The Door, The Box, and the Crumbling Brick

The door begged me to open it, it was the only place I could go anyway. I slowly opened the creaking door and inside I could see nothing, I took a few cautious steps into the room and looked around. I saw a dark room with only a box inside. I debated whether to open the box, and eventually the curious side of me won. I cautiously stepped towards the box and lifted it slowly off the ground, careful not to shake it too much despite my hands shaking from excitement. I took the box outside to get a better look of it, finding that it was a strange box made out of wood with intricate carvings of humanlike figures on the sides. I tried to pry it open, finally giving up after what seemed like hours; I had the feeling that time didn’t function in this place. I tapped on the box a few times with my knuckles, it tempted me with a hollow *thok* sound. I started to kick at the dirt in boredom. Suddenly, my foot hit something that wasn’t dirt, I looked down, surprised that I had hit a stone panel with engravings similar to the ones on the wooden box. I was interested, I ran my fingers through the engravings, hoping that something would happen. Then, it hit me, I hurriedly picked up the box and set it on the panel, it fit perfectly. The floor underneath me started to shake, and then fell away to darkness.

I woke up with my head throbbing and all my limbs sore and bruised. I stared straight up into a bright dot on the ceiling. Was I dead? I didn’t feel dead, I tried to sit up, but my body protested and I fell back down. I lay still for another hour or so, the dot of light started to dim slightly. I tried sitting up again, this time with some success. I looked around, I seemed to have landed in a dimly lit cave, with only one path: down. I crawled on the ground until I got to the path. It was surprisingly warm, warmer than a dark underground cave should’ve been. I crawled a short way downwards until I saw the first hint of light coming from in front of me, I quickened my pace in hopes of escape from this place. As I veered around a corner, a vast landscape of a town was laid out in front of me. I stood up despite all my joints aching and gaped in awe at the view. Something seemed off about this place but I chose to ignore my gut instincts and kept on walking. Once I arrived in the town, I noticed what was off, there was no sound or anything moving in the town, it was completely deserted besides one large building in the center. Darkness seemed to shroud the building, swirling around it like thick fog. The curious child that I was, I ran towards it and slowly pushed open the door.

Inside the ominous entrance, I heard not quite human breathing but not quite animal either. I pushed the door open further and peered inside, the room was almost entirely populated by a giant machine which looked somewhat like a portal and a giant sleeping dragon. I thought to myself “Anywhere that portal will take me is probably better than this place” I slowly walked over to the control panel of the device, careful not to make any sound. I pressed a large red button that I hoped was not the self-destruct but was the ON button. The good news in this situation was that the portal didn’t explode. The bad news was that instead of exploding and taking the dragon down with me, the portal made a loud whirring noise and woke the dragon up. The dragons eyes slid open and for a second we were having a staring contest. Finally, I gave in first, the dragon was gone in a blink of an eye. I looked up to see the dragon perched on the ceiling beams, ready to pounce on his prey. The dragon lunged at me as I dove to the side and fell on my face. I felt the warm feeling of blood filling my nose and the metallic taste in my mouth. I looked behind me as the dragon recovered from its crash. Seeing this gave me an idea, it might get me killed but it was the only way that I might live. I lured the dragon to the other side of the room, again diving out of the way at the last second. I sprinted to the entrance of the portal, shouting insults at the dragon, as expected, it charged straight at me into the portal. I dove towards the control panel and slammed down on the big red button, closing the portal on the dragon, effectively slicing it in half. The half of the dragon on this side of the portal fell with a sickening thump. I pretended that I didn’t see that and powered the portal back up. I took a deep breath and stepped through the portal.

I heard the faint beeping noise of an alarm clock getting louder and louder, and I opened my eyes and saw my mother sitting at the foot of my bed. I was back in my room again, my bed soaked in sweat. My mom asked, “Did you have a bad dream?”

“Oh yeah, it went a little like this: The door begged me to open it, it was the only place I could go anyway……….”