As I stared at the dark and brooding steel box sitting before me I cringed. I know all and every one of your secrets, it seemed to say. I turned in my chair, facing away from the box in front of me. With closed eyes, I hesitantly reached behind me with my right arm towards the ominous box. I gasped in shock as my warm fingers found the cool, smooth, metallic exterior of the box. This box was my enemy, yet it was my life. Passed down through every person throughout history, never opened, no one ever rifled through its contents, no sneaked sideway glances from it owners. No not owners, the box owned them; they were the owned, the servant, the slave to the mysterious box. No one in history, before history, and after history had, or ever will see the contents of this box. Except for me. Through birth I am the one the whole universe is relying on. To find what was lost, is lost and will be lost. The lost element is humanity. You can see the loss of this one vital element in your home, you can see it in the slump of your mother’s shoulders, the scars on your brothers back, the emptiness in your father’s eyes. You can see it in the streets; you can see it in the crumbling young girls lying in the gutters, the piles of the anonymous who supposedly defied the world, the overdosed druggies crawling after others asking for a spare penny to buy their precious substances. You can see it in the world, the sea’s that have turned red with the blood of the innocent, in the close-knit communities who would protect the community from the armed but would sacrifice their neighbour’s life for a higher rank in society.
Humanity has been lost for longer than time itself; of course it was once there, played in the sweet symphonies of the high notes of the violins paired with the subtle hint of piano, it was in the old dance, the smooth jumps and twirls as the dancers floated through the air, as if on clouds, it was in the onlookers as they smiled in joy and awe as the regarded the intricate steps and moves of the old dance. This dance is what the world holds onto because it is the only known thing older than humanity and time, this old dance from the old lost world was all people lived for in this time and was sought for because it was their only comfort, their only hope in living. When humanity was first lost the old music from the old world was played underground, the music, instead of being joyful, was a cold salute; it’s once vibrant notes, strained out of the old machines in pain and hatred, fuelling the hearts of the lost, those wishing to rebel to the higher archies.
As my flushed fingers trailed over the edges of the painful reminder fingering the intricate pattern that covered the icy frame and finally reaching the lock, my heart fluttered. Invisible threads spun from my heart reaching out towards the horror, their tiny hands reaching inside the lock and slowly turned their invisible key. I knew that it would take under a second to twist the lock but the world stopped. Wind flew pass my face picking up my free locks of loose hair, my head turned in circles, my eyes popping out of their sockets, my breathing racing, my body seizing up and suddenly it was calm, I was still hooked to the box by the invisible strands. My body leant forward in anticipation but fear restricted me. I was caught. I was caught between worlds.
