Eli Silverman, College Sohpmore

The attic was nearly done. The final room in grandma's old house to be cleared, before the task of sorting through her things and clearing out was finished. Eli had drawn the short straw. He was off for the summer, having finished finals just in time to be told of grandma's passing (which had actually happened a few days earlier, but grandam made everyone promise not to interrupt his finals), and so as he was the only one not doing anything else, he ended up putting in the final work on the old house. A 19th century construction, though well maintained and updated (including fiber internet; grandma, having worked in computers since the early days at NASA, was no boomer), with far too many rooms for anyone in the family to practically use, everyone had come to the difficult decision to sell it. While the downstairs cleanup had mostly been people claiming items and occasionally fighting over things in that melancholy way people do when taking apart a loved one's house, there was nothing really up here anyone wanted; it was just random junk, most of it having been up here since grandpa died when Eli was 3.

So the last few days had been slowly moving the stuff out, piece by piece, to the curb. Eli had found the occasional cool item (the record collection looked good and had been carted away to a store for a decent price, and the Apollo-era computers had been donated to a museum), but otherwise it was knickknacks, garbage, far too many old periodicals, and pictures. Finally, Eli was finishing up.

Eli heard a loud, distant boom, but it wasn't close enough to be concerning, so he ignored it and surveyed the room. All that was left was a cement box against the front wall of the house, opposite the stairs to the attic and next to the window overlooking the street, where it would have been effectively buried for the better part of 20 years or more under other items. He didn't remember seeing it there before, but it's possible he just thought it was part of the room. He was a bit curious as to what it might be, but dreaded having to get it down from here. Hopefully it wasn't very thick concrete, though it was probably going to require getting help regardless. Eli wondered what could possibly be in there.

There was a simple rotating handle on the top, which he turned 90 degrees, allowing the top to swing on its hinges. His back preemptively ached as he saw how thick the material was, but when he got it open all he could do was stare inside. There was one object in the box, but Eli had no idea what it was. He reached in and picked it up, turning it over in his hands, trying to figure it out. It was... not round. Not a sphere. Very light. He tried to get a closer look by holding it up the stained glass bay window.

Was the window always that small? Eli stared harder and realized that window was just a small ornamental fixture over a door. That didn't make sense, a door there would open right into the air over the front porch. And it didn't match anything. In fact, it looked older than the house, the wood... no wait it was stone? A canvas flap? A shoji screen? The more he looked at it, the less certain he was, other than that is was a doorway of some kind. He stared at it fixedly, afraid to blink, somehow knowing that if he looked away he would never know what was inside.

It took definite will to grasp the handle/knob/gap in the flap/finger groove... Eli hefted the strange object under one arm and, with seeming agonizing slowness, finally got his other hand to the door. And opened it. He couldn't see anything, and before he could think he had stepped through. The pressure went away as he crossed the threshold, and he let go the breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

The room was cylindrical. Looking at the walls caused an even bigger headache than the door. Every time he thought he knew what it was, he realized it was completely different. The only constant was that there was a horizontal rectangular shaft in the back wall, though he couldn't see where it went. None of this made sense. Then his attention was drawn to the middle of the room. Something was floating in mid air. He wasn't sure what it was either, but somehow he just knew that what had come out of the box would fit into it... on it... around it? Without really thinking, he reached up and put them together.

There was a bright flash and pink smoke, then nothing.