The Black Flames

Chapter 5 - The Box

What was PrismCare's box doing there? The thought scared Kiara.

With shaking fingers, she reached out to turn the box towards her.

"Miss, I will have to ask you to not touch the box," Officer Dan told her in a firm voice.

Taking in a deep breath, Kiara mustered her courage to speak,

"Ummm...officer, I have seen this box earlier. I may be able to help you open it."

Officer Dan stared at her blankly. Then, after a few moments, he asked her,

"Then not here, ma'am. Let me move this to my car. This is not going to be a public display. Only you may accompany me. The rest of you, if you have given your address and contact details to Officer Pritam, you can return to your homes," Dan pointed out to Pritam, who sat in the police car with the door open and his one leg hanging out.

Dan helped Kiara get up and sat her in the wheelchair as the crowd dispersed. Then he handed her the box, and Kiara kept it on her lap. He went around the wheelchair and started pushing, coming to a halt only in front of the car where Pritam sat scribbling away in a haphazard manner.

Pritam saw Dan and Kiara approach him and paused for a moment. Dan opened the boot of the car and placed the box safely inside. He then moved to the side to allow Kiara to work on it. Pritam came out of the car and closed the door behind him. He came back around to see what was going on.

Kiara punched in three-five-eight-eight, her birthday, but it didn't open.

Phew. I mean, why would my birthday be the pin? This cannot be my father's box. Kiara wondered as she tried to hold on to the box with shaking hands.

She looked at Dan, who held a poker face.

"You can try again, ma'am," Dan asked her.

She tried again, but the small screen above the dial pad displayed 'One attempt left.'

Maybe this was another box from the same company. After all, her father had left PrismCare Laboratories twelve years ago. Why would it work on a similar box?

But a little voice in her head told her to try once again. She was about to press five but froze. She recalled that it was her birthday, but in the American system of dates! She was punching in the American system.

She punched in five-three -eight-eight, and it clicked open.

So, this is my father's box! But...how? What was it doing in that plane? The thought made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

Cold white gas spilled out, hissing as it reached her hands. She upturned the lid and found three cylindrical glass containers with some amber liquid filling three-fourths of each. Every container had a steel top with a fingerprint and a keyhole.

Dan put his right hand inside the box, trying to pick up one, but it was getting stuck somewhere. He tried thrice and then gave up to avoid breaking it.

"May I, officer?" Kiara asked for his permission.

"Sure. You've done well so far," Dan agreed, raising his eyebrows.

Kiara held one of the glass containers and tried to move it. It held fast onto the cast in which it was safely placed. She tried to pry it loose by moving it clockwise and then anticlockwise, but the container didn't unlock. Realising something, she pressed the container slightly down into the box and moved it clockwise and then anticlockwise.

It came off smoothly in the second motion.

Without tilting the container, Kiara held it above her head to see what lay on the bottom of the container. There was just a hook to aid the locking mechanism, but the bottom had the PrismCare Labs logo imprinted.

Dan took the container from her hand and started inspecting it. Pritam stepped forward and started glancing at it, too.

"Can I look at it?" Pritam asked in his deep, husky voice.

Dan handed it over to him, and Pritam lifted it above his head to check the bottom of the container. Its amber liquid glistened in the sun, throwing a luminescent shadow on his face.

Dan abruptly grabbed Pritam's hand,

"Don't expose it to the sun. Didn't you see the cold gas and multiple layers of protection it was kept in? It clearly needs cooler temperatures."

Pritam lowered his hand and placed the glass container back into the box. He closed the lid and carried the box inside the car.

Dan turned to Kiara,

"So, how about you tell me how you know everything about this box?" He asked Kiara with an air of suspicion.

Kiara was speechless. She didn't know where to begin - on the day she first saw this box with her father, on the day her father told her about the topic of his research, or the day he was forced to quit PrismCare?

She decided to tell the truth, leaving out unnecessary details.

"So...Officer, this logo you see here," she pointed to the three circles and the triangle imprinted on the box, "this belongs to PrismCare Laboratories. My father used to work for them."

Words stuck in her throat, she struggled to reveal more.

"Okay. That's interesting. And this particular box belongs to your father?"

Kiara felt a drowning sensation in her chest as Dan spoke these words out loud.

How could Dad's box end up on the burnt plane? She thought.

The image of that charred body swam in front of her eyes, but she averted her gaze.

"I...I don't know," was all she could manage.

Sensing the building fear within her, Dan went quiet. He took a few seconds to choose his next words carefully,

"Ma'am, I am sorry, but I need to know more about your father. And we will need to take a sample of your DNA."

Kiara knew why that was needed, but Dan spelled it out anyway.

"We will have to match it with the bodies we recovered from that plane to see if your father was in there."

***

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