Heirlooms

I can feel chaos is coming. I feel it in my bones. In fact, I know it's coming.

It all started when I picked up an ancient, dusty, rusty box that appeared to be a board game from my grandma's basement. It was the holiday season, and storming through it, so I thought playing would be a good idea, and that that thing could spread joy in this gloomy weather on the inhabitants of this antique residency. Little did I know, I brought chaos.

I sat on my bed alone, after everybody left for bed, trying to understand the game by reading the instructions. It was difficult, it looked like something you'd read on old monuments. Truly ancient.

I left it and went to bed, thinking I'll ask my grandma the next day and see if it's worth it. A few minutes and unsuccessful sleeping attempts later, I got up determined to decipher and find whatever's about the box.

After a few Google searches and translators, sitting on the floor, I began putting the keys in place, and the wheel was slowly starting to rotate. Then all of a sudden darkness loomed in the room and the only source of light came from the hub of the wheel, it looked like an energy stone. I panicked and tried removing keys, any keys, but they were stuck as if someone was holding them. I kicked the box only for it to land perfectly on its bottom as if someone moved it. Again.

Speaking of someone, did I mention that the light was casting a shadow of "someone" on the wall? I felt my heart beating through my ribcage trying to escape me.

I knew better than to shout, and scare myself more and create more chaos with 'Yehonasw'. Wait. What? What's that? Why do I know the shadow's name? What's going on? Something whispered it to me. This is more than terrifying, I feel I'm losing consciousness.

~~~~~

"Wede, lije? (sweetheart, my child)" Someone was shaking me, stirring me awake. As I entered the land of the conscious, I saw my grandma looking at me with concern between her eyebrows and worry in her eyes. "Wede, are you okay? What happened? Do you feel sick?"

I love this woman, but that's not the time for unnecessary questions. I tried to sit up and look around. I was still in my bedroom, but on the bed. Was that all a dream? A nightmare, actually.

"Emma, what happened? (Grandma)" I asked, trying to recall the last minutes before I blacked out.

"That's what I want to know, fikr. But first, do you feel okay? (love)" She inquired, cupping my face in her wrinkled, warm palms.

"What happened? I was looking at that thing, and all of a sudden everything went south." I pointed with pale, shaking fingers at the board game that was still on my bedroom's floor. There was no yehonas– someone or any shadow anywhere (a name popping into your head out of nowhere for something unreal is creepy. Using it gets the medal for first place-creepy).

It was no longer dark in the room. It was bathed in a warm glow of candles. Although, nothing of what I felt was warm, I was shivering.

"You mean yekulfoch saten? You managed to open the box? (the key's chest)" She asked in shock.

"Why is that a surprise?" I was confused.

"Because that's not an easy thing to do, fikre. Do you know how much your mother struggled to open it? How did you even understand the letters?"

"I looked them up, emma. But that's not the point. After I inserted the keys, weird things happened," I told her everything, hoping to find some answers.

The way she was looking at me... If I didn't know better, I would have thought she was constipated. But I knew she was trying to hold back a laugh. "My dear, did you think the blackout had anything to do with the game? You should have expected that with the storm outside, and especially being in kifl hagr (countryside)."

I felt warm from embarrassment, but I still tried holding it, "then how do you explain the shadow and the keys getting stuck and the box landing upright perfectly?"

"The box is magnetic, it's supposed to hold the keys firmly, and if you want to unkey them, you should press the chest's button from the left. I guess you didn't reach that from your google. And that also explains it landing that way; you know the basement's ceiling is magnetic, and it is your room's floor, wede."

It was starting to make sense now, but there was one thing left. "The shadow, emma!"

"Look here," she pointed to the same wall I saw the shadow on before she blew out the candle illuminating the room the most, and there I saw the shadow. I started shuddering and tried to protect myself by closing my eyes, but she put her hands on my shoulders, "look at me, lije. Look," I did, with tears in my eyes. "Look over there," this time she pointed to the room's window. I did, again, and now everything was clear. "It's the electrician's shadow. He's fixing the light poles, I was with him when I suddenly saw you faint from the window and came running to you."

"Oh, emma, I feel stupid," I covered my face with my hands, "this is so humiliating."

She patted my back lovingly and assured me that everything was alright. After that, I spent the evening kicking myself mentally for being so slow-witted and telling her how I understood the game from the Internet, and she expressed her astonishment upon learning that her family's heirloom game was meant for everyone to read. That night, I fell asleep soundly on her lap, even though there was an uneasy feeling in my chest.

The next morning, in my parents' car ready to leave for the airport, grandma called to say her goodbyes and I waved back, "wede, one day when you meet someone, you'll tell your kids what happened yesterday, don't forget it!" My mother looked at me questioningly through the rearview mirror, I shook my head lightly, indicating it was a secret. "Yehona ken, yehona sw, lije! (someday, someone, my child)."

And we drove away, but I still didn't move on from the other night, because that's when the realization of the uneasiness hit me like a wrecking train. Grandma explained everything except for the whispered "yehonasw" in my ears. That's what I meant in the beginning. This is not the end of the key's chest.

I can feel chaos is coming.