My short stories

Discovery

"To discover yourself is to ignore what others believe and carve your own path in life." ~Rose4eva789

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Orion was a young man with a humble home and a beautiful garden. Every day, he would go out to prune his garden and water his plants. There were all sorts of plants, from patches of colourful blooms to ripened strawberry bushes as well as tall cherry blossoms and other fruiting trees.

This morning he was out to plant his new set of herbs and salads. While digging out a small hole for the first new plant, his shovel hit something hard under the earth. Curious, he took a closer look and noticed it was some sort of a box. He began digging it out, careful to not damage it in any way.

After doing so, he placed it down in front of him. The box was small but had beautiful engravings of flowers and birds on it. It had rusted due to age but one could tell that it was once as golden as the sun. Orion realised this was a time capsule, but when he tried to open the latch, it wouldn't budge. Guess it's so old that there is only one way to open this. A shame, it would've been a very lovely gift once cleaned and polished. He picked it up and took it closer to his home where the ground was covered in thick slabs of stone. Then, he dropped it.

The box smashed at once and its pieces littered all around him. From the box, out came a small notebook, a key, some old rusted coins, and a rolled-up sheet of paper tied with a thin brown piece of twine. Orion untied the paper first and unrolled it, revealing a hand-drawn map with an X at a location not too far from his home. Next, he opened up the notebook, pages filled with drawings and notes of this person's discoveries during their time. Close to the end of the notebook, he read "I believe the map from the old bottle I found a few days ago may lead to some kind of treasure, and the key will allow me to open it. It doesn't seem too far but, due to my illness, my wife refused to let me leave the house to find it. I only ever wanted to bring her happiness when she agreed to marry me but all I could ever give her was this measly tiny house that probably won't even last. I do wish this map lands with someone else worthy and benefits them greatly, unlike my failures." A tear slipped down from Orion's eye and landed on the page. How awful could the past have been to this poor fellow? He was more than determined to complete this person's discovery and decided to follow the map himself. Well, after planting his new plants!

Once that was done, he brought the map, the key and his shovel to the front of his house and began to follow it to where the X should be. While the landscape may be different now than back then, he found himself in the middle of the woods. At least it's somewhere here and not under a building. He thought to himself. After walking around a bit more, he finally came across a stone with an X on it. He hurried towards it, turned it over and began to dig into the soil below. It may have been minutes, it may have been an hour, but finally, he hit a chest. He dragged the chest out into the open of the forest and began to undo the latch using the key from the time capsule. It worked! Lifting the top of the chest, he was in awe at what was waiting for him inside. Gold coins, pearls, rubies and every other precious stone you could find.

I think I can finally leave my boring old job then, huh? Become a discoverer and travel the world for wonders like these. Rosemary would love this!

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A few days later, the treasure chest, its map and its key were sold to a museum for over £10M. He also received another mass of money for the old rusted coins from the time capsule. He kept a few small pearls from the chest and had them made into a jewellery set and an engagement ring for his new fiancée Rosemary who happily accepted him.

Life couldn't be any better. Orion thought to himself as he and his lover boarded a ferry that was to take them to where they'd always wanted to go: all around the world!
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I decided to make a much more happier story, seeing as the last was pretty depressing...

I hope you all enjoyed it, and until next time,

Lady Rose out~🌹