The Sacred Lamp

I lived in a small desert town. I was a quiet one and I usually kept to myself. I may come off oddly to others and I tend to come across as antisocial to many.

My family owned an old, rundown, and ancient shop that my family swore to fix up one day. My family tried but it still remained tattered. My family had been dealt a handful of misfortunes and setbacks. Outsiders didn't understand the hardships that my family went through and looked down upon us. Unfortunately, I was used to living this way and I long ago accepted that this was how life would be.

I was walking home from the shop one day when I heard a whisper come frome the dark alley I was passing.

"Sssssaaaaabbbbboooooooo…"

I had to tried to pass by without reacting, but the whisper of my name caused me to freeze as a chill of fear rolled through me. I had been around awhile to know to not look for any trouble. I forced myself to keep walking down the alley.

I looked up and saw a faint light getting brighter and brighter. Then out of the blue, a huge flash came from the sky. It blinded me just enough for me to have to rub my eyes and try to clear the fog that the light had caused. When my vision finally returned, a lamp was lying at my feet. It wasn't there before.

Curiously, I reached down for it and there was that foreboding feeling that warned me that I probably shouldn't touch it, but what harm could it do? My fingers just barely touched it when another flash illuminated my vision and surroundings.

I tried to shake it off being blinded yet again, but as I regained my vision, I noticed I was back in my family's shop I had just left. Confusion swamped me as I looked around to see if anything was out of place. I looked at the ground. Where was that lamp?

A small chuckle of disbelief burst out of me. It had to have been a dream. I must have nodded off at the shop. My father wouldn't be pleased about it, but he didn't need to know.

I looked around one last time and saw nothing out of place. I had been so certain I had already returned home. Sitting on the stool beside a table of antiques, I once again scanned the shop. It was filled with trinkets and oddities as expected. There was not a soul around.

"Odd," I grumbled, thinking about the dream in the alley. Everything had felt real. What had I been thinking about before dozing off?

Then I looked down and gasped as the lamp from the alley was there sitting right in my lap. Fear shot up my spine. What in the world? Where did that come from?

I tried to recall where or even how it was possible for it to pop up in the way that it did. Father did tell me a new shipment came in. This lamp had to be a part of it, right?

"Calm down, Sabo, it's just a lamp," I reassured myself, topping it off with a nervous laugh.

Warily, I eyed the strange lamp. I inspected the dingy metal and saw the impurities of cracks. There was nothing special about it. I sighed as I took the lamp in hand. I placed it in the basket with the other trinkets and oddities my father needed to inspect before putting it up to sell.

I surveyed the shop before walking out the door. I locked up the shop like I always did and departed with a strange sense of deja vu.

"It's just a lamp," I yet again assured myself, but it didn't ease the tension in my muscles.

It was a lot later than I anticipated. I usually returned by now. With everything that happened today, I just wanted to put it all behind me. I was looking forward to a good night's sleep and I was sure everything would be fine tomorrow.

Finally, I slipped into my bed, rolled over to shut the light, and jolted backwards in shock as the lamp sat on my nightstand like it had always been there and belonged there. My heart thudded in my chest and a thousand thoughts raced through my mind, but none of them could explain how the lamp was there.

I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them. Nope, the lamp was still there. I closed them again just in case and opened them to find the lamp hadn't disappeared.

This was not good. No, not good at all.

"It's just a lamp," I muttered to myself, shaking my head. I glared at the lamp as if it's existence offended me. "What harm could it do?"

There was no such thing as a magical lamp… or a haunted one. It was just a lamp. That was what I told myself as I forced myself to turn off the light. In the darkness, I could still make out the shape of the lamp.

It was just a lamp! I rolled my eyes and rolled my body away from the sight of it. Why was I getting myself worked up over this? It was nothing. There had to be a logical explanation why that bloody lamp was sitting on the nightstand. As I tried to think up an array of practical reasons, I distracted myself from that feeling of dread settling at the pit of stomach and I slowly fell asleep.

It took a bit to slip into dreamland. As I dreamed, I couldn’t help but notice that the whisper was back! As the voice grew, I shouted, "What do you want from me?!"

"I need your soul! I need to feed, I need YOU!"

I froze in fear. No, this can't be. Why me? I was just a simple man, trying to live a simple life. Who had I offended? Had my family offended anyone?

BOOM!

The flash struck yet again. The only difference was I was no longer in my bed. There was only desert surrounding me and I started sinking in the desert's sacred sand. No matter how hard I fought to keep myself above the sand. The sand continued to suck me into it's tight embrace. Engulfed in the desert's parched silence, I was nothing but another grain of sand in the wind.