"Congratulations and sorry for your loss," the solicitor exclaimed. "A distant relative has left you their storage unit and all of its contents. Here are all the details that I have." They then gave me folder full of paperwork and directions to an old storage facility just outside of town. Two keys were also included.

Getting into my car, I laid the folder on the passenger seat and stared at it. Who was this person? Have I actually met them before? How did they know me? All these questions and more swirled around in my head. "Well it’s mine now," I said aloud, "I suppose I should see what I’ve been given."

I put the location into my car navigation system and started the engine.

After an uneventful forty-five minute drive across town I arrived at the storage building, the security gate was open so I drove in and parked up next to the entrance. The car-park was eerily empty. The building looked like it had been abandoned, rust and decay was everywhere. The car park itself was pot-holed and cracked – weeds growing where they could.

Picking up the folder I got stepped out and headed for the entrance. It was a plain solid iron door with just a handle and key hole, both also looking rusty and unused. Other than a small warn sign there was nothing to indicate that this door was the entrance, it looked more like a fire exit, yet as far as I could tell it was the only door facing the car park.

I took a look at the two keys that were given to me in the folder, one looked like a standard cylinder lock key and could fit this door, the other was a shape I had not seen before. Three ridged sides instead of the usual one and the head contained a small blue jewel that seemed to glow gently. Taking the normal key, I opened the door and walked inside.

I was now in a short windowless corridor another door at the far side. The corridor was dimly lit with a single hanging lightbulb and like the outside of the building it was in a very sorry state of disrepair. I sighed inwardly and what I was getting myself into. The second door was slightly ajar and I could see a strip of light was escaping from the other side.

I reached for the handle of the second door and pulled it open, immediately shielding my eyes from the intense light that accosted me.

"Hello and welcome to Ethereal Storage!" Someone announced cheerily.

"Oh, hi, hello," I replied still covering my eyes, "just give me a sec to adjust to this light, it’s bright."

"No rush, no rush" they said.

Once I could remove my arm from my eyes and the squinting had all but stopped, I see this new room I was in. It was white, very very white. The walls, floor, ceiling all white, even the furniture was white. Not another hint of colour anywhere, except that was, for the person sat at the desk smiling at me. He was wearing a harlequin or court-jester outfit. Once he saw me looking at him, he give me a wave and pointed to a char that was setup opposite his desk.

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"Please have a seat, I am sure you have questions."

"Thank you," I replied sinking into chair provided. "Oh, this is quite comfortable!"

"My name is Bob, and I am the custodian of this facility. What can I help you with today?" He asked.

"Right yes. I have just been informed that one of my distant relatives has died and left me a storage unit and all its contents, but I have no idea who this person is, so I don’t know why they have left me this."

"Ah, very sorry to hear that. Are those the details?" he asked pointing at the folder I was holding, "may I see them?"

"Yes of course," I replied handing it over.

Bob took the folder and slowly tipped the contents on to his desk, the odd-shaped key escaping first and skittering gently across the surface. "Oh wonderful, I see you have the original key!" Bob smiled. "In a lot of cases this gets lost in the kerfuffle and it’s such a mountain of paperwork to get a new one made and registered correctly."

Shuffling though the paperwork, Bob made a few distracted ‘uh-huh’ and ‘ooh’ noises. Once he had been though it all twice and made three piles of papers.

"These ones," he said pointing to the left most pile, "you don’t really need - they are receipts of payments made to us. If I remember correctly this account is fully paid for quite a long time, so there is no need to worry about any future payments."

"That’s good, I don’t know where I would get the money from anyway." I replied happily.

"This next pile you should keep safe. It’s receipts for most of the items in the locker itself. ‘Proof of purchase’ if you will. Quite important. I can help you go though and catalogue these if you require."

"Yes please, I wouldn’t know where to start with all this."

"This last pile, these two sheets of paper," Bob said holding them up, one in each hand, "are the most important and must never leave your possession – unless you are in this office of course," he smiled. "This one provides proof of the owner of the locker in question and this one allows entry to this storage facility. They are almost impossible to replace."

"OK," was all I could reply.

"If you imagine the mountain of paperwork just to replace this key, well each of this documents on their own would require a world of paperwork and several blood sacrifices."

"...wait, what?" I asked before being interrupted.

"But never mind all that, let’s see your locker and I’ll tell you what you have gotten yourself into!" He laughed and stood up. "These documents will be safe here and you’ll need the key."

Pointing to the far wall a small key hole had appeared, or had it always been there? "Please insert it when you are ready." he smiled.

Getting up from the chair, I reached over to the table and picked up the key, it felt heavy in my hand, the faint glow brightening as I neared the wall. Once I inserted the key it seemed to turn on its own, several clicking mechanisms could be heard as it did so and after a few moments the outline of a large set of double doors appeared in a soft blue light, a colour matching the jewel in the keys head.

"After you," Bob prompted as the newly created doors slid open revealing a spacious storage room.

"Wow," I managed after a few seconds.

The room was lined with floor to ceiling shelves on three sides, each of which was filled with old looking wooden boxes alongside cheap modern cardboard ones. In the middle of the room was a carpeted area with two chairs, a small side-table and three very sizeable round-topped chests – the type you see in pirate films.

"Wow," I repeated, "What is all this stuff?"

"This was your late relative’s storage locker, it is now yours. Come. Sit," he said walking over to one of the chairs in the middle.

I slowly made my way over to a chair, turning like a ballerina as I did so trying to take in the entire room. There was a lot of stuff in here.

Bob continued, "one of the documents from your ‘keep’ pile is a manifest of all the boxes, their location and contents. Scanning down the first page it looks like everything is where it should be. Now, where to start?" he mused.