Mirror in the box

The morning was cold on Christmas day as Arlo awoke to a slight breeze entering his room through a broken window. The gaps in between Arlo’s many blankets allowed pockets of cold air to keep him awake through the night. He got out of bed and put on his favorite socks, Arlo only owns three pairs of socks but that's enough to make his feet warm as he walks down his wooden stairs that feel like ice in the winter, they crack and creek with every step. Arlo reminds himself that this Christmas will be like any other Christmas and he shouldn't expect much under the tree, as he gets downstairs the room is dark and just as cold as his bedroom. He notices a suspicious package sitting in the middle of the room, Arlo rushes towards the box wrapped in generic brown paper as he goes to open the box he feels like something is missing. Arlo is reminded of his past Christmases, remembering that the food is usually the best part of opening his underwhelming presents, usually, the presents are underwear and one or two things from the discount store. He turns on his old TV and goes to the kitchen looking for his mother expecting his favorite breakfast, eggs on toast. He notices more brown generic paper with an opened box in the kitchen, in the background, he sees a man on TV, he’s screaming and yelling holding a brown box just like the one found on Arlo’s floor. Curiously, Arlo stops thinking about breakfast to go turn up the man on the TV, it switches to a government official urging people to not open any suspicious brown packages. Arlo listens intently trying to figure out what the emergency warning is talking about. The clothesline hanger he uses for an antenna makes the pictures and sounds cut in and out. Arlo manages to overhear a few words saying bad things are happening to people who open the box. The TV cuts back to people in the streets screaming and yelling. Arlo is scared and yells out for his mother but no one replies, he sits in his poorly lit living room feeling the cold seep under his pajamas. After a while, he gets up to go outside to see if he can find someone to help him. Arlo opens the front door and finds his neighbors in the street talking to each other, in the distance he hears screams of agony from all angles coming over the rooftops of the houses. Arlo runs to his neighbors, as he struggles for words trying to tell them he can’t find his mother, before anyone could reply to Arlo, a wooden door comes flying past them narrowly missing them, he looks over to see a disgusting figure standing in his neighbor’s doorway, it’s dripping liquid from its ears and its face has what seems to be a human face hanging from its head, loose like an oversized piece of clothing on a small child. It starts running after a group of people standing in the street. Arlo’s neighbor grabs him and rushes him inside while more and more people start screaming in front of the house. They run to his neighbor’s bedroom and she yells to Arlo to help her push the bed up against the door. The older woman starts to cry as she huddles up in the corner of the small musky room. Arlo askes the woman has she seen his mother. She continues to sob and looks up at him shocked, she started talking with a fearful stutter in her voice and asked Arlo if his mother opened a brown box. Arlo told her that she was gone when he woke up, the fearful lady asked about the mysterious boxes as she started to panic, she grabbed him. Were there any opened packages in your house wrapped in brown paper? she asked him while intensely looking into his eyes. Arlo nodded his head up and down scared as the lady gripped tighter. She started to worry even more telling Arlo she has to look after him until they can find out what happened to his mother. Arlo asked the women what is happening? what are the brown boxes doing to people?. As she sobbed she started saying “I don’t know the government was telling people not to open the mysterious boxes found inside peoples homes. I woke up this morning to find a statue of my husband in the living room. At least I think it was my husband the statue had his face but his body looked muscular in some sort of formation flexing like a bodybuilder in a muscle competition.” She started to sob louder and told Arlo that she spoke to her best friend down the road and that her friend’s child opened one of those brown boxes and found a pickaxe and diamonds inside. Her husband opened another and found a legal document to a tool operating business, saying that he owned it. Arlo was confused and told the woman it doesn’t make any sense. She replied and said the scientists on the emergency warnings were saying the strange events could have something to do with the brown boxes. “Smart people from the government said that nothing was inside the boxes when they were scanned and only when someone opens them did something appear. They were urging people to leave them alone and said something about a double split experiment being inside.” Hours pass by and Arlo asked the lady if he can check if his mother is home yet. She replied to him “it’s too dangerous to go outside, you saw that thing coming out of Jerry’s house we have to stay safe inside until the government arrives.” As Nightfall arrives slowly, Arlo feels like days have gone by, he left his phone at home. He starts to worry that his mother might be trying to call him, The older woman is resting in the corner of the room, Arlo sees her phone placed next to her on the ground. He quietly sneaks over, still wearing his socks, they muffle his footsteps as he sneaks over and picks up the phone. Arlo attempts to ring his mother and as he presses the numbers on the phone it starts to reveal a slit in the middle of the screen. Half of the screen slides up while the other half slides down. There is a flesh-covered eye looking at him, As he looks into the eye he can hear whispers in his mind. It’s whispering to him “you got what you wanted Phone lover” and continues to echo an evil laugh inside Arlo’s mind. He holds in the urge to scream and drops the phone. Catching his breath, he slowly moves the bed quietly so the older woman doesn’t hear him. Arlo opens the door slowly and starts to approach the front door walking in pitch-black darkness. He moves slowly waving his hands around. Arlo touches something beside him as he searches for the front door. It feels wet and slimy, he realizes it’s someone’s arm, a loud screeching deafens Arlo as he gives up trying to be quiet and runs towards the front of the house. He slams into the front door and unlocks it, running out of the house as the screeching follows him.The street lights reveal creatures of all shapes and sizes wandering the street. The biggest one resembling a giant young boy with large festering flies crawling out of his back, it’s towering over a house. Arlo is frightened as he runs towards the front door of his home. He races inside and locks the front door hoping none of the creatures saw him. Arlo moves swiftly towards his phone to check if his mother has called. He whispers out loud as he moves quietly through the darkness “mother are you home yet” As Arlo opens his phone, he sees multiple emergency warnings but no missed calls. He starts reading the warnings, he realizes the older woman was right the government is saying that the boxes manifest people’s desires in a sick and twisted way and that as far they know every country in the world has received these mysterious boxes. Arlo drops to the ground feeling a deep heavy emptiness inside of his stomach. He realizes his mother might be dead, or worse turned into one of those creatures in front of his home. He approaches the front of the house and slightly moves the blinds aside so he can peek through the gap in the window. He sees a creature that resembles a lady walking in the street, it’s barely able to walk and is disgustingly out of proportion. Its lips are giant balloons and body parts are all different shapes and sizes, one long and short leg, one arm thinner than the other, the creature’s nose and eyes looked wounded like it was just fresh out of surgery. Arlo starts to weep softly remembering that his mother would say she wanted plastic surgery and would tell him all the time she wanted her body to look different. Arlo moves away from the window and sits on the couch continuing to cry. He slowly falls asleep with tears running down his face. The next morning he awakes to thousands of monsters screeching in the street. Arlo jumps up off the couch, he realizes what had happened wasn’t a nightmare, he quickly becomes sad again. Arlo lays down on the cold floor and stares at the brown box. Hours go by and Arlo hasn’t moved, staring at the box with no hope left inside. He doesn’t even have the willpower to even look at his phone to check for any more emergency warnings. Arlo’s eyes brighten as he jumps up, grabbing the box he sits down on the couch as the hope comes alive on his face. He starts to whisper over and over again“I wish I could go back in time before the boxes arrived I wish I could go back in time before the boxes arrived”. Arlo continued to whisper this for the rest of the day into the night. He slowly started to unwrap the brown paper, as he was still whispering. He stops and closes his eyes, and sees one last time “I wish I could go back in time before the boxes arrived” as he starts opening the box slowly... Arlo opens his eyes with an intense headache feeling like he’s slept for days. He starts screaming as he looks around to see a pile of bodies under his feet. Arlo looks up and notices he is in a dark valley, the moonlight is shining down into the valley revealing wet soil all around him and tags around the feet of hundreds of rotting dead bodies. A whisper echo’s in Arlo’s head “A time before boxes carry your dead”