The Mystery Box.

The world seems to be in a trance as she stopped moving. Her eyes were fixated on the object of her attraction. Not minding the crowd in the market square, Shade marched ahead to claim the old rusty-looking box. She had seen it in her dream.

As she got closer to the object, her mouth opened agape seeing there was no difference from the one she dreamt of. They look the same. Is this some kind of dream trick? She asked no one in particular.

A voice brought her back from her thoughtful land.

"It is $4". A woman said.

"Excuse me?" Shade asked, trying to understand what was going on.

"Are you not buying the box?" The woman queried.

Oh, she smiled. Her cheek, colorful from embarrassment. How could she forget what brought her here? She questioned the air around her.

"Hello, young woman." The seller spoke again with her face scrunched up. "Are you..."

"I'll take it". Shade said in a rush as she opened her purse to pay the woman.

The box was packaged and handed to her and Shade found her legs moving toward her home with the reason she came to the market forgotten.

As she walked home, she saw tons of seagulls and her mind went blank. She felt her legs stuck and a strange power around her. Her heartbeat ran up and she pushed her legs to walk faster not caring who she stepped on. She knew she needed to be home.

The moment she arrived home, her breathing became calmer, and the sweat that had taken over her body was gone in a flash. She kept the box on her bed as she hurried to shower, wore cloth, and came back to the room where she kept the box.

Pacing around the room with her eyes on the box, she tried remembering the dream she had, but she was faced with a blank mind. All that she remembered seeing was the box and the seagulls. Her fingers found their way to her mouth and she chewed on her fingernails repeatedly.

"It is just a box, right?" She asked no one in particular but a strange whimper came out.

Closing her eyes, Shade pinched herself to see if she was still on Earth. She was sure no one was in the room beside her. Then, where is the sound coming from? Her mind queried.

With a deep long breath, she walked towards her bed and opened up the box. To her greatest surprise, tons of seagulls flew out and surrounded her before they transformed into a strange slim figured glowing woman.

"You found the lost gift." The woman's voice rang out.

The lost what? She wanted to ask, but her mind was now a whirlwind of thoughts, some of which told her to run and the rest which assured her everything was alright. Her breath got hitched and her face reddish as she held on her chest. She needed to breathe, no doubt. "Where did she keep her inhaler?" her mind asks frantically. But, before she could move, the strange woman touched her, and her mind became clearer, and her breath calmed.

Staring at the woman, she asked, "Who are you?"

"I am your ancestral gift. I know you have lots of questions and I will answer them, but the main thing you need to know is that I am your ancestral guardian. Your ancestral great-grandmother had an abortion which was taboo to the gift she had so I had to live in darkness with her to pay for her crime when she died."

"What did my ancestral great-grandmother do?" Shade enquired again.

"She fell in love with a young man who had an accident when he heard she was pregnant. She was furious and blamed herself for killing him so she aborted the baby in her stomach before she died too and doing that was a taboo to the gift".

"And..." Shade asked again.

"I was locked up in her darkness to pay for the sin of killing herself."

"But why didn't you stop her and why did you come out now?" Shade enquired more.

"I tried stopping her but she was lost in love and was willing to suffer in the afterlife. And, I came out because she had finally paid for her crime of aborting her child and her soul is at rest."

"Errmm... What gift do you hold?" Shade asked.

"I hold the gift of life's positivity. Whatever positive thing you wish for will be yours as long as you don't commit a taboo, I will forever serve you and the gift I present is yours to have and your generations to come."

With her face filled with smiles, Shade stood up to hug the woman only to find out she can't be hugged. She is a spiritual being. How cool is that? She yelped.

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