Weekly Wattpad Contest Entries

Mote of Destiny (#39)

The bell jangled as they pushed through the door, black hoodies drawn up to obscure their features. The five looked around nervously before, as one, they straightened their cowering posture and pushed the hoods back to reveal the individuals that made up Milah's Destiny. For two years solid, they had spent every week in the top five of the Billboard charts, every account on social media had millions of followers, they were trendsetters and tastemakers. They spent their free nights at Hollywood parties and movie premieres where crowds screamed and lights flashed. They were gods amongst mortals. Well, not quite. Not yet anyway.

As one, they slipped through the shop.  It seemed cast in a perpetual haze, a light that gave no warmth and barely illumination.  A creature starving amidst shadows.   Glass cases of various skulls, a tray of slightly tarnished jewelry, musty furnishings, and strange objet d'art.  This was Strange's Antiquities.  They had ventured into the deepest crevasses of the dark web and it was there they found mention of an item being sold at auction, a box said to be Pandora's Box.  Within, the article said, lie what storytellers had named 'hope' but what was suspected to be a Mote of Divinity.  The same stuff from which the Fruit of Knowledge was made.  A tiny fragment of ... God, The Infinite... whatever you wanted to call it.   The article was several years old, and they had spent millions to track its course, finally discovering it was here in this threadbare house of antiques and oddities. 

A large dark wood counter divided the shop from a curtained back area through which, faintly, the soft ghostly fingers of incense smoke was drifting. The long wooden block was intricately carved, a tableau depicting an ancient Egyptian funeral.  Mourners and musicians before the bearers of some personage of import, slaves bearing trays of treasures and leading animals to follow into the afterlife.   Upon its smooth surface, seemingly untouched by time and glossy to the point of reflecting their faces as they looked down at it, sat an unexpected item. 

Amidst the ancient, the mysterious, the curiosities and spookiness sat a small rubber dog toy.  A yellowish frog-like creature with bugged eyes and its tongue hanging out, its white belly marked with the words 'Squeeze for Service' in faded marker, it stared up at them with a goofy expression, seemingly content to wait for them to make the first move.  They glanced one to the other, each seeming to be waiting for someone else to reach for it.  With a huff of annoyance, the lead singer Rex Blackthorne (real name Ralph Woolford) snatched it up and gave it a squeeze.  The eyes bugged out further, the high-pitched honking squeal seeming far too loud and he set it down quickly. 

"Good afternoon." A warm feminine voice lifted from behind them. Turning, they saw a woman who met every expectation of the proprietor of a place called Strange's.   Not overly tall, nor short she walked the same central aisle that they had upon entering.   Her dress was dark in color, a simple and timeless sort of style that, like her face, seemed ageless.   A shawl of lace, glinting faintly with delicate beadwork was draped across her shoulders.  Icy blue eyes accented in heavy black eyeliner that complemented the deep almost black-purple wine coloring of her lips.    "You are Milah's Destiny, yes?"

"Yeah." Rex spoke up, a curl of his lip that she even pretended not to know them.  His heartbeat racing a bit, and he put an extra push of bravado to hide his nervousness at her sudden appearance. "That the uh... item we paid for?"

"This?"  She lifted her hands, between which sat a small box of wood and iron.  "Yes.  I am quite sad to see it go, but times are tough, you understand." She offered it out, her smile almost sweet despite the creepiness among which she stood.  As they looked at the box, everything around them seemed to draw toward it, the room shrinking, darkening, only the box seemed to hold any light at all.  It was an instant, a flight of imagination and gone before even it had really been consciously noticed. 

"You're not going to open it, of course."  The woman smiled wider, her teeth bright white against the framing of dark lip stain.   "That would be very bad." 

"Oh, no.  Course not."   Rex took the box and tucked it inside his jacket.   "Like you said, bad stuff."  he looked at the others who were gazing at the lump in his jacket with undisguised rapacity.  "Yeah, so, we got a concert tonight so we'll uh... we'll send you some tickets over."  Talking as they walked, pulling their hoods back up, they hurried out of the shop with their purchase and piled into their SUV. 

"Let me look..."  Jazmyne (real name Shirley Polk) reached for it. 

"Nah, bitch... you know what the book said.  Gotta get our shit together first."  Zedimore (his real name.  Mom was a Ghostbusters fan) sprawled out, his iPhone in hand, making sure there'd be ample recreational pharmaceuticals waiting at the arena.  If they were about to be gods, they were going to get LIT!

"Think about it... by this time tomorrow... there's nothing in the universe we can't have."  Awe in his voice, Rex pressed his hand against the box through his jacket, heart swelling with anticipation of the power he would soon command.  

Backstage that night, the band stood in a circle around the box, each feeling a slight twist in the belly, a nervous flutter as they each, as instructed, set a finger on the box and, as one, lifted the lid.   From within, a light emerged.  It hovered for a moment, a will-of-the-wisp entity that, as they watched, split into a quintet of ribbons that slid down over their hands, winding up their arms, warming their skin.  

Each felt the touch of divinity, of a great and immense power flowing into them.   The cornerstones of creation were theirs to manipulate.   It lasted only a minute perhaps, though what was time anymore?   Each member of the band inhaled the universe and exhaled out infinite possibilities.  The roar of the crowd called to them like thunder over the mountains.  They lifted their instruments, each shifting faintly like the waves of heat on Arizona blacktop before coalescing into perfection.   With the world as their plaything, they stepped forth, for what were gods without those who worshiped and lifted them up?   For their faithful, their most devout, they would bless them with beauty and peace and wisdom. Their music was like a light, golden and glittering, weaving into the souls of everyone who could hear them, filling them, lifting them, capturing their essence for all eternity. 

-   -   -   -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -

"So, you see, Sir... I think this shows that I'm more than qualified for a paid position."  Sarah Anne lifted her chin, her blonde hair drawn back in a simple ponytail, her blues devoid of heavy makeup, her black slacks and 'DEATHCO' polo shirt the same as every other intern he had. 

The man behind the desk smiled faintly as he looked over the file.   He had always enjoyed that old chestnut 'Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse' and this case was textbook.   The final concert of Milah's Destiny had ended with every soul in the stadium dead.  Suspicions ranged from an undetected gas leak to mass suicide.  The world had been mourning for months. Flowers and photos and plaques lined the fences of the closed-down Ultracenter.   A 65,000 seat monument to Death in the middle of a major city.  

"You captured the mote, I hope." 

"Yes, Sir. I put back at the end of the tunnel the very next day."  Laughing softly as she set the box of ancient wood and iron onto his desk and opened it, revealing long rows of hand-rolled cigarettes.  

He reached out and took one, the flick of a silvery Zippo setting flame to the end, the coiling smoke drifting from his nostrils as he watched her.   "I suppose I could arrange a full-time position." 

"Then I won't need this anymore."  Peeling her shirt over her head she rose and moved around his desk to sink into his lap.  "So, what position were you thinking of arranging for me, Sir?" 

Flirting with Death was the best part of working here.