The Box

It’s a Sunday afternoon in January and Vanessa is sitting in her bedroom watching TV. Vanessa is 21 years old and is attending college. She plans to graduate early, cutting a year off her college years and will have a degree in Sociology. She has a pretty normal life. She is still dating her high school sweetheart and they are both attending The University of California Berkeley.

After a few hours of watching TV, Vanessa decides to call Ben, her boyfriend, to see if he wants to come over to hang out. “Hey Babe” Is his answer. “Wanna come over?” She asks him. “Sure” he replied, “Be over in 15 minutes”. As she is waiting for him she decides to make them some snacks and walks to her kitchen. As she enters the kitchen, she hears her doorbell ring. This was very odd because Ben lived 10 minutes away and he never used the doorbell, he usually just walked right in, even if it was locked, since he had a key.

She walked to the door and looked out the window, there was no one there. She opened the door and looked around, nothing. It wasn’t until she went to close the door that she looked down and saw a package. She wasn’t expecting any packages and this one was very odd. It was wrapped in brown paper and had no marking from a delivery service. All that was on the box was “To: Vanessa.” She shrugged off her suspicions and just thought it was a friend pulling a prank and brought the package inside. She set it on the counter and continued on her task, making her and her boyfriend snacks.

At this point it had been 7 minutes and it would still be a bit until Ben showed up. Once Vanessa finished her snacks she sat at the table and started scrolling through her phone. Soon, though, curiosity began to get to her, it was as though the package was drawing her to it, begging her to open it and see what was inside.

She turned off her phone and set it on the table and walked over to the counter. She inspected the package more closely. It was not small but it wasn’t very big either. It was wrapped in brown paper and had a brown twine tied around it. The words that read her name were in dark green marker and were in the upper left hand corner of the box. She picked it up and it was almost weightless. She was confused at why such a large box for what seemed to be a very light weight item. She set it back down and decided to open it.

She slowly undid the twine and pulled it off. At this point Ben would be there in a few minutes so she figure just open it now and then she would see him. She threw the twin in the garbage and went on to peeling off the brown paper. As she did it was as though every piece taken off made it harder and harder for her to look away. Once all the paper was pulled off there sat a cardboard box with no markings. It was taped shut with brown paper tape and had nothing else showing from the outside. She grabbed a knife and cut the tape, being very careful not to damage anything that may be inside. She opened the flaps of the box and looked inside…

Ben walked into the house and went to the kitchen where he assumed Vanessa would be. As he rounded the corner all he saw in the kitchen was some snacks on a plate and some brown paper with an empty cardboard box. He looked all around the home and found no sign of her. He went back into the kitchen and looked in the box. At the bottom were some words written in dark green marker. “Look behind you” So this is what Ben did.

The Daily Californian: Two seniors from UC Berkeley went missing between Yesterday afternoon and this morning. Officers went to check the homes of Vanessa Smith and Ben Kingsley this morning after reports from Professors and friends said they had not heard from them. The home of Ben was empty and had no sign of a struggle. The home of Vanessa was similar except for a package wrapped in brown paper with a brown twine wrapped around it. It is not addressed to anyone and the police have taken it to the station to be put into evidence. If you have any information about the whereabouts of these 2 individuals please contact the Berkeley Police Department.