Will Through Pain

Nate was already having a pretty bad day when the little blue goblin tired to kill him.

It had started when his boss had called me in on my day off for a lousy four-hour shift. To add it he had lent his car to his sister Kate for work while hers was getting work done.

This meant he had to take a car service and as he was making minimum wage, the trip was barely covered by what he had made that day.

Of course it was also the day when it seemed that every customer had needed help loading their cars. One woman had gotten a dozen 100 pd bags of concrete, standing there as he lifted each into the trunk of her SUV.

Another man had gotten had a custom made bathtub the size of a small boat and had arrived in a two door muscle car. He had also neglected to get any straps for the roof and so they had to make-do with twine and an massive roll of plastic wrap.

None of them had even tipped him; true they didn’t have to and it was policy to not accept any. It didn’t stopped them from pocketing them in his vest or palmed to him.

But no, no one had been feeling particularly generous today and so had just added to increasing warring patience. He would have likely sprinted out of the store if not for the fact that on most days he actually didn’t mind his job. There were days where he he liked it there especially since his coworkers were so friendly.

Today was just not one of those days.

So now here he was back home again as the late afternoon sun hung over head. Since it was Thursday, kids were still in school and so the suburb was quiet and empty as Nate made his way up the stone path to the one story building he shared with his sister.

The mail and deliveries for the day had already come, so he had no reason to be surprised when Nate found the parcel just sitting there.  It sat next to a FassPress box while the mailbox lid was held up with a couple of large envelopes.

His sister was always getting stuff in the mail from free samples from make-up companies or supplies for whatever new project she planned for her students. As a result, there wasn’t a day where they hadn’t gotten a package and so simply picked it up with other one as Nate made his way into the house.

The house was warm in contrast with the cool Autumn air outside as he shrugged off his jacket, haphazardly laying on top of an armchair. Nate deposited the mail on the kitchen table as he made his way into the kitchen.

One of Nate’s unofficial house duties had been to separate the mail for him and Kate, creating a pile of three letters for her. His was smaller technically, but it consisted of his new Mythoglory magazine.

This left the two packages, the FassPress box that according to the sender address was someplace in Los Angeles.

It was then did he realize that the brown paper package had nothing on it. No post mark, no address to them or from the sender. The box wa light as he picked it up, wrapped in brown paper like how they used to be. All that was missing was the string they tied around to carry it.

At this point it should be pointed out that anyone who had seen one of those thriller movies or a “Say Something, See Something” poster in a subway: this would be the part where common sense said to get that box the hell out as fast as possible.

So Nate really couldn’t tell you why, despite all common sense, he opened it…

All he could tell you was that as he held it in his hand, starring at it something itched at his mind. Before he knew what was happening, Nate was ripping, tearing, the paper off the box revealing a similarly plain brown box underneath.

There was no tape to keep the box closed likely relying on the paper to do so, making it easy for Nate simply lift the lid.

There was a small crack like a fire crack as blue smoke shot out of the box straight into his face. His eyes teared and as he began to cough, his chest hurting and his mind swimming. The smoke quickly spread and filled the room before it began to dissipate as quickly.

As it cleared, there floating in front of him was a little creature sitting on a cloud.

This day had started out bad enough, but this was on different scale all together.  There was an actual…thing, maybe the size of his fist, hovering not three feet above his kitchen table.

It, or he, or whatever looked like a tiny blue goblin with a long hooked nose and pointed ears that laid flat against its head. Which was nestled in a knit red toboggan hat with silver bells sowed into the material.  The rest of the outfit was made of dark leather and furs that were wrapped around his body firmly with a long wooden staff tied to its back.

The cloud itself was made of vapor of various blues ranging from colors dark enough to border on black to others that were more or less just white.  Occasionally he spotted a tiny spark of electricity that never left the confines of the creature's seat.

There it sat crossed legged as the little goblin opened its eyes revealing a pair of black orbs. All Nate could do was stand there stiff as board, bug eyed, as the creature stared back at me.

"Ah." a male voice sounding like gravel came its mouth while gripped the staff with one hand, removing it from its holster. "Now we can being."

And with a blood-curling scream, it leaped up at the young man…

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When Nate' sister would return home that night, she would be shocked to find their apartment ransacked.  Their furniture shredded and torn, pictures smashed, and their electronics broken or gutted.

She would find her brother hiding, stripped of any clothing, under his bed by following a trail of condiments, dressings, and toppings which he had slathered himself in.

Almost immediately she would call 911 with paramedics arriving fifteen minutes later, shortly followed by the police five minutes later when Mark became violent when the EMTs tried to remove him. 

Many neighbors would come out to watch as Mark, drugged and strapped to a gurney was loaded into an ambulance to be transported to the hospital.  The usual questions would be asked by the emergency personal and the officers alike:

Did your brother have a history of drugs or mental illness?  Had he ever acted this way before? Was he acting differently the lately?

Her answer would always be the same.  That no, nothing that happened to him made sense.

It would not be until a full hour after Kate had first found her brother when a decontamination truck would pull up to the house shortly followed by the first of three news vans. 

Because in the commotion, it had taken an officer some time to notice a plain brown package that laid forgotten on the floor of the apartment's sitting room.  The decontamination truck arriving after reports of a suspicious blue residue was found on the floor next to it. 

The new vans would arrive after a rookie officer had accidentally reported over the radio what had been printed on the bottom of the inside.

Et Per Dolorem.