The Box

The box, the door, the crumbling brick wall. It begged me to enter.
Each carefully carved crevice of the corner block building was wistfully curated by dancing wind and troubling water and scorn. My eyes of blue and sapphire shifted with endless curiosity, their swift movement calculated by my ever pressing and dangerously adventurous ego. Clenched between my fingers, borne with salt and muddy, red clay. The box with lay.
Its figure indescribable, wood bowed, yet flush. The dark ebony of cherry and obsidian glown. Seeming tainted, yet firmly polished, as if by winter snow. Along its sizable exterior, a silver lock, stained with only dust, ready to be opened. It begged and yelped in painful sentiment. Its pained expression lapsing across my reflective eyes. Crazed by the purging ambition.
With an unsteadied hand, that shook like the autumn leaves, my wiry, pale fingers grasped the muddled handle. Turning, I jerked in a flash, sending the crumbling door inward, with a burst of ivory dust. My feet were guided by a force beyond my own, the path etched into my very skull. The foyer’s once white walls now stained with mold and lichen, threshes of vine and ivy thrusting between the plaster cracks. A red velvet couch, once of pristine wealth, now split, the stuffing bursting from the ancient crust. Maple tables lined with cracked and injured limbs, stumbling towards the ground with each ebbing day.
To each side of mine, the corridors lead to darker rooms, the frames of cherry wood. The room was chilled, goose bumps forming along my pale sides. My nostrils flared, head shifted, panning the room of scents. My heart thudded loudly along my chest. Final pleased with my view of the oldened room, my blood stricken eyes wandered not far to find the marble steps, a testament to the foyer’s former glory.
Dashing, my bare feet silent over the glass and tile. Between my destination and gentle, yet vicious stride, lay the diamond glass chandelier. Wire and pattern tumbled about the mighty silver crown. Candles strewn like fallen men, melted and crushed from years of creatures neglect. With a brilliant leap my scrawny form was beyond the obstacle, my movements inhuman, and far from natural. With little effort, I chambered up the slick steps, steep and crooked, though I did not mind.
Coming to the top, I stopped. Not in a halt, or slip, but a purposeful, fabricated manner. Much of the building here was open, the side collapsed and turned to ash by flame. The ruins of board and once white plaster now a skeleton to a rather dead and defeated creature. The room now open to the world beyond, the wind tumbled my rather thin dress. The pale fabric dotted and laced with marks of chalky soil and the blood of scrapes and bruises.
My fingers trembled, the box weighing my shoulders down and sore. My jaws clenched, the world a dizzy mess of facade and color, lacking all the same. Before the door, he stood. His collar crisp and dazzling, the suit ironed without wrinkle. Then his face, sharp and cold, dignified, yet heartless. My scream escaped my lips for only a moment, before my ears popped under the rush of sound, and the pain seized my chest. I felt the air slip from my lungs, the rush from behind, before the world cut black, the marble stairs just to hard, for all one day shall die.

Pale fingers reached along the girls frail arm, lightly pulling her bloody fingers from the precious cargo. Splayed across the marble stairs, her eyes lifelessly staring towards the darkened world. With little effort, he pulled the box from her hands, it was heavy, yet light. With no remorse, and no compassion he left her. Why something so important, had little time to waste.