The package arrived without warning. A nondescript box, brown and battered, perched unceremoniously on the doorstep. No return address, no markings beyond the faint imprint of tape sealing its edges. He stood over it, caught in the strange vacuum between curiosity and dread. It was the kind of object that seemed to exist outside of time, as though it had always been there, waiting for him to notice it.
He brought it inside, setting it on the counter like one might place a landmine—carefully, warily, as if it could explode at any moment. The weight of its presence was disproportionate to its size, pulling at the edges of his thoughts, warping the mundanity of the room around it. He tried to ignore it, letting the routine of the evening take over: coffee brewing, a half-hearted glance at the news, the sink filling with dishes he wouldn’t wash. But his eyes betrayed him, darting back to the box every few minutes as though checking to see if it had moved on its own.
It wasn’t until midnight that he gave in.
By then, the world outside had emptied itself of sound, leaving only the occasional thrum of passing cars to mark the hours. He sat at the kitchen table, the box in front of him, and ran his hands over its surface. The cardboard was rough, frayed at the edges, and faintly stained. There was no tape to cut, no obvious way to open it, yet something about it felt… alive.
He hesitated, fingers hovering just above the seam. “What’s the worst it could be?” he muttered, though his own voice sounded foreign, like it belonged to someone else entirely.
The worst. The phrase lingered in his mind, gnawing at the edges of reason. Anthrax, a bomb, a cruel joke from someone who knew too much. Or worse—nothing at all.
He pressed his hands against the sides and pulled.
The box opened without resistance, revealing its contents in one fluid motion. At first, he thought it was empty, that he’d imagined the weight, the importance, the unbearable anticipation. But then he saw it—a polished wooden cube, perfectly smooth, its surface etched with faint, intricate designs that seemed to shift under the light.
He lifted it out carefully. It was heavier than it looked, cold against his skin. The carvings reminded him of maps, though they followed no logic, spiraling into themselves and branching out in patterns that defied comprehension.
“Who sent you?” he whispered, though the question was meaningless.
There was no note, no explanation, no key to understanding its purpose. Only the box, waiting.
***
The first night, he dreamed of it.
In his sleep, the cube unfolded itself like a flower, its surfaces peeling away to reveal an endless void inside. He stared into it, and the void stared back, an infinite abyss that filled him with a terror he couldn’t name. When he woke, he found himself sitting at the kitchen table, the cube in his hands, though he couldn’t recall leaving his bed.
It became an obsession after that.
He stopped going to work, stopped answering calls, stopped pretending to care about the world outside his apartment. The cube consumed him, its mysteries unraveling in maddening fragments. He spent hours tracing the carvings with his fingers, convinced they held some secret code, some answer to a question he hadn’t yet asked.
He tried to destroy it once. Took a hammer to it in a fit of rage, swinging wildly until his arms ached. The cube didn’t so much as splinter.
“Why won’t you let me go?” he shouted, his voice cracking under the weight of desperation.
The cube offered no reply.
***
The second week, he stopped eating. The hunger gnawed at him, but it was a distant thing, easily ignored. Sleep became a luxury he couldn’t afford, his nights filled with restless pacing and half-formed thoughts that evaporated as soon as he tried to catch them.
He started to hear things—a faint scratching, like nails on wood, coming from inside the cube. It grew louder each day, a ceaseless, maddening noise that drove him to the brink of insanity.
On the twelfth day, he gave up.
He sat at the table, the cube before him, and ran his hands over its surface one final time. The carvings seemed to pulse under his touch, alive in a way that made his skin crawl. He pressed his thumbs against the center, where the patterns converged, and felt it give.
The cube unfolded.
It didn’t open so much as bloom, its sides peeling away to reveal a hollow interior. And inside…
Inside was him.
Not a reflection, not a photograph, but a perfect, miniature version of himself, curled into the fetal position. The tiny figure opened its eyes, and for the first time, he saw himself from the outside—hollow eyes, unkempt hair, a face lined with the marks of sleepless nights and unspoken fears.
The world twisted.
In an instant, his perspective shifted, and he was no longer sitting at the table but inside the cube, looking out. He saw his own hands holding the box, his own face staring down at him with an expression of utter horror.
“No,” he whispered, though the sound came from everywhere and nowhere at once.
The larger version of himself reached into the cube, fingers closing around the tiny figure inside. There was no resistance, no escape. As the fingers tightened, the walls of the cube began to collapse, folding in on themselves, crushing him from all sides.
The last thing he saw was his own face, staring back at him with a mixture of pity and indifference.
Then, there was nothing.
***
When they found him, days later, he was slumped over the table, the box in front of him.
It was empty.
This story previously appeared in 365 Tomorrows.
Edited by E. S. Foster.
James Bachman, is a former native of Chicago. He is an avid reader, and short fiction writer. Crafting tales of horror, satire, and dystopian fiction. Inspired by master storytellers like Cormac McCarthy, George Orwell, Harlan Ellison, Richard Matheson, and PKD, his stories mainly explore the darker sides of human nature, societal decay, and the chilling consequences of unchecked power. You can find some of work on Substack at The Bachman Files.