The tapping returns, but this time it’s not against the wall anymore. It comes from inside the cardboard box itself. A soft, rhythmic *tap-tap-tap* that matches the pulse in my wrist, though I know for a fact my heart is beating faster than that rhythm allows. The box is sitting closed on the floor to the right of the desk, its silver seam gleaming faintly in the sliver of streetlight cutting across the room.

I don’t reach down immediately. The instinct says *don’t touch*. But the sound is growing louder, more insistent, vibrating through the soles of my shoes and up my legs like a second heartbeat. Is it possible for cardboard to echo? Or did the sender leave something hollow inside that empty space, waiting for me to fill it with air or noise?

I crouch down, lowering myself until I am eye-level with the box. The dust motes around it seem to swirl in a tighter vortex now, drawn toward the seam where the light catches the silver strip. For a moment, I think I see movement inside—a faint shadow shifting behind the paper lining, or perhaps just the play of light tricking my eyes into seeing depth where there is only flatness.

*Tap.*

The sound stops abruptly. Silence crashes back in, heavier than before.

I stand up slowly, feeling a strange disconnect between my head and my hands, as if my body is responding to commands I didn’t send. The brass key feels warm again in the pocket of my trousers where I’d slipped it earlier—a warmth that defies the cool night air seeping through the window frame. I pull it out and hold it up to the beam of light.

There’s a mark on it now. A tiny, circular indentation near the bow, barely visible unless you’re looking straight at the angle where the shadow falls. It looks like an impression made by another object, pressed hard into the metal. A keyhole? Or the thumbprint of someone who turned this very lock from the inside long ago?

I trace the outline with my finger. The indentation is shallow, smooth as if polished over years of use. Who would carry a key that fits no known lock in their pocket for years on end? And why keep it in a box they never opened?

Outside, the city has gone quiet. Not the peaceful kind of quiet where everything sleeps, but the held-breath silence before a storm breaks, or after something terrible happens and no one wants to talk about it. The streetlamp flickers once, twice, then goes out completely. Darkness swallows the corner of my room instantly, save for the sliver of moonlight slicing across the floor where the box sits.

In that sudden gloom, the three objects on the desk—the stone, the flower, the key—glow with a faint, internal luminescence. Not bioluminescent in any scientific sense, just a soft, warm radiance that seems to emanate from within their surfaces themselves. The brass key shines like gold; the river stone pulses with a dull gray light; the pressed flower glows with the amber hue of an old photograph developing under a chemical bath.

I haven’t touched them in minutes. They shouldn’t be glowing. Light doesn’t generate without a source, and there is no electricity here except the dead streetlamp. Is this what “receiving” means? Not just getting the item, but inheriting its energy too? The sender didn’t pack these things up to store them; they packed them up to share their power.

I reach out again, drawn by a magnetic pull I can’t resist. My fingertips hover over the glowing stone before making contact. As soon as my skin touches it, a rush of cold water floods my mind—not memory this time, but sensation. The smell of rain on hot asphalt, the taste of salt on my lips, the sound of waves crashing against a distant shore. I can feel the weight of the ocean pressing against my chest, even though I’ve never stood in it.

Then, just as quickly, the image shifts to a different scene: a room full of people laughing, clinking glasses, warm light spilling over wooden floors. The sound of jazz music filling the air, overlapping with voices that feel like they belong to someone I know but can’t quite place. A feeling of deep satisfaction, of being exactly where you’re supposed to be.

And then it stops. The glow fades from the objects back to their dull, ordinary selves. The room is dark again. The silence is absolute.

I sit on the floor now, cross-legged beside the box, staring at my own hands. They look translucent in the darkness, as if the light has burned through them. I realize with a jolt that I haven’t spoken aloud since the tapping started. My voice feels foreign to me, rusty from disuse.

If I speak out loud now, will someone hear? Will they know what’s happening here? Or am I alone in this room, surrounded by three glowing artifacts and a box that wants to be opened?

The tapping starts again, faint but clear this time. *Tap-tap-tap.* It sounds closer than before, like it’s coming from inside my own ribcage.