Ella Spitler WoB Short Story Contest 10/23/24
The Key “Huff, huff, huff.” I breathe heavily as I whip past endless amounts of green trees. “GET HER!” a low scratchy male voice yells. Thousands of troops' footsteps pound through the woods like a stampede of buffalo. My throat burns and my muscles ache but I can’t stop moving or it’s the end of the line. “SHE HAS THE KEY!” Another voice yells, closer this time. They are gaining on me. “Darn it.“ I mutter breathlessly. Sweat rolls down my face and down my neck, giving me no comfort. My long black hair gets caught on twisted branches only making things more difficult. Why am I being chased you ask? Apparently, being 5’4, having big brown eyes, and a very tattered beige dress makes me a key. The key to the Time Box. The big, pudgy blue guards think I stole the key. That it's an object they can hold and possess.They are wrong of course. I am the key. A living one. Me. And only me. I’ve known since just two minutes ago as I was being arrested for being “dangerous to society.” I was told by a backstabbing traitor of a brother who turned me in for a ransom. Ha! Him and all his big talk about family. I jump over a mossy log and there it is. The Time Box. Roots climb and intertwine with each other forming a door. Moss clung to any spot of moisture it could find, overruling many of the plants. Stairs of old stone lead up to the Box. It feels ancient…..powerful. I feel as if it is calling me somehow. No person has activated it in many, many years. There are only myths, but myths are always based on something real. It is said that a new key is born every millennium and is bound to protect the world beyond the Time Box. I waste no time dashing for the door.