Man, Dismayed

Grant stared at the wooden chest. It sat on the dining room table, next to the box it had come in and Grant’s handgun. It was beautifully crafted, adorned with incredible woodwork and gold and silver trim. The etchings were bas reliefs he couldn’t quite make out and, in honesty, hurt his head a bit when he focused on them. Scrawled on the top of it, in that same gold and silver/platinum trim was a word. It was written in a language he’d never seen before. The art may have strained his eyes, the word troubled him on a deeper level. Common sense (and an aggressive unease) should have been enough for him to put the chest back in the box and deposit it on the sidewalk for garbage day. It’s not like he’d be missing anything, considering it had been delivered by a drone and wasn’t his to begin with.

Instead, Grant’s hands moved of their own accord, tracing along the intricately crafted lines of the wood, searching for a clasp, a divot, anything that hinted at an opening. There was no visible seam separating the two halves of the chest, almost as if it had been carved from a single piece of wood. He pressed on and, as if that decision was the catalyst, a thrum that spread through the room and it was quickly followed by the illusive seam before the chest cracked opened of its own accords.

The audible sigh and shrill glow that shone from the crack startled Grant and he stepped back. Seconds ago, the chest was an inert enigma, awe-inspiring though coated with a hibernating energy. Now it was awake and almost felt…alive.

After several deep breaths, he took a tentative step forward, then two. His body was a bowstring of tension, expecting something—anything—to jump out at him. Likely too many nights reading Stephen King and Clive Barker. Her voice whispered in his ear, full of promise and allure. “If you wish your life to be as it can be, you know what you must do.”

His eyes frantically searched the room for the origin of the voice but found nothing. No one. His heart felt on the verge of exploding and he wiped the sweat beading across his face. Reason told him to run but he watched his tremoring hand reach toward the chest. When his fingers touched it, an electric energy flashed through him. It didn’t hurt but Grant couldn’t have pulled his hands away even if he wanted to. And he didn’t.

“Close it and your life will go on as it is.” Grant’s eyes flicked to the gun next to the chest.

“Always a choice,” the voice emphasized. “But always a price.”

Grant wanted to ask who this voice—this woman—was but he was so fixated on the ‘what if’ that rationality, which had never been his strength, was all but lost.

Then he was opening the chest. The light from within flashed even brighter and he squinted, refusing to look away. The air thickened and Grant felt as if the very earth itself was pressing down on him. The light dimmed as the chest opened fully and he thought he could make out shapes in the brightness.

He had to force himself to stare into it and the shapes became clearer. His daring fled and his bladder emptied at what he saw. Images his mind refused to acknowledge.

Granted wanted to shove the chest away, cast it into night. The horrible images he could not name demanded it. But threaded within them…he saw potential. Riches. Success. Comfort. A life he always dreamed of. In that view, the horrors became a little less clear until they faded into his peripheral. He saw it all. A new life. A life of privilege and wonder.

“Yes,” his whispered into the blinding light. The chest groaned and everything within it escaped into the world.

**

6 months later

They called it The Madness. When it started, it was small, a blip in the incidents of murders, violent crimes, sexual assaults, OD’s, and suicides. Weeks passed and then a few young researchers picked up on what were initially thought of as statistical anomalies that, from a scientific perspective, didn’t make sense. Had it just been natural deaths, they could have attributed to a mutation of one of a dozen of viruses milling about the world, the potential cures, or environmental issues (tainted water or food supplies). But when they saw that it wasn’t just natural deaths but every kind of human depravity. Important people (no doubt looking for the next big crisis to grab just a little more power) started paying attention. When it became clear that it wasn’t isolated to the any one location (though it appeared that the epicenter was the Midwest United States), a fact that took nearly three months to fully admit, it was clear that nothing was stopping it. Not one country, city, territory, or town was spared. Even the most tranquil areas generally free of crime, started to show the rot of The Madness with alarming regularity.

All the while the news, both local and national, grasped at straws as to the cause. Was there something in the water? Our food? Was this God’s punishment or an alien invasion? So many theories but none could ever truly capture the truth of the matter.

And how could they?

Grant sat in the entertainment room of his new home, eyes darting between the wall of QLED screens that blared out all the theories about The Madness. The amber liquid in the crystal glass—poured from a 20-year-old bottle of Macallan—remained untouched. He peered into the whisky, taken aback at the brief glimpse of himself in the reflection. The sight made him want to gag and he nearly hurled the glass through one of the screens. Instead, he slammed it onto the custom mahogany end table next to him. For months, Grant watched as the weight sloughed off him. It wasn’t a bad thing, considering that, as of his last physical, he was a walking comorbidity machine. If one could ignore them. For haggard and haunted glaze in his pale eyes, Grant Henning was a testament to taking control of your life for the better. But his eyes…

In his eyes, was the haunted shadow of a man weighed down by guilt and regret.

“Overthinking your life again, my love.” The saccharine voice startled Grant out of his misery and he turned to see the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes one.

She wore a while silk dress that clung to her athletic curves and left nothing to the imagination. Her hair—a curious mix of midnight blue and black, and intricately braided—gleamed in the light and was a perfect complement to her coal-colored eyes and olive bronzed skin. Skin, that itself thrummed with a vitality that was decidedly human…but not.

Hope had appeared moments after the magic—or whatever it had been—was expelled from the chest. So many times, he tried asking her about that night. She always evaded the answer, oftentimes distracting him with a glance, a touch. A whisper. And with everything that had come to him in the ensuing months, Grant wasn’t too keen on delving into what was, quite frankly, an impossibility.

At least not until a few weeks ago when he actually started paying attention to what was going on in the world.

She moved like a ghost, as always silent as she approached. Grant shuddered when her long, lithe fingers brushed across his neck. Her other hand took the glass of whisky as she parked herself on one arm of the leather recliner. She downed it in a single gulp, her eyes rolling back in the familiar ecstasy any time she tasted something new. It had been this way since that first night,

When I ended the world, he thought bitterly. God damn me.

The woman tsked and her free hand slid through his hair. Any touch from her was an accelerant, lighting a fire within him and Grant cursed his weakness. Sensing his conflict, Hope stepped away. It surprised Grant but he took advantage of the space.

“Why me?” He asked.

Hope smiled and the ache in that smile showed a profound sadness Grant couldn’t hope to understand. “What does anyone do to deserve their fate? It is a question I asked myself every moment I was consumed by agony or fear or humiliation. Why was I the one whose soul was forfeit? Why was my name tarnished for a mortal mistake of something I did not understand and couldn’t possibly comprehend? Why, when people think of me it is as a warning as I am blamed for what was unleashed.”

Grant frowned. It was the most she had ever spoken of her past life. Despite the tranquility in her face, the anger, betrayal, and terror remained.

She walked over to him and Grant turned away. She moved to touch him, hesitated, then clasped his hand in hers. Her touch was always a dichotomy of hot and cold. Difficult to reconcile.

“Ours is not to reason why, Grant. It simply is and, in that, all that matters is how you will continue forward.”

Grant shook his head. “No, no, no,” he muttered and turned to her, desperation in his eyes. “I times, don’t want it. I don’t want any of it.” He grabbed her arms with a frantic strength. “Please, please take it back!”

Her smile was sad and all-knowing. “If it was that simple, I never would have become a cautionary tale...” She cupped his cheek. The gesture should have been reassuring, loving even, but it was a hammer to the truth.

“Should a mistake made in ignorance damn one forever? Should one who is naivety personified be tasked with a relic that holds every undesirable aspect of the old world within it? Would it not be better to caution that person that she was sitting on a plague of horrors?”

“Then you should understand,” Grant all but shouted despite confusion over her words. “This is not right. All these people dying, they don’t deserve it.”

“Some do not. Others do. That is life. But whereas they had a chance, I never did.”

“Hope,” Grant started but she silenced him with a kiss.

“My sweet, sweet boy,” she murmured. “‘Hope’ is but my saving grace; it is not my name.”

She pulled away from him then and when Grant looked into her eyes, he saw what these six months had never showed him.

The truth.

From her words over these months to the ancient depth in her eyes, far older than any living thing should be and filled with pain beyond comprehension. Through no desire of his own, Grant’s mind replayed those few moments after he opened the chest; the things he’d seen. Lust. Avarice. Gluttony. Sloth. Wrath. Envy. Pride. And then a long-forgotten memory of a woman who had opened a jar, loosing all the sins into the world, closing it in time only to save hope.

“My God,” he whispered, shocked and horrified. “Pandora.”

Pandora shivered at the mention of her name. She nodded, turning away from him as she did. Wrapping her arms around herself, she remained silence for several minutes before she spoke and when she did, her voice was a husk of itself. Haunted. Damaged.

“When I opened the jar, every vile thing from the time before the flood flowed through me. I was torn apart, body and soul, trapped in a never-ending hell of torment and depravity. Whether I was in the Morningstar’s domain or its parallel, I do not know. All I know is that every second of my existence became misery without limit or reprieve. My suffering, Grant…” her voice caught and despite it all, Grant wanted to hold her, tell her it was okay. But his legs refused to move, his mind unable to fully process the revelation.

“But the stories…” he tried to say but nothing more came out. Pandora’s laugh was bitter, mocking.

“Truth is never what you read; that can always be massaged to fit the narrative of those who write it.”

“But how did it find me? And why?

Pandora shrugged. “Your pain, Grant. It is shines brilliantly, like a million others. Yours flared, at the exact moment its eyes looked in your direction. Call it fate or destiny—regardless, your voice was the loudest.”

“But…” Grant’s eyes drifted back to the images on the television. A mob of people had descended upon a suburban neighborhood; it was something out of a horror movie like The Purge. Or worse. Something out of Dante’s Inferno. “Why would you do this?”

“It was not I that placed the jar in your hands, nor opened it. And open it you did, despite the sliver of light that enticed you.”

Grant shook his head, fear and denial making his stomach feel like it was filled with lead. The burning at the back of his throat was bile building up in preparation for him to empty his guts. “But the people…”

A single tear slid down Pandora’s cheek. “I am only human, Grant. And, when it comes to facing an eternity of suffering or watching others die… I am not that selfless. Not anymore.”

What could he say to that? “Is there anything…anything we can do to put it back?”

Pandora wouldn’t meet his eyes when she said, “How do you suggest we put human nature back in the box?”

“So that’s it then?”

“What would you give to end this, Grant? Your life? That’s easy enough, isn’t it…or your soul?” She walked away, towards the other room, stopping just before stepping through the doorframe. “I am powerless, Grant. Only the person who opens the box can close it. And to do that, you must sacrifice everything.”

She turned towards him, a knowing and humorless smile on her face. “Are you willing to do that?”

**

By the time he woke the next morning, Pandora was gone. There was no note, and what little she had was gone. By instinct, Grant reached for the TV remote only to hesitate. What was the purpose of turning it on, watching the world devolve into chaos and pandemonium?

He spent the day on his deck, a bottle of bourbon as his sole companion. The glass was in one hand while the other steadied the handgun that rested on his thigh. Pandora’s box sat between his bare feet. He stared out at the manicured greenery that was his backyard. Not another soul for a half-mile. Peace and quiet, so far away from the city. But for how long? How long until what he saw—the fires, the riots, the violence—trickled out from the cities and suburbs all the way out here to him?

If I had just ended it…that voice was back. The same one that had his index finger sliding into the trigger guard, ready to end it, and not for the first time. The last few years had been unkind to him. Knowing that if he’d just listened to his gut and had just placed the chest back into the box and set it in a corner to waste away, millions of people wouldn’t be dead, dying, or forever scarred.

He glanced around at the lacquered deck, the custom-made patio furniture, and the massive window in his peripheral. It was his now, thanks to Pandora. It had become his first true home since before he enlisted.

But at what cost?

The snowball effect of The Madness had only gotten worse and, like any event, there was a point of no return where, if this wasn’t stop, humanity would destroy itself. Grant stared down at Pandora’s box. There was no thrum of power. No brilliant light. After the sins of humanity escaped, it was nothing more than an antique box of impeccable quality. Grant’s resentment grew and he nearly kicked it off the deck.

His mind wandered as the bright sunshine gave way to clouds and, eventually, a torrential rain. The winds blew sheets of it on the deck, but he was far enough away from the edge to stay dry. Still, Pandora’s last words refused to go away.

What was he willing to give? His life? His very existence? And what would it accomplish? Save a few people who were going to die anyway? Save society? The world? All for the price of an eternity of suffering.

Was he that man? To make the sacrifice for so many he didn’t know. Some who deserved to live? Others who deserved far worse deaths? At one time, he did. He fought for this country and the ideals he believed to be righteous. And where did that get him?

Did it matter? Did anything really matter?

Grant’s fingers slid around the grip of the handgun. The weight of it was comforting. Reassuring.

Pandora had been right. He had made a choice. A selfish one based in fear and doubt. And the world suffered for it.

He didn’t know when the tears started but he could barely see anything when he opened his eyes. If only the tears would wash away his sins. But it didn’t work that way.

Grant licked his lips, dry from the alcohol and probable dehydration. He could never make up for what he’d done, never bring back the millions already dead.

But he always had a choice.

Grant readjusted his grip on the handgun and slid his finger inside the trigger guard.

He didn’t hesitate.