Prologue

I was cleaning our cellar out one evening, around six p.m. I had separated everything into two piles: keeping and trashing. All the while I was thinking how much money I could make if I sold this stuff on eBay. On the sixth shelf to the right of the washing machine, I found a box. It was just an ordinary box, brown, cardboard, a little worn, and there was a hole on the bottom right, nothing in it, or so I thought. As I tried to fold up the box, I found it wouldn't fold flat, like there was something in it. Naturally, I opened the box back up and slapped the back, trying to get whatever was in it out. Nothing came out. Puzzled, I folded it back up, and it still wouldn't lay flat. Annoyed, I shoved my hand in the box, fumbling around inside it. After three or four attempts to rid the box of all its contents, I felt a prick on my index finger. When I checked it, blood was steadily oozing out from a small hole in my finger. I stood up, grabbed the box and took it into the kitchen where there was better light. I looked all around inside the box, and found nothing, nothing at all. I sighed and stuck my hand in the hole that I had found earlier. That's when I found out that it wasn't a hole. The so called hole was actually a piece of something. It was metal, and covered with what was probably decades of dirt and grime. Knowing full well that there was more to this object, I stuck my hand in and tried to pull it out. It didn't budge so I assumed it was large. After what seemed like thousands of attempts to pull it out, I finally realized it. A false bottom! I grabbed a knife out of the drawer and pried open the secret compartment. As the bottom of the box came off, a cloud of dust rose up and almost gagged me. Ignoring the dust, I looked for the metal object and found it. It was thick, round, and looked kind of like your grandfathers old pocket watch. At first I thought it was a pocket watch, but then I got sort of feeling that it wasn't a pocket watch. I tried to openit, and it wouldn't budge. it still didn't budge when I used a knife, or when I threw it across the kitchen. Then I paused as the truth hit me like a ton of bricks: this wasn't normal. And, when I turned around and ran smack into a large man in tight black suit realized- nothing would ever be normal again.