“Open the box.”  It wasn’t a request, it was a demand.  And one I could not afford to ignore or question.  I reached out and picked up the box and stood for a moment with it in my hands.  “Open the box.”  The demand rang out again.  I looked down at the box; it was a plain brown box with a wide purple ribbon tied around it.  It almost looked like a Christmas present.  But that was impossible.  And I knew it; Christmas didn’t exist here.  “Open the box.”  The demand would not go away until I obeyed it.  I couldn’t refuse but I couldn’t obey.  “Open the box.”  I was in trouble and they knew it.  I lifted the box to look underneath it.  The ribbon didn’t have a beginning or an end.  It was like it was part of the brown box.  I frowned.  I turned the box around looking for some sort of opening that I could use as a peephole to see what was inside.  “Open the box.”  I vaguely wondered how long they would wait for me to open the box.  I continued to turn the box around.  There were no seams, no taped flaps; the box was a solid piece with the wide purple ribbon wrapped around it with no seams or un-tieable bows.  I shook my head and looked in front of me with an eyebrow raised.  “Open the box McConnell.”  I began to shake.  I can’t.  I put my ear up to the box but there was no sound, nothing shifted, nothing ticked, nothing rattled, nothing crinkled, nothing happened.  I looked back up.  I started to put the box down on the floor.  “OPEN THE BOX.”  The demand blasted through the room and shook the walls.  I gasped and put my hands and the box over my ears.  I took my hands and the box away from my ears.  Silence.  My ears were ringing and I began to tremble violently.  I shook the box.  Nothing.  It felt heavy though.  It weighed in my hands like sin.  “Open the box.”  I looked up and opened my mouth.  A screeching noise resounded in the room.  I put my hands and the box up to cover my ears again.  The screeching noise grew louder.  I looked over in amazement at my hand.  The box was making a noise.  I shut my mouth.  The noise stopped.  “Open the box.”  I shook the box violently.  Nothing.  I opened my mouth again as if to say something.  The screeching started again.  I put my ear up to the box.  The screeching continued.  But nothing shifted inside the box.  I closed my mouth.  Silence.  “Open the box.”  I shook my head.  “Open the box.”  I tried to untie the bow on top but it was like trying to untie your shoelaces when your fingers are frozen.  I tried to pull the seamless ribbon away from the box but that was like separating a five-year-old from a piece of candy.  I tried to tear through the un-ribboned sides of the box.  It seemed to give a little under my fingernails.  “Open the box.”  I dug in harder.  My fingernails began to splinter.  I felt blood on my fingertips.  But the box was giving under the pressure.  I continued to dig and scratch and claw and bleed at it.  A piece of the box came peeling off and fell on the floor.  “Open the box.”  I bent down and picked it up.  It had the color of cardboard but it didn’t look like cardboard.  “Open the box.”  I tore my eyes away from the piece of the box and looked at the portion of the box that I had been clawing at.  It pulsed.  I shivered and reached out my hand toward the dying portion of box.  I touched it and gritted my teeth.  It felt like flesh.  I closed my eyes and began to claw again.  “Open the box.”  My clawing grew desperate.  I moaned softly as more pieces of the box peeled off and fell to the floor.  The screeching sound made a small appearance, then subsided.  I continued to claw.  The box was coming apart.  “Open the box.”  My fingers suddenly met with no resistance.  I opened my eyes, there was a small hole in the box.  The ribbon had turned black.  The box was no longer brown but a bright, sickly red color.  I shuddered and put a finger in the hole and pulled.  The box opened and a bright white light spilled out.  I screamed and the world ended.

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