The Box

It was dark and cloudy with temperature close to zero degrees centigrade. The sun had not been out since the last four days and if you excluded the sporadic sunshine of last week, it would be over a month since the residents of Kunst had seen any sun. It was quite depressing to say the least.

Veronica had never felt happier, despite the weather. She had a new job, a new house and in fact, even a new boyfriend. Things were looking up for especially since she had been fired from a job six months ago.

Well, at least till that day..

Once she had sent the deliverables for the week, Veronica shut down her laptop and went to the restroom to freshen up for the night ahead. After a long week of number crunching and heavy analytical workload, Veronica had been looking forward to the weekend since Wednesday. She had decided to let go of herself as soon as she checked out of her office on Friday. The first stop would be the Spintz bar located on 6th and Rheinallee, in the city center. It was supposed to be one of the more popular hangout places for young professionals in a city that hardly had anything to boast of. It would be easier even for her boyfriend to get off at the Central Station and walk to this place. Rest of the evening was open and they had decided to choose a nice place for dinner after a couple of drinks.

She reached Spintz at around 6:30 pm- her boyfriend- Marcos was to meet her around then, but seemed like he had been delayed for some reason. She went straight to the bar and asked for a tequila shot to kick off the weekend. There was only one open seat at the bar, which was quite surprising given that it was early hours of the evening. But since Marcos was not there, she decided to take that seat.

Kunst being an university town, there seemed to be quite a few students at that time. There was a couple on the left of Veronica, where the guy was trying to charm the girl he was with. On her right was a young lady who had not looked away from her phone screen for the entire period she was there.

Veronica gulped the tequila shot in a blink and pulled out her phone to see if her boyfriend had left any message. There was no message. It seemed like he had been caught up in some last minute thing or in some train traffic. She decided to hang out at the bar which was right in front of the entrance, hoping to catch her boyfriend when he entered the lounge.

By now, the lady on her right had left her seat. She turned to the bartender and asked for another shot of tequila. As she gulped it down and put it back on the counter, she saw something through the corner of her eye. It was a mobile phone- the same phone that the lady was using before she went away. Veronica instinctively picked it up and looked around hoping to find the owner. But she was not to be seen. She decided to hand it over to the bartender, hoping the lady will come looking for it soon.

As she turned towards the bartender, something unusual happened. A flash of light reflected off the screen of the mobile phone and before she could realize, Veronica crashed on the floor with a big thud.

When she woke up, she found herself in a white colored room that had pillars running all over the place. She tried figuring out where she was but could not find anything familiar to help her identify the place. She tried looking for a door, but could not see any. The room was around twelve feet by twenty feet with rows of pillars running from one end to the other. She ran from pillar to pillar trying to find a clue or a sign for exit, but in vain.

Veronica started to get restless. The room had no window but a glass ceiling. She thought she saw some movement up across the ceiling. Her inquisitiveness had given way to despair now and she was on the verge of panic. She screamed at her loudest hoping to find someone who could help her out of that box. But nobody responded.

After spending what seemed like an eternity trying to find a way out, she collapsed on the ground out of sheer exhaustion. There seemed to be no way out of this thing.

And then the most bizarre this happened- she saw her boyfriend speaking across the glass ceiling. The voice was muffled but she could make out it was her boyfriend from the tie he was wearing. She had gifted that tie to him last week on his birthday.

He was trying to say something which she could not understand.

She could see the lips move but she could not decipher the content.

She spoke up, or at least tried to, but realized that her voice had given way to some sort of squeaking sound, which even she could not bear to hear. She had no idea what was going on.

She screamed again- this time, there was no voice at all.

At this time, she saw another figure- it was the bartender. He was also trying to say something. For some reason, they were expressionless, as if they had not heard anything, even though it seemed they were looking straight at her.

She screamed for one last time, “Help”!!

And then, there was a deafening silence..