The Wooden Box

The clock marked twelve past seven when the blizzard took hold of the mountain, pounding the woods with snow, ice, and wind.

Candle in hand, Helena walked to her library, tiptoeing through the legion of books on the floor. A task that annoyed her and yet had no care nor time to correct.

She stared at the fading portrait hanging over the fire with red, raw eyes with dark circles under them; her lips trembled as memories of her past life flooded her mind.

Thunder rattled the windows, dragging her away from the memories of a time when life was worth living, where God hadn't forsaken her. Where guilt didn't consume her every waking moment.

The loss of her daughter pushed Helena into the occult. Her reasoning was that If God had forfeited his love for her to the degree that he would take her daughter away, she had to respond in kind. A hundred-fold. Even if it brought the end of the world.

A tattered, dusty book sat on her desk, courtesy of one of her personal couriers. She ran her fingers on the worn-out leather cover, gold lettering showing itself.

"The obsidian death," she read out loud while opening the book, its pages harsh and yellow.

**

As she finished her second cup of coffee, Helena heard the hammering of knuckles meeting wood, weaving its way through the storm's violent screams. Someone was at the front door. Someone she wasn't expecting.

She reached for her late husband's rifle, which leaned against the corner behind the library's door. Years ago, he had taught her how to shoot it in case he had gone away on business.

"It is in the cover of darkness that man's vile nature shines the brightest," Helena remembered him telling her.

As she walked the cold halls of the residence, the warped floorboards creaked with her every step. She held the rifle in one hand, candle flame in the other, its flickering light producing shadows and silhouettes where there were none.

Who could be at the door this late at night and in the middle of a blizzard? A neighbor? Unlikely.

Her nearest neighbor was miles away. Something she cherished, even if it meant loneliness.

Self-entitled men? It wouldn't be the first time.

In the past, men attempted to take possession of her home, the family fortune, and her.

Believing that because she was a widowed woman, she wouldn't have any means of protection. That would have been the case when she had a daughter and depended on her husband to protect her. Back when she was frail and weak. When her heart didn't run on death and hatred instead of life and love. But that isn't the case anymore.

The reek of ammonia filled the lower level of the home, stinging her nose with each step she took to the kitchen, where dry meat hung from hooks. Helena peeked from the kitchen window, a vantage point allowing her to scan the back of the home. But there was nobody there. Which she took as good news. Bandits could have hidden, waited until she opened the door, and attacked her.

Helena moved towards the sitting room; the furniture sat under moth-eaten sheets, and old boxes covered the slanted floor. The dim glow from the candle flame illuminated half the room, the other half deep in the darkness. She could feel as if something watching her from those unholy corners.

Helena peeked out the window, using the frayed drapes as cover, and found a wooden chest waiting for her about ten steps away from the entrance. Not a sliver of snow on it.

She opened the door, took a quick step back, allowing the unrelenting wind to slam it wide open, and stepped out, barrel-leading her.

The air was so crisp it hurt her nostrils and numbed her fingers. The wind attacked her face, bombarding her with frozen pellets that clung to her hair and eyelashes. The snow crunching underfoot with every step.

Helena swung the rifle over her shoulder, lifted the box, and returned home.

Once inside, Helena stared at the sitting room’s dark corner. She had always felt uneasy about it, but this time she was almost convinced that something stood there, watching her, waiting. Something not of this world. Something violent. Something evil.

She was right.

**

Helena walked around her studio shivering, rubbing a towel through her hair. The rifle was again in its rightful place, leaning on the corner behind the library door; the trunk sat on her desk. A message attached to it.

A piece of paper stating, "it is time."

She snapped the trunk's latches and opened the lid. A scarlet light blazed from the box, seizing the room.

This wasn't the first time Helena had gone through this. Her pain, hatred, and willingness to watch the world burn had opened a door for something intending to destroy the world. She would become a vessel, and this was the last innocent soul that she needed to devour to bring out the end of the world. The obsidian dea

She snapped the trunk's latches and opened the lid. A scarlet light blazed from the box, seizing

This wasn't the first time Helena had gone through this. Her pain, hatred, and willingness to watch the world burn had opened a door for something intending to destroy the world.

She would become a vessel, and this was the last innocent soul that she needed to devour to bring out the end of the world. The obsidian death.

Like a cannon, screams shot out from the box, startling Helena. The desperate cries of a too-familiar voice. Her dead daughter's.

Helena stumbled back, falling on the wooden floor. Her eyes widened and flooded with tears. Her mouth dropped, heart wanted out of her chest, lungs gasped for air, and her soul searched for an explanation.

"Casey?" Helena asked. Her daughter's screams pierced her ears.

“Why is my daughter in the box?

Please don’t. I don’t want to do this.”

"Not her." Helena pleaded.

"Please, not my daughter. Anyone but her."

The reek of rotten eggs suffocated the room, and a thick sinister liquid leaked from the corner of the library.

"DO AS YOU'RE TOLD," An ear-splitting voice shouted from the dark corner.

"No! I will no have my daughter's soul be ripped apart for all eternity! I will not do this!"

Helena ran to the opposite corner, reaching behind the door, and snatched the rifle. Brought the barrel to face her. Her finger wrapped around the trigger, bracing at her last moment.

"I WILL NOT TOLERATE ANY CHILDISH BEHAVIOR BY THE LIKES OF YOU. YOU WILL DEVOUR THE SOUL AND OPEN THE GATE, BECOME MY VESSEL, SO THE WORLD MIGHT KNOW ME."

Helena woke up in an empty dark space.

"Hello," She called, her shaky voice echoing in the vast void.

"Is there anyone who can help me?"

She could see light in the distance and sprinted toward it, looking for any way out of the darkness.

As she finally reached the light, Helena noticed she hovered over her physical body. It just stood there, powerless, lifeless, hollow.

"What is happening?! Why can't I move?! Please move!" She pleaded, sobbing, pounding on a wall of nothingness, as her lifeless body moved toward the darkened corner.

She saw her body's bones snap, jerking her, tearing her skin, and ram-like horns ripped through her skull, bathing her in crimson.

The demon had taken hold of her body.

It took a sharp breath in, taking a second to take it all in before shivering with pleasure.

The beast turned its sights on the scarlet light in the box.

Helena screamed, trying to return to her body, powerless against a force she foolishly believed she understood.

The demon took the light from the trunk as it unhinged its jaws, tearing the skin, exposing the innards of her mouth, and swallowing her daughter's soul whole. Her screams now muffled as her spirit passed through the fiend's throat.

Helena screamed and sobbed while she witnessed her daughter's soul's fate. Destined to be torn apart until the end of times.

The demon chuckled in celebration, the obsidian death was here, but he was interrupted. The click-clack of horse's hooves rained from the sky, immediately followed by the buzzing of trumpets.

The four horsemen had arrived.