Page 74 of Demonic Cage
“Have you ever experienced sorrow in life?” she asks.
Suddenly, everything comes to mind. The dreams that wouldn’t let me sleep. The medication’s side effects, which broke my body during the day but still became the driving force of my life.
My parents’ tired care. My hatred towards them. Their hatred towards me. My brother’s illness causing the collapse, and my mistake creating an indelible black hole.
I simply nod.
Pandora does the same.
“Then I was in the wrong,” she adds, smiling faintly.
“Help me!” I plead. “I need to know why I’m here! I need to know what you’ve done! I need to know what will happen!”
Pandora looks at me, her dark-brown eyes piercing my cold, light blue gaze.
“I can help you,” she says. “But as for what will happen, I have no knowledge.”
Her hands stop plucking the delicate melody, and silence falls over the garden. The absence of music is quickly filled bythe babbling of the stream and the chirping of birds. Pandora stands up. She walks towards a temple. I follow.
We enter a chapel. In the middle, on a waist-high column, rests the urn from the demon book. Its lid is open. My eyes widen as I look inside.
The box has no bottom; only darkness swirls within.
“Did the demons come out of here?”
Pandora nods slowly.
“What happened?” I ask.
She sighs. Her voice resembles the melody of the harp.
“Long ago, sometime during the Age of Constellations, humans lived in peace with the Gods. They worshipped someone they called Cosmos. He created them, and through them, we came into being. Humans were good; they didn’t know how to be bad. They didn’t ask, they only gave. Even when they did ask, they only wanted what they needed. They considered death natural; they thanked life and rejoiced in daily wonders.”
Pandora’s face wrinkles.
“But that wasn’t enough for the gods, and many rebelled because of humans having no choice. But if the humans were given it, they wouldn’t be so happy – so eager to help, so friendly. They believed evil had its place, and without it, true good couldn’t exist. They deliberated for centuries, taking their time to decide. Generations turned to dust and were reborn. Until the gods agreed that humans needed a choice. But they didn’t want to start big. They found a jewelry box at the bottom of the Thalassa sea – an old world’s ocean not known to you. They didn’t know how it got there, but they felt the evil spirits in it – the exciting experiment of destruction.”
Pandora’s gaze darkens, as does mine. If the story is true, we’re merely victims of bored gods.
“As I said, they didn’t want to start big,” the girl continues. “First, they created a woman whom neither man nor womancould resist. Whose beauty no one could compete with, whose voice conjures melodies, and whose existence is paired with a sense of peace. That woman is me.”
I swallow hard because every word she says is true. I could never harm this woman. She seems so young, just like me, yet her gaze reaches back thousands of years. Her hand trembles as she places it on the jewelry box. Instead of her eyes, her voice is crying.
“They said it was mine, but I can’t open it. I came into the world like any other human, not even imagining the smallest part of evil. I didn’t understand why it was forbidden, why it wasn’t allowed. For a while, I followed the instruction, but the urn spoke to me every day. It wooed me with words I didn’t know, but that I understood nonetheless. I lived in this garden with the god I loved, and he loved me in return. But it wasn’t enough for me. The box called, and the prohibition hurt. The incomprehension crept under my skin.”
Pandora takes a deep breath. Now comes the punchline, from which even she won’t learn.
“And one day, I opened it. I remember the terror. I’ve never been so scared before, and haven’t been since. I screamed and immediately slammed the lid shut. But by then, it was too late. Horror covered the human world.”
Her eyes well up with tears. I know this feeling, the gnawing guilt. If she couldn’t forgive herself over millennia, how could I forget?
“You feel your grief because of me,” she says from behind teary eyes. “It’s my fault you suffer. It’s my fault the whole world is in torment.”
“No!” I say, putting my hand on her arm. “You were meant to do this! If they hadn’t chosen you, they would have found someone else! It’s their fault, not yours.”
Pandora shakes her head.
“They didn’t want this. Not like this. They didn’t know what was in the box. They warned me that it was something bad. They felt the leaking darkness too, but they didn’t expect the everlasting night.”
