Flash Fiction #16 - Strange Little Box

Picture Prompt

300-word Flash Fiction

Post # 16

Week Ending 09/26/2025

Genre: Horror

Title: Strange Little Box

Ellie never felt fear in her life as when she woke on a frigid November night drenched in sweat.  The Rocky Mountain air was bone chilling, yet her skin felt hot, as though burned under rays of a tropical sun.

Ellie had little to fear in life. However, she was now filled with terror.  She gazed about for the source of her fright. Her bedroom contents appeared pale, washed of color like a photograph left in the sun too long. Her brain attempted to shake off the night’s cobwebs. Why was she shaking, her skin boiling hot, and her vision whitewashed?

Unable to suss it out, she closed her eyes, hoping for more sleep before starting her day.  The moment her eyelashes locked together, that which haunted her revealed... a nightmare.  The horrific scene flashed…

Ellie’s body felt cold, her mouth, dry.  Suspended in darkness… she peered out to see something... anything... gazing so long without blinking, her eyes burned as though the darkness into which she stared was the essence of the Sandman himself.

A tiny light formed in the distance, then began to spread. Ellie’s skin grew warmer, then hotter until she felt searing pain on every nerve ending throughout her body.  The light continued to spread until everything around her had become a brilliant, blinding white. The omnipresent beacon began to pulse, increasing intense heat with every rhythm.

That was when she woke. It was only a dream, but the heat remained on her skin, the brightness of the light still burned into her eyes. The evaporative effect of her sweat slowly cooled her skin back to normal, like a fever that had finally broken. Then she recalled that strange little box she brought home off the street. She didn’t manage to sleep any more that night. 

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