It was night when the beast came. A horrid creature, dressed in garish rags and bearing rainbow colored hair. The beast who turned men into women.

The beast knocked on the door on the old house, demanding that the man surrender his manhood as tithe for staying in this small quiet town. The man locked the door shut, drawing a massive iron bolt across it, keeping the beast out.

When morning dawned, the man looked out from the window and saw parents lining up, offering their children to the beast with smiles on their faces. It was insanity. The man rushed out of the house to drive the beast away, but the townsfolk turned on him, pelting the man with stones, deriding him as a bigot.

Fleeing back to the house, the man watched in horror as the beast set about its grisly work, defiling the children one by one with a rusty knife.

And that was when he understood what the old man was talking about.

The virus was a threat one could fight. Even in their dying moments, the virus's victims kept fighting it with all their strength.

But the beast that had taken over this town could not be resisted. It was a sickness of the soul that everyone here had embraced. There was nothing to do but accept it.

And wait for the end.

He went back into the old house, raided the cupboards, but there was no food as the old man had promised. Nothing was in that house but regret and a fool.

"Maybe I can make it back across" he thought. He hurried, staying low to the ground to avoid the beast. It seemed to have only a taste for children, but what did he really know.

He arrived at the tree in the road and stepped over it, but no sooner as both feet had made it across he found himself back in the house.

He looked around, feeling dizzy and confused.

"No... no... no..." he muttered and spent the next few minutes trying to convince himself this was all a nightmare until finally in a fit of uncontrollable fear burst out of the house and ran further down the road. Away from the tree, away from the house and he hoped away from the beast.

He ran made no attempt to conceal himself, he only ran and when his lungs felt like they would explode is when the town appeared in the distance....

Strong, rough hands pull the man back up to his feet with surprising gentleness. It was the town sheriff. The man staggers backwards, his legs wobbling from the fatigue.

"Woah there son." the sheriff says, "Running about like a headless chicken isn't healthy, y'hear?"

"I ... I ... want to leave .... " the man pants breathlessly, "How do I leave this place?"

"Why would you want to leave?" the sheriff asks incredulously, "We've got a perfect little society going on right here, don't we?"

The man turns around and tries to bolt for the horizon but the sheriff grabs him again, this time not letting go.

"Look I'll take you home, alright?" the sheriff says, "All this excitement is doing you no good."

And so the sheriff leads the man back to the old house. But once they reach the doorstep the sheriff whispers, "I'm sorry son. But the Great Xir sees all and knows all. No one leaves . No one."

"But that old man ..." the man sputters.

"He stayed behind too. Or at least the most important part of him stayed." the sheriff gives the man a pat on the back, "Check the kitchen floorboards. You'll see."

And then the sheriff left, leaving the man with more questions than answers.

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Wasting no time, the man rushed to the kitchen and begins to tap the floorboards, finally finding a hollow spot. Grabbing a pry bar from a dusty toolbox, the floorboards are lifted up revealing ...

A small wooden box, no larger than a shoebox, with decorative carvings along its side. Trembling with fear he gingerly carried it to the table and set it down the boards tools and toolbox discarded and ignored. Enraptured by this object, its intricate carvings that seemed to depict both organic and artificial he set himself the task of inspecting the box. It appeared to have no opening, seams or hinge, as if it was merely an intricately decorative block of wood but surely something so artfully created and clumsily hidden, even hinted at, was important. Turning it around trying to dechiper the images depicted, which were tantalizingly on the edge of understanding, frustratingly just out of reach like a word you cant quite express, his reverie was shattered by the foul beastial howl down in the town square. Startled to action by this sudden noise and brought back to the horrid reality that he was in he ran to the door and without looking out side threw it and the bolt shut almost too late. Calming himself braced against the door he heard a heavy breath from outside, an acrid foul stench seemed to cross the threshold, harbinger of all that unclean and unfit creature that lurked beyond. A low gutteral laugh began, a seemingly disgusting noise that seemed to boil up from the very bowels of the sewers of hell as the beast began to taunt and mock the trapped man.

"you see, you can never truly leave my town, at least, not wholly, or whole. I will have my tribute MAN, sooner or later you will bring yourself to me"

The beast could be heard walking away, laughing to itself in its own putrid way. From his earlier view this repellent and revolting creature seemed anathema to all that is good and wholesome, that it could would brazenly in the sunlight in what seemed a civilized place unchallenged and uneradicated seemed to beggar belief. This town had a sickness if such a vile thing was to be tolerated and embraced.

Shying his mind from such thoughts he slid down the door into a crumpled heap. His trembling had begun again, not fatigue from running, or exhaustion from the last few months of fleeing the virus, but from abject terror. His mind seemed to be losing grip, this was too unreal, perhaps he was asleep in a bed in a hospital and this was merely a fever dream, it would explain the oddness and lunatic reality that surrounded him. He dropped his head to his knees and wept.

He heard the church bell sound, it was evening and the sun would descend soon, blanketing this town in the dark, rubbing his eyes and looking about him he spied a can of beans rolled under some furniture, he retrieved it and ate them cold, checking all windows and doors he retired to the bedroom, lay upon the filthy bedding and began to sleep, a series of hideous dreams followed, all of which involved running from some nefarious entity and ended with his capture and shocking dismemberment then waking up in a start drenched in a cold sweat. The morning came early, the broken shattered man rose from his repose and to his relief found that he still possessed his manhood who seemed to have woken before him. Heading off to make his morning toilet he muttered

"Huh, morning wood....."

recalling the events of yesterday and snapping his head to the doorway he almost splashed the basin

"That fucking box"

Talking to himself, or his manhood, he hurriedly finished then washed his hands, with soap, scrubbing cleanly and completely he hurried out the door

"Lets go and find out what pandora left us"