The box had always been there.
Locked. Hidden away in a storage room he rarely used. No one ever asked what was inside. Not me. Not my mother. Even she—his wife—had learned long ago not to question certain boundaries. But that day, something was different. Curiosity overcame the quiet fear she had learned to live with.
The day before, she had searched his office.
No documents. No money. Nothing that explained where he had been going or why he had become so distant. Only the same object, wrapped carefully and placed where important things are kept. That absence—of explanations, of normality—troubled her more than the object itself.
When she finally lifted it from the drawer, she realized just how strange it was.
It stood nearly a foot tall, smooth to the touch, its surface etched with intricate, repeating patterns that didn’t seem decorative so much as deliberate. At the top were thin, articulated projections—like antennae or jointed limbs—arranged with unsettling precision. It didn’t resemble anything familiar. Not a tool. Not an ornament. Not something meant to be understood at a glance.
No one could explain what it was for.
When she handed it to me, I felt it immediately.
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