An old music box encrusted with frogs and lily pads and three jewels on the lid sat up high on the cupboard. The three jewels, each colored blue, green, and purple, shone in the dim thrift store light. It’s no wonder Sasha wanted to steal the box.
Anne glanced at Sasha and Marcie outside the store window. Sasha gestured motions of swiping the box to Anne while Marcie could only look curiously at the box.
This feels wrong , Anne thought to herself as she walked closer to the shelf with the mysterious music box. It had been Sasha’s idea to steal the music box, and Anne was the last to deny the request. Anne never wanted to steal the box, but they goaded her into doing it anyways, “for our friendship’s sake,” they told her.
Anne looked back at the old woman at the register (She fell asleep.) before taking the box and putting it in her bag. She looked at Sasha and Marcie outside the window, and they both give thumbs-up. For our friendship , Anne mentally reminded herself as she quietly moved past the old sleeping woman and left the store.
“See?” Sasha said. “Now that wasn’t so bad, wasn’t it, Anne?”
“Yeah,” Anne replied. Somehow, she felt her stomach tie itself into a knot as she said this.
Marcie suggested they head over to the park away from the public eye and open the box there. Anne, again, was chosen to open the box. She slowly pried the lid open, (The apprehensive thoughts toward her friends weren’t getting any quieter.) and a whirlwind of bright colors overtook the trio.
Anne felt the humidity on her skin as she woke up.
“Wha… What is this place?”
Anne got up and looked around.
“Hey guys. Guys? Where are you? Sasha? Marcie?”
A roar broke out in the distance. A flock of (what she assumed were) birds fly out from the source of the noise, and Anne frantically looked around as the commotion grow closer to her general direction…
“Oh no,” she said with growing dread. She slowly turned around to the direction of the noise.
A giant red mantis erupted from the trees. It looked at Anne and gave a huge screech. She took off running into the woods.
“Oh gosh,” Anne repeated under her breath panickedly as she searched for a place to hide from the kaiju-sized mantis. She saw an old log in the distance and slid into it, making sure to keep quiet.
After the giant red mantis left for now, Anne got out of the log and continued walking (all the while still keeping her guard up).
During the walk, Anne decided to check her phone.
“Oh wow. It still works,” she remarked. She tried calling her parents. No luck. Sasha. Nothing. Marcie? Nada.
A few minutes later, Anne found a cave. It looked safe… For now.
Anne flashed her phone light around the cave, revealing giant bugs all looking at her as an upcoming meal. She would have been terrified, had it not been for the fact that she’s rather tired from the earlier encounter.
“Hi,” Anne attempted to lighten her currently unfortunate situation with the bugs as she slowly lay herself down on the cold and damp ground. “ Please don’t eat me while I sleep.”
It had been difficult sleeping when Anne was constantly surrounded by said giant bugs in the cave she tried to sleep in. Rainy days were the worst, which meant being surrounded by those awful creatures the entire time it rained. On those days, she thought back to the homemade food from her family’s Thai restaurant and the comfort of her cat Domino cuddled by her side.
On a few dry days, Anne set up traps a mile or two from the cave, hopefully to either catch the beast or catch anything unfortunate enough to walk into said traps. She also carved a makeshift spear from a branch she found for defense from said beast.
“This ought to do it,” Anne remarked and hid in the tall grasses, makeshift spear in hands.
After a few hours of trap watching, Anne faintly heard the sound of an accordion playing.
Finally, another person.
She moved slowly, making sure not to scare away whoever was over there on the chance they seemed to be lost as well. She saw the source of the music to be…
A blue frog-person, who looked frightened the minute he saw her. “N-no, no, please...”
“No, wait! I need--”
And said person ran off screaming.
“Help,” she finished futilely. “Aw… Man, I guess it’s back to another night in the cave...”
Unknown to her, the next day would change everything...