, but if something goes wrong and we both end up dying, I'm gonna haunt you in the afterlife so hard."

"Please, I'll welcome it. Misery loves company." Dang, Julie may have roasted herself a bit, but she made sure to take me down with her.

Putting on a pair of oven mitts just in case we came across something extremely hot like volcano, hot spring, or even an steel mill, we both prepared ourselves to open Pandora once again. Grabbing a selfie stick, Julie wanted to test if we could send anything to the other side, let alone retrieve it.

Opening the lid, humidity flew into the room, moistening the very air itself. In mere seconds we started to sweat. Looking into the opening we saw leaves galore. Which made sense, since it was a rainforest. Poking her selfie stick through, everything seemed alright, and she retrieved it just well. So, putting her cellphone on the stick, she proceeded to try again, this time recording a video.

Upon retrieving it, we kept the lid open, but we wanted to see what was on the other side. Looking at her vide, we saw a monkey watching the phone, wide-eyed, as if it were pure magic. Then noticing that the device was of no threat to it, the primate went back to eating berries.

"Ooo, those look good." Julie said, and without hesitation, she told me, "Thavien, hold the box open and keep my legs from going overboard. I'm gonna snag a few of those for ourselves."

"Wait, what?" As shocking as it was, I can't say that I was surprised. Julies always been the kind of person to leap while looking and making a plan up on the fly, literally.

Grabbing her by the thigh, I kept part of her legs down, as her waist bent at the box, onto the table. "Hey, don't be so rough! I need to get a little bit closer."

"Julie, we really shouldn't be doing this! Besides, you know I'm not allowed to do chest day. My physical therapist still wants me to rest up my arms."

"Oh, don't worry. Besides, if you really were gonna follow doctor's orders, you'd stop doing chin-ups and pullups."

"What? When I don't do them I get depressed. Just hurry up and grab the berries."

Reaching her hand out for the bush, she plucked a few of them into her hands. "Gotcha! Haha! Come to mama." Looking around she took in the beautiful sight of the forest.

"Oh hey there little monkey. Aren't you just the cutest thing?"

"You okay in there, Julie?"

"Yeah, I'm doing just great an- Thavien. Thavien! THAVIEN! PULL ME UP! PULL ME UP! PULL ME UP!"

Yanking her out of the box as fast I could with all my strength, she slammed the lids shut as soon as she reached our side entirely.

"You okay?"

"I was almost a monkey meal."

"What do you mean?"

"One of those freegin' harpy eagles came swooping in with claws ready to scoop my eyes out."

"Ooo," I winced. "Rest in peace little monkey friend. May your death be quick and painless and your bodily nutrition not go to waste. Thus, is the circle of life."

"Amen," she bowed her head with me, paying our respects to the marmoset. "Let's eat. Here!" Opening the palm of her hand, she handed me a few acai berries to eat.

"Oh my gosh, these are fresh!"

"I know, right!" She was happier about it than I was, though I don't blame her. After having a near death experience to a bird of prey, anybody would be happy to enjoy a good meal, no matter how light it was.

Chewing lightly, I couldn't stop pondering about how dangerous of a weapon this could be.

"Hey, cat got your tongue?"

"No, but, I was just thinking that if this thing is as powerful as I think it is, what would happen if we put something through it and closed it while it's still in the doorway?"

"Thavien, what are you on about?"

"Julie, don't you see? This isn't just the perfect doorway to anywhere, but its also the perfect guillotine."

"Gruesome much?"

"No, just wanting to be extra cautious. We still don't know who it came from, and why."

"Well, that sounds like an adventure to me."

I sighed, putting my face into my hands, "Ah man, I can't keep using vacation days like this."

...

It wasn't cheap, but the flight to the Chicago, Illinois, was needed if we wanted to solve this mystery as quick as possible. Reaching out to an old associate of mine, I was thankful that I had an in. Headed to the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, we were meeting up under the guise of a job interview. With my luck though, I was bound to get through somehow, but that didn't mean leaving without any suspicions or consequences would be any easier.

After showing my I.D. to the guard at the gate along with the access code sent to me via email, we were permitted entrance. Walking inside, we were greeted by an friendly old face.

"Thavien!"

"Dr. Aduma! It's been a day! How've you been?"

"I keep receiving blessing after blessing. Come along, my office is this way."

Locking the door, closing the shutters, and pulling out a notebook and pen, we exchanged conversation between one another, back and forth. Getting a grasp on the situation, he understood clearly. Still, making sure he fully understood, we showed him Julie's video. It was the first time I've seen this gentleman at a lost for words.

"Follow me," he whispered. Doing as he bid, he led us to the particle accelerator. "One of the things we can do, is see if we can destroy this. As much as I'd like to preserve such a miracle that seems to not be confined to the laws of science as we know it, I'd rather not toy with these things. It's not the other scientists I'm worried about getting downwind of this."

"It's the politicians, that concern you, isn't it?"

"Thavien, Julie, if something like this exist, it would surely be used as a weapon for war. Communication intelligence is one of the most prolific things that's either won or lost battles. What you have puts the modern cellphone and entire globalized internet to shame."

Just then we heard an explosion come from the floor above us.

"Run!" As if I were a star athlete in high school again, we booked it towards the particle accelerator. "If we can destroy it with a black hole, hopefully its spatial dimension affects will no longer be confined to the object itself, but be rendered useless to mankind. In theory, space will be returned to space."

Then, the ceiling collapsed. Men in black suits swarmed around us. Dr. Aduma was lying unconscious on the ground. One of the armed personnel punched me, causing me to feel dizzy. The box fell from my hands, the lids opened, and we were all sucked in.

...

Blinking my eyes, I came face-to-face with what I could only describe as infinite paradoxical fear. Rumbling in a deep voice, it told me, "Thavien, my work's not done yet." Grabbing me in a hand made from the very cosmos itself, I was thrown towards towards a burning star.

"Noooooo!" I screamed.

*Beep!* *Beep!* *Beep!*

My smoke detector alarm went off. "Your chicken's burning, Thavien." Julie teased me.

There I sat, TV remote in hand, chicken burning in the oven. Getting up from the couch, I looked over at the door. Though I know it was the wind from outside, it knocked on my door as if something were really there.

"I'll turn down the heat," I responded.

...

Author's Notes: Meh...