Pandora's Box

My name is Pandora… Yeah I know, that’s a weird name isn’t it? My mom couldn’t chose a normal name like Danielle, or Chelsea. Oh well, it doesn’t matter too much anyways. I am sixteen years old I live with my mother and my brother, my dad left us a while ago. I have two best friends, Amber and Hope, I suppose we became friends because of our unusual names. We always hang out together, they’re both a little weird, but there’s nothing wrong with them. Hope has brown eyes, jet black hair, and is the tallest out of all of us. Amber has bright red hair, she dyed it a while ago after an accident she’s somewhat the leader of our group. And me? Just the shortest girl in our grade, I also have blonde, wavy hair and green eyes.

“So, what do we want to do this weekend?” Hope asked.

“I don’t know…” Amber said in annoyance.

“I heard there was a fair this weekend,” I suggested, “should we go?”

 

We all agreed to go tonight and we could hang out if we got bored this weekend. Amber and Hope came back to my place to hang out before we left.

My little brother then decides to barge into my room, “Mom says you gotta do your homework and clean your room before you go anywhere,” he said.

I sighed, he was such a pest. Luckily, my friends agreed to help me out. We did our homework, and they helped me clean my room. Afterwards we left for the fair.

 

There wasn’t much that was interesting there. Just a bunch of cheap rides and games, there were a few things to buy, but nothing interesting. One thing did catch my eye though, it looked like a music box. It was beautiful, it was mahogany colored with gold edges and a strange pattern on top. The more I looked at it, the more captivating it became. I asked the man who was selling it how much it was, he told me to just take it. I wasn’t sure why he didn’t want it that badly, but I took it otherwise. I showed my friends the box, and we kept going. We stopped at a fortune telling booth, just for laughs. Hope went in first, then Amber, finally me.

 

I went in with the box and the lady in the booth looked at me in shock.

“Where did you get that box?” she said.

“Oh, I uh-” I said, trying to get my words out.

“Give it to me!” she said in an angry tone, and reached out for it.

I quickly pulled it away from her grasp, “No!” I yelled.

“You have no idea what power that box possess!” she yelled at me.

This woman was crazy, I just turned around and left.

“Whatever you do! Do not open the box!!” she yelled at me as I left. I rolled my eyes, and told Amber and Hope we should just leave.

 

We left and all went home, I got home late and put the box near my bedside. I decided to try to open it up in the morning.

 

I woke up after a night’s sleep, it was Saturday morning, so I had nothing to do. I got up and decided to open the box. What? Why couldn’t it open? It felt like it was hinged shut, I tried prying the lid off the box; nothing worked.

I flipped the box, there was some words on the bottom of the box. It was a different language, Latin maybe?

“Nunc omnia mala mundi salutem, et in conspectu mors mihi.”

The lid suddenly flipped open by itself and a burst of green light hit my eyes. I couldn’t see anything for a while, the light was too bright. After the light was dimmed I saw the box was closed; it became closed tight again. What was that? Why did the box do that? Or was that just my imagination?

 

My eyes started to hurt; I went up to my mirror and looked at my eyes. They were red, not bloodshot red, my iris’ were red. They weren’t green anymore, they were crimson red. Why were they red? Why did this happen? So many questions ran through my mind. I went downstairs to ask my mother for help. When I went to look for her, I saw her, but it wasn’t her regular self. She was all black, she looked like a shadow, i only saw her eyes. What the hell? Why did she look like that? I turned to get my brother, he was in his room on the floor playing video games. He turned to me, he looked like a skeleton with clothes on. I ran out the door afterwards. I decided to go back to the fairgrounds, I wanted to go talk to the fortune teller; she probably knows what’s wrong.

 

I walked around with the box and found the the fortune teller. She glared at me, and sighed. She signaled me to come into her tent. I walked in and sat down, she searched for a piece of paper and wrote down some words. She told me to say the words written down.

 

“Si omnia, quae claudat arca archa liberatus sum usque ad mortem,” I said. The box had opened again and sucked everything back into the box. It closed forever, I thanked the woman and left. I went home with the box, I decided to just keep it and possibly burn it later. I asked my mom what we were having for dinner, she came up the stairs and asked why I ran out so quickly like that.

 

……………………

 

My mother was still the monster I saw before. She still was a black figure with two eyes, nothing more.

“Yeah! We were worried,” I heard my brother say. I turned around and saw he was still the same monster too. I ran into my room and looked in the mirror. My eyes were still red; why didn’t the spell work?! I said the words she wanted me to. The fortune teller, did she give me the wrong chant?

I went back to the fairgrounds, I couldn’t find her booth anywhere. She was gone, I never saw her again. I was stuck like this, forever. And that is the story of how I unleashed the evil of the world with Pandora’s Box.