Music Box

In a freak accident 3 people were killed in a house fire. The fire seemed to have sparked by a little boy playing with a small cigar box in the family’s personal library. The fire clamed the entire house in a matter of minutes, and it was fatal. The only survivor of the deadly inferno was me. I wish that the fire would’ve taken my life that day.

I was relocated to a small town near the border of Washington; it was the home of my aunt. My aunt had inherited a portion of my mother’s immense fortune for taking me under her wing. With this newly acquired money, she bought a monster of a house. The house was deemed “blighted and “neglected” so she got some sort of prices reduction on it. I, personally, thought it was beautiful. I was given the basement, and she reigned over all the other 6 rooms.

My aunt and I never talked. She even went so far as to buy me a small refrigerator, to minimize my trips to the upstairs kitchen. This way neither of us had to speak to each other, which was perfectly fine with me. My aunt has a certain… disagreeable nature, if you will.

That beautiful house remained horribly neglected. My aunt did not re-paint the outside walls, she didn’t water the lawn, and she didn’t perform her daily womanly tasks… such as washing windows, vacuuming and mopping floors, or polishing and dusting the wooden furniture. Myself, being obsessed with cleanliness, kept the basement utterly spotless. It was a shame that such a hauntingly magnificent mansion fell in her careless possession. The house was not so much an abode as a work of art.

The hardest thing to deal with during the first year of my new lifestyle was the loneliness. Call me heartless, but I couldn’t bear to life without my beloved eldest brother. We were very close. He died in his bed, never waking. His face was so calm, so content in exploring the subconscious. He died without a single moan or scream. The fire caught on his bed sheets, dancing on top of him, lightly and warmly. I often pondered, during that first year, what he could have been dreaming so peacefully about. I also, perhaps just as often, was plagued by his face as the flames burnt through his cheeks.

My aunt thought that I had murdered my family. I cannot say that I disagree with her. Perhaps I lit that box of gasoline-soaked newsprint with the intent to take the life of my closest kin. That is the main reason why she disliked speaking to me. Fear, maybe. If this theory is correct, then it is highly probable that this is also the cause of her boyfriend, the dear policeman. Shortly after I moved in, she began dating this horrendous policeman, he was short and he had a fuse about as long as a midgets small finger. I would often hear his screeching voice scolding my poor aunt. Yet, she still screwed him. As a result he kept coming. I fear this was my fault too. She couldn’t stand to be in the house alone with me. That bastard of a policeman was always lingering around her. She sexually pleased him for protection. Isn’t it amusing how much somebody will offer for 5 more minutes of the life they have so carelessly wasted until the moment that they knew they would never see the light of day again?

Well, my dear aunt didn’t have to suffer with this horrendous man for long. He tripped traveling down the rather steep stairway to the basement, and fell upon a knife I  taped vertically to the floor at the foot of the stairs. My aunt was convinced I had killed him as well. I’d have to be insane to disagree. Perhaps I’m loosing my edge.

Everything was going wonderfully after that incident. Up until the third day of the third month of the year 1981. That is the day my aunt hung this extravagant mirror on the wall in the main hallway. As I passed the mirror, an unfamiliar face caught my eye. The face was young and the eyes were large and child-like. The person in the glass dimension was a boy with stringy black hair and yellowed eyes, and he wore a faded blue sweatshirt that looked two sizes too big. He stared at me and then slowly and almost ceremoniously reached a hand to the glass. I wearily stretched my hand to his, pushing against the reflective glass. I noticed a peculiar sound and pulled away from the mirror. It was a hauntingly cheerful sound, that of which a music box makes when opened. I closed my eyes and pictured a small box with a little ballerina inside, forever dancing for an invisible audience.

Following the noise, I crept up the stairs. The tune grew louder, until I could no longer hear myself think. The repetitive nature of the song awakened some long forgotten memory of my childhood. Infuriated by the intimate objects interference with my mind, I searched more desperately for the small box. Snatching a gold-painted letter opener from my aunt’s desk, I snuck into her bedroom.

That’s where I found it. I was positive the hideous creature struggling on the bed was my dear aunt, but it looked only vaguely like her. Her face was bloated and round, discolored to a pale grey color. Her slender black veins shone through her skin, giving it a mysterious transparent look. Her eyes were rolled back into her skull, and she moved unnaturally on the bed, arching her bed as if her limbs were bound to the bedposts. Her mouth was oddly shaped, crookedly opened and her tongue was missing. Out of her mouth played the cheerful little tune, as loud as ever. I shoved the letter opener through her jaw, and with a sick croaking sound she slowly stopped twitching and lay still as silence overtook me. Unsheathing the letter opener from her crooked face I crawled down the stairs to the study, hugging my knees. I inflicted a small cut on my forehead, and smiled blissfully as the pain drowned out my memories of her ghastly appearance. The blood flowed steadily for a while, caking my right eyebrow with blood, and running on my eyelid, making it too heavy to hold open. This is how the policeman found me. Beaten, bruised, and seemingly innocent.

5 months passed. I was fine, no nightmares, no loneliness issues and my uncle (of whom I was currently staying with) showed an unfamiliar amount of affection toward me.

On September 12, 1981 the music box finally found me. I was in a deep sleep this time, and it awakened me to follow its alluring sound. I tracked it to the living room where my uncle lay on his recliner armchair, drunk and tired. As I was reintroduced to the same look as my aunt fear overtook my senses. I broke an empty bottle of alcohol on the end table and shoved it down his cheerful tune-emitting throat. He looked, freakishly calm, into my blue eyes with his pupil-less ones. His tongue shoved against the intruding bottle until the instant the bottle ripped past his tonsils, but his body was still all throughout. After regaining my composure, I beat myself within inches of my life again.

I was moved to a small apartment in Utah, and was given all the money my parents possessed. The apartment was run down, but it was good enough for a lonely teenager to live in.

On April 3, 1982, I was bathing when the song came to haunt my abused mind again. I saw my reflection in the faucet and screamed. It was a ghastly grey color and my face was misshapen. I looked around, coming face to face with my six victims. I leaned in closer to the faucet and touched my transparent grey skin, but my reflection did not move. It only stared at me, mouth agape, mocking me!

A boy stumbled into the steamy bathroom. He had stringy black hair and his yellow eyes narrowed as he saw me. He flicked his wrist, and the blade of a knife that was hidden by his long sleeves gleamed. He was the boy I had met in my aunts beautifully macabre mirror.

“You’ve been bad,” he scolded as he thrust the knife into my bare, unprotected chest and pulled the blade upwards, tearing my skin in a most painful way. He violently pulled the knife from my body and smiled childishly.

“…Farewell my music box.”


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END.