Aiden slouched deeper into the couch, eyes barely registering the nonsense flashing on the TV. The show’s laughter track seemed to mock him, filling the room with empty noise. His mind wasn’t there, though—his attention kept wandering back to the wooden box sitting on the table.
It had been a few days since the lawyer’s visit, since Callahan had handed over the will and left him with the house, so much money, and that damned box. Since then, he had tried to ignore it, telling himself it didn’t matter. But no matter what he did, his thoughts kept drifting back to it. The box sat there quietly, unmoving, but its presence was impossible to ignore.
He shifted on the couch, eyes flicking from the TV to the table. His chest tightened. Every time he glanced at the box, curiosity gnawed at him. There had to be something important inside—something his grandfather wanted him to find. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the longer he left it untouched, the heavier it weighed on him.
Finally, the impulse won out.
With a resigned sigh, Aiden pushed himself off the couch and crossed the room. The box sat innocently on the table, as if it had been waiting for him all along. His fingers closed around it, lifting it carefully.
The wood was smooth but solid, darker than it appeared at first glance. Its surface was covered in intricate carvings—swirls and symbols that almost looked like they formed some sort of language. At the center of the lid was a small brass lock, elegant and old, yet still sturdy despite its age. The lock itself had a faint gleam to it, but there was no obvious keyhole—just a solid, sealed mechanism.
Aiden turned the box over in his hands, frowning. “There’s got to be a key,” he muttered under his breath. His grandfather had been obsessed with puzzles, but this felt different. There was no hidden latch, no secret panel that he could find. Just the lock, stubbornly refusing to open.
Setting the box back down, Aiden rifled through the envelope Callahan had left with him. There had to be something he’d missed—maybe the key was tucked away with the paperwork, or some small clue had slipped by him.
He pulled out the contents again. The will, written in his grandfather’s careful hand, didn’t mention anything about a key. He frowned, feeling the growing frustration gnaw at him. Then his eyes landed on the blank parchment that had come with the box. It was thick and slightly rough, almost like vellum. He’d dismissed it at first, thinking it was just some leftover scrap, but now something about it tugged at his memory.
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His grandfather had once told him about ancient ways of hiding messages—secrets written in invisible ink or codes that could only be revealed under certain conditions. Aiden grabbed the parchment and inspected it more closely, holding it up to the light. It looked like an ordinary sheet of paper, but there had to be more to it.
He walked to the lamp, turning it on and holding the parchment just under the bulb. For a few moments, nothing happened. The light warmed the paper, but it remained stubbornly blank. Aiden tried rubbing his fingers along the surface, thinking maybe there was some hidden texture or indentation.
Still nothing.
He slumped back into the chair, tapping the parchment against his knee, his mind spinning. What was he missing? Then, a memory stirred—one of the many strange things his grandfather had told him over the years.
He remembered his grandfather’s voice, explaining something unusual about old methods of communication. “There are ways to hide things that go beyond ink and paper, Aiden. Sometimes it’s not about what you see, but what you feel. Some messages are meant to be read with more than your eyes.”
Aiden’s fingers tightened on the parchment. Feel… not see.
He walked back to the couch and set the parchment on the coffee table in front of him, sitting down and staring at it, trying to remember more. His grandfather had taught him about this once, hadn’t he? Not with a story, but with something more physical—something you had to experience.
Then it hit him. He remembered a method his grandfather had shown him when he was younger, a method that relied on both heat and oils. “Sometimes,” his grandfather had said, “to reveal a hidden message, you have to treat the paper like skin—moisten it with oils, warm it, and let it breathe.”
Oils. Aiden’s mind whirred. He stood up quickly, moving to the kitchen and opening the cabinet. Inside was a small bottle of his olive oil. He grabbed it, unsure if it would work, but willing to try.
Back at the table, Aiden poured a tiny amount of the oil onto his fingers and gently rubbed it into the parchment, spreading it thinly across the surface. The paper soaked it up slowly, the texture changing under his touch, becoming more supple, almost translucent.
He waited, letting the oil settle into the fibers, then grabbed a candle from the table. Holding the parchment carefully, he hovered it just above the warm flame, close enough to feel the heat but not so close as to burn it. The paper shifted slightly, expanding with the warmth.
Suddenly, faint patterns began to emerge. Not words, at least not at first—just shapes, spirals and symbols that twisted and turned, like the carvings on the box. His breath caught in his throat as the symbols deepened into recognizable letters, the hidden ink coming to life under the warmth and the oil.
The message, cryptic and unsettling, began to form:
"Use what only you inherited to open what only you inherited."