Unpredictable

Chapter 3

I stared at the box, wide eyed. I watched as black marks, that looked like language, appeared character by character. I had be be sure I was delusioning. I'd pinch myself y'know, but the throb in my finger from the sliver told me I was plenty awake.
This is not a dream.
This is reality.
Of course, I'm still curious even with the obvious signs that I should probably not have any further dealings with it.
I glanced down at my finger and winced, the dumb box got me good, because my finger was bloody.
My attention back on the box, my hand crept forward slowly, I flicked the lid, and it's lid smacked the ground with a thump, causing the box and it's contents to clatter.
I'd skidded backwards on my butt as it clattered open, frightened by what might have been inside.
I saw something metallic, but old, with a black hole in it.
No, wait. Two holes.
This was a mask, one that looked like it was silver at some point, but time had taken its toll on it.
It had a long part below the eyes that covered the mouth, it looked like a crow's beak, only longer maybe?
I could see how it was once engraved even, with some sort of fancy design?
I moved forward, crouched down over the box on my knees, my hands grabbed that mask, and immediately I felt chilled.
I'm not just talking, oh you have chills down your spine.
Nah, y'see, I'm talking oh, I have chills everywhere.
I sat there, holding it in my hands and moving it around.
I saw something else in the box, it made my day.
A rock.
I lost my friend Herbie to the wierdos who keep chasing me around, but now I've got a new pet rock.
I grabbed the rock after I had put down the mask, and found it was a dark green and blue, in places it made dark teal colors where the blue and green met. It's coloring was so dark, it was hard to tell.
I stared at it, rolling it in my palms, something strange caught my eye.
There was an engraving on the stone, in the shape of what seemed to be a skeletal crow's head, facing forward.
My thoughts turned hopeful, but sad. I hope I don't ever have to lose this rock., its that pretty!
It doesn't need paint, just a name.
My wishes seemed to mumble from my mouth as I'd thought them, barely catching the end of my sentence.
I said that out loud.
I missed the faint glow from the stone, only feeling a strange pulse in my hand. Looking down at the stone, I realized I held it in the hand I'd gotten the sliver from. Before I could react, my eyes slammed shut.
Before I could ask my brain why, it just shut down, and wouldn't think as I crashed into sleep.
My last thought was  name for the rock.
Amery.

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"......"
There was a moment before a tiny shatter of glass could be heard, and a black smog poured from it before taking form in front of the child, a shadowy figure, staring down the the unconscious heap on the ground.
".............."
It wasn't known if the figure could speak or simply whose to not do so.
It moved, crouching down, it's own hand closed over the little girl's own,which held the stone. It was then it took note of the tiny sliver in her finger, the shadow seemed to shake it's head and sigh, before two tiny tendrils of shadow moved forward.
Moments later the sliver was gone, leaving a tender reddish area where the sliver once was.
The figure turned, and upon seeing the box, began to shake constantly.
If anyone else saw this, they'd think the being was afraid.
Wrong.
The box that kept him bound from the world for so long. He stopped moving strangely, and stared.
When the box lit up in flames, he still stared, until something caught the shade's eyes.
His stare caused the mask to change taking on a earlier form, to its former glory.
The shadow turned to the girl again, and stared.
She'd begun o stir, so the shadow made its move.
The black smog that gave him form had attached itself to the stone in the child's hand, pouring itself like a black stream into the strange rock.
A moment after, the girl awoke again.

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I'd awoken, finding strangely enough that hand that held that stone had blacked out.
I had found out that the box I found the mask in was charred and sizzled,faint trials of smoke being brushed aside by the breeze.
And the mask?
I'd stared, trying to separate facts from fiction, and try not to blame it on smoke inhalation.
The mask shining, glowing from sunlight that had managed to filter through the heavy overlapping of pine tree needles and branches. It had been restored, but how.
I could question why I blacked out, I assure you all in good time I will.
But for now.
I'd scattered forward quickly on my knees, not realizing I held the rock in my injured hand still.
It took two hands to lift up the mask, but before I could i need to place the rock down to do so. That's when I saw my hand, my hold hand looked somewhat pinkish, but when I looked for the sliver it wasn't there. Just a slightly reddish area, and it made me that happy I didn't stop to question how it mostly disapeared.
I was too happy to care.
But when I looked at the palm of my hand, that's where confusion began again.
A dark green mark was on my hand, in the shape of a circle with a green crescent in the middle.
The bottom of the crescent touched the circle, while the top of it as inside the circle but separate from it.
My confused gaze went back to the mask, finding my hands grasping it again, looking inside the mask at a smooth black surface, and some words on the inside caught my attention.
"Once a plague doctor, always a plague doctor."
What does that even mean?......