The Box

Dr. John Adler had always prided himself on his steady hands. As both mayor and pharmacist of MC City, calmness was his currency. But when screams tore through the evening air, his hands betrayed him—trembling as he gripped the pharmacy door.

Outside, the world had turned to nightmare.

A creature stood in the street, its skull-white face glowing like a sickly moon, its body a storm of black smoke that clawed at the pavement. John’s breath hitched. This wasn’t fear—it was *terror*, raw and primal, the kind that turns bones to water.

He scrambled for his handgun, the cold metal slipping in his sweat-slick grip. When he lurched back outside, the monster was *waiting*. Three shots rang out, each swallowed by the void of its form. The creature tilted its head, as if amused, and drifted closer. John’s knees buckled. The last thing he saw before darkness took him was the glint of his wedding ring, dull under the streetlights.

---

“*John.*”

His wife’s voice, sharp with worry, cut through the fog. He blinked up at Masha, her blonde hair haloed by the moon, her eyes wide but steady. Always steady.

“Was it… a dream?” he whispered, throat raw.

She shook her head, her hand brushing his cheek—a fleeting touch, warm against his clammy skin. “It left something,” she said, nodding to a black box on the ground. Its surface gleamed like oil, and for a heartbeat, John swore he saw his own reflection twist into something broken.

A voice slithered from the shadows of a nearby building: “*Open it.*”

Masha thrust a crumpled note into his hands. The words *“You can open it now”* blurred as John’s vision swam.

“Masha, you coward,” he choked out, laughing bitterly. Not at her—*never* at her—but at the absurdity of it all. The mayor, the pharmacist, the man who’d promised to protect this city, reduced to a pawn in some cruel game.

With a shaky breath, he pried open the box.

Inside lay a newborn, swaddled in threadbare cloth, its chest rising and falling in fragile rhythm. A crystal—smooth and iridescent—pulsed faintly against its heart. John’s own heart clenched. The baby’s eyes fluttered open, wide and impossibly blue, staring up at him with a trust that shattered something inside his chest.

“What… is this?” he breathed.

Masha’s hand found his shoulder, her voice softer now. “A beginning,” she said. But her grip tightened, and John knew what she wouldn’t say:

*Or an end.*