[died]: 679.Key to the Dark Abyss

With a shake, Taren put her ear to the gift. Nothing! There was only one reason for the sound of nothing. One: There was so much wrapping inside that it softened the sound of the item inside, but why use a big box for a tiny gift?
Taren pondered for a moment. Then shook the box harder and faster. Final a faint sound was heard from it. Was it a jingle or was it a squeak? Taren stopped shaking the box hoping that she didn’t hurt anything inside.
Taren pondered more … Her eyebrows met in a hardened face. She could not find out who this Auntie Josie was who set it to her. IN ADDITION, why now send a gift unexceptly like this, Taren’s birthday had already past and Christmas was a good five months away…
“Maybe I could open it, and find out what it is? But I have to remember to put the wrapping back on.” spoke Taren to herself.
Her eyes brightened to the chase of opening the gift. Taren took the wrapping off in a whorl of motion. There stood a normal brown deliver box. No hint, nothing, as to what was inside. Then… again, there was the faint jingle or squeak as through something wanted out. Maybe it was a puppy or a kitten… No! There were no holes in the box…
“Taren, darling… Where is that positively, grand gift, you got?” shrieked Grandmazie. She was as crazy as a bat, as blind as a bat, as deaf as a bat; well… she is just a bat.
“Oh! Grandmazie… He..He..He.. I didn’t know you were here, I thought you went with mother to the store?” noted Taren with her teeth clanked hoping that she didn’t see the ripped up present behind her.
“NO! Your mother wanted someone to watch the present, so I stayed!!” shrieked Grandmazie again.
“It is in your room, Grandmazie. Why don’t you go lie on your bed and watch it?”
“YES, YES darling!! I think I will!” Grandmazie turned to walk to her room at a turtle pace her walker hitting the ground with a loud thump each time.
Taren sighed and turned to the present, saying under her breath, “I think too much to myself.”
The present stayed just as it was before, but the tape was straining to open as if something wanted out. Then, again, was the jingling squeak, but louder and stronger. Taren turned the boxes to it side. Digging her nails under the tape, Taren ripped it off. Waiting for something to happening, Taren stepped back… Nothing!!She stepped forward and ripped the top off… and there lying at the very bottom, all by itself, layed…
“A Key?!” shouted Taren and clapped her hands to her mouth. She ran from the dining room to the hall on the left, stopping at the third oak door to the right. She pressed her ear to the door, there was a faint snoozing.
‘Good, Grandmazie is still asleep.’
Taren sidestepped back into the dining room. She looked back into the box, but the key was gone! Taren dropped to the floor to look under the table… nada. Taren was scaried that she had lost the key. She jumped up and saw the key laying on the table with a silent air around it.
“How did that get there?” wondered Taren.
She picked it up by the black ring attached to it. However, as she looked at it, Taren noticed that it was different from normal keys. There was a “d” and a “k” on the side of it. It had a black coat of paint on the ends with silver on the body.
‘What does this go to?’ thought Taren, ‘There are four bedroom doors, three bathroom doors and five other doors. That’s, … carry that… Twelve! O.K.’ Taren looked down her left arm to her watch. The clock told her that it would be an hour before her mother came home at six.
She put the wrapping in the box, and then ran off to find some doors. The house was split into three parts only connected by the living room. A hall was off the living room that led to the dining room, kitchen, a closet, the guest bedroom (where Grandmazie was staying), and the bathroom. A staircase, off the living room, led to the upper floors, where two other bathrooms and three other bedrooms were, also, a door to the attic.
Taren had the whole downstairs finished in 25 minutes, but not one door fit the odd shape of the key. Taren only had the hope that upstairs would have the answer to the key. Taren turned and bolted upstairs, just as the situation turned bad to worst…


Earlier, as Taren was trying to find the door that fit to the key’s shape, all the clear diamond doorknobs turned to ebony as the key touched it. Taren unconscious and unknowing of the dark changes kept going infecting more doors. Soon as Taren was out of sight, a dark mist flowed out of the keyhole following the holder of the key.


Taren was looked down both ways then turned left at the top of the stairs. She tried every door then turned to do the last three doors. Taren stepped past the stairs just as the black mist was creeping up the last step… seeming to reach for Taren…
“Will any of these keyholes fit the key?” sighed Taren sliding to the floor, “I tried every door and not one fits! I give up!” Taren held the key up to the light and saw in the reflection of the key, double doors at the end of the hall…
“Wait!” Taren jumped to her feet, “The only double doors in this house are the front doors downstairs! I wonder…” Taren grasped the black handle and held the key an inch away from the hole. Taren was shaking from head to toe there was never black willow double doors in the hall before or even in this house, only oak doors!
     The black willow doors smelled of black coal, even as Taren touched them they felt like cold coal and left blackened soot on her hands. Taren dared to put her ear to the door, as she did she found herself holding her breath trying to make out the sound from the other side, the sound of waterfalls and rainforests? She let out her breath in surprise. Taren wondered if the strange key would open the doors, her curiosity led her to, once more; grasp the blackened handle on the door, with the key in her hand she pressed forward.
“It fits…” whispered Taren, not really being either happy or frightened.




Slowly, the black mist was crawling toward Taren. Unknown and unheard of, it was behind Taren as if watching her movements. As if not a mist at all, but a mass of Black Death, the mist grew and formed into a dark, tall, cloaked figure. The figure was born and raised from the shadows until locked behind a door with a key to lock it away, but the key, also, locked up it’s power to control all darkness…..


Taren heard the click as she turned the key in the door. Taren pulled her shaken hands away, wondering if opening the door was really a good idea, it’s just a door.
After some thought, Taren reached for the handle. Taren smiled to herself as she thought it being a slow motion part in a movie and that something was to go wrong right after she opened the door…. A growl came from behind Taren.
‘For once in my WHOLE life, I couldn’t just be right. I would have had somewhere to run, if it just came from beyond the door.’ thought Taren as she turned around in short steps. Taren looked up to find the shadowy figure as it loomed over her. It reached out a white, long hand and brought it to it’s head, pulling away the hood covering it’s face. There was no face but a mask, a cracked, mask of death with a keyhole in the forehead.
“Give me the key, Lost Soul…” wheezed the figure as if powerless and near death... or death itself.
       “This key?” whispered Taren, pulling the key out of the door behind her
        “Yes, Lost Soul…Give it!” shouted the figure as the air around them began to shake with the frustration of the figure.
“WHY?!” shouted Taren, getting a bit of courage for a moment.
“Give it, Lost Soul or die!” shrieked the figure.
It lunged at Taren to get the key, but Taren was already at the door. Getting away from that ‘Thing’ was the only idea Taren had as she pulled the door open and ran through. Only when Taren looked back, did she notice her surroundings….


“Taren! Help me with the gro---“Taren’s mother, Cyndi, came into the house carrying many bags saying “Kal-mart: a store for all”. Cyndi walked into the dining room and saw the unwrapped present.
“I didn’t leave that out….mmm…Taren must have found it,” signed Cyndi, “Well, I guess I lost my talent for hiding presents. Sadly, she never met my stepsister Josie. She was a pro at hiding presents. Terrible lost that she died, the report said that her body had many bruises and shallow cuts, when they found her body in the attic. Odd how they said that there was a scent of burnt willow….”
“Don’t worry, I’ll just clean your stuff up, Taren!” shouted Cyndi, “Well, they’re only kids for a little time… still, DOESN”T MEAN THEY CAN LEAVE A MESS OUT FOR THEIR MOTHER TO CLEAN!”
Cyndi grabbed the warping paper and walked out to the kitchen to throw away and as she walked back, she saw an envelope addressed to Taren lying on the ground.
“That must have fallen out…mmm,” whispered Cyndi to herself and with no reason, she opened the letter:


Dear Taren,

You may not know me, but this key is your destiny... That may seem lame, but it is true. Keep the key with you at all times and don’t try to put into any keyholes or something terrible will happen. Don’t let your mother read this or bad things may happen to her, too. Burn this after reading this, too. I was a Lost Soul and only Lost Souls can protect the key for they have the strongest wills, you are the next Lost Soul to protect the key. Blackened willow doors may appear just be careful around them. They can open to the safest or dangerous of places and only it decides. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you in person or meet you, but the key and I both have drawn to much power from each other… The key sometimes will have a will of it’s own. It will fed on you when you are happy and excited, but the same for you. You will fed off of the key when you are scared or powerless, beware of that power, it will in time become addicting. The key will tell you everything, just listen to it… listen hard…

  Love Yours Truly,
Auntie Josie

P.S. DON’T let anyone touch the key! And especially, DON’T leave it unguarded.

Cyndi had been walking up the stairs as she read it. She turned right and smelled, strangely, the smell of burnt willow. As Cyndi turned around she saw blacken willow doors shut and disappear into the wall.
Cyndi dropped the letter to the ground and ran looking for her daughter, screaming her name. Cyndi came to a stop, knowing her daughter was nowhere in the house. Knowing there was nothing she could do, she fell to her knees gasping for breath. A single tear fell over her rosy cheek…
“TAREN!!” cried a mother to the world, knowing she would never see her daughter again.


Black, , alone….
Falling through an abyss, surrounded by darkness. Taren fell through and through almost feeling cold and died herself, seeming smaller and smaller in her mind. Her clothes and blonde hair were whipping and lashing at her body cause pain and unheard screams. Soon, everything slowed and Taren landed on a blacken floor, out of breath, sweaty, and in pain beyond normal, her hair darkened, along with her clothes in the dark abyss. Taren’s eyes slowly closed…
“I’m not going to die here, I’m not dieing here… I have to get out…I WANT TO LIVE!” Her body made a small thud as it hit the ground.

All around were creatures and things that lived in this dark abyss…
All around the creatures and things were laughing at her…
All around were eyes of the creatures and things watching her…
Then a half-white and half-black masked face appeared looking down upon Taren and in a clear ringing voice said…
“Maybe tomorrow, not today…”