The Box

A Story by Rachel

A somewhat modern re-imagining of an ancient Greek myth.

She touched the little box in her pocket and smiled. It wasn't a smile of happiness. No, it was a smile of maliciousness, and one of meaning harm to some poor creature. She had been planning this for weeks, her revenge for what they had done to her. They had held her captive in the dark, cold prison for weeks without any explanation as to what she had done to deserve that treatment. They had finally released her, but not before forcing her to submit to a series of strange tests that left her feeling even more confused than she had been before.
She had gone straight home after her release from their torturous chamber of pain, straight to the only sanctuary she had left. She sat in silence for hours that day, never moving, only thinking of what it was that she had been through, and how to avenge all of her pain and suffering. She finally came to the conclusion that she must find out where she had been, and why, at any cost.
After about a week of tedious research that had a tendency to continue into the early hours of the morning, she made a breakthrough. She discovered that she had been imprisoned in a laboratory specializing in the studies of human mutations, which meant that somebody had found out, probably by other means of torture, what her special abilities were. This infuriated her. These people would obviously stop at nothing to get what they wanted, and neither would she.
She went to work, devising a perfect plan with which to exact her necessary revenge. She used her abilities to construct a highly advanced box, one that, if opened, would be more revenge than anyone could ever ask for.
Finally, the day came when the little box was complete, and she traveled back to the place of torture that had been plaguing her nightmares. She walked through the front entrance, confident in her actions. A worker noticed her and tried to make her leave, but she wouldn't listen. She told the man that she had a present for the people there, as she touched the little box in her pocket and smiled. He asked her to show him the gift, so she extracted the box and opened it without another thought. Too late she realized exactly what she had done, for out of the fateful box came sickness, burdenasome toils, and a myriad of other pains. They all escaped into the unsuspecting world before she could close the lid, until only one thing was left, the one one thing that did not escape to be lost forever, and this one thing was hope. It remained to give itself to all mankind through all of the ills which had been released. The box itself became famous over time, and it was called Pandora's Box after the woman who had opened it, and then hid it, so that it could never bring harm to anyone again.