Dark Flutters: Stories for a Moonless Night

Caveat Emptor

Caveat Emptor

Somewhere in South America, a door opens. Light trickles into a chamber that hasn’t gasped fresh air since the world was new.

The shaft of light penetrates carved runes that line the walls. They reflect the light back, casting ancient shadows that seem to dance gleefully around the walls.

The jet-black shades seem to churn faster and faster until they congeal across the base of the room. Their inky mass absorbing into the mineral-enriched floor, as the stonework shifts against its self. A fissure forms, causing the rest of the darkness to slip down into depths unknown.

A breath shudders through the room, like the first gasp of air from a choking man. It has awakened. After three millennium of waiting, the time has come for the sleeping behemoth to rise once more.

Slowly, it emerges, flexing its powers. The world has just been handed a ticking time bomb.

Silently, that bomb ticks down, as the behemoth prepares to release its potential onto the unsuspecting world.

***

Grant sat in the small hotel room and stared down at the locked wooded box.

Jade glanced over at him in horror. “I can’t believe you. How could you buy that thing?”

He looked at her and shrugged. “I thought it would make a good conversation piece.”

She looked away in disgust. “You heard what the shopkeeper said; opening that box will only bring about the end of the world.”

He rolled his eyes. “Please, Jade. That’s only a ruse to scare the tourists.”

She glanced at the box nervously. “I don’t know. He seemed pretty serious to me.”

Grant smiled condescendingly at her. “Really, Jade, grow up. Seriously, what’s the worst that could happen?” he asked as he slid the key into the lock and opened the box.