With trembling fingers, Damon Wormwood traced the chunky iron clasps that firmly held the heavy lid of the crudely hewn chest in place. His eyes darted around, trying to penetrate the dimly lit surroundings of the cave – heart pounding, cold sweat trickling down his back.
“
To safe-keep, guard, and protect from the evil forces.” Those were his father’s dying words with which he had passed on the responsibility for Pandora’s Box to his son. That was seven years ago, on the day Damon turned 18. What a cursed birthday gift indeed!
Damon shivered and drew the threadbare rags, which served him as a cloak and sleeping covers alike, closer around his shoulders. It was always cold in the Driftwoods!
He stretched to his full height of six foot two, drawing back his broad shoulders, and expanding his muscular chest. He sighed with much relief. He was used to carrying himself hunched over, taking tired, dragging steps, often pausing, keeping his head down and his face hooded, as was required by The Law.
Damon was a beggar – a member of the lowest of the lowest casts; hated and feared even more than thieves or murderers. Or perhaps it was just so that by general assumption beggars were thieves, were murderers; avoided by the righteous people of Gaya. Beggars were known to have the evil eye: If you caught a glimpse of a beggar’s eyes, you had to part with the possessions you carried in order to salvage your soul. No wonder, that a lot of beggars “lost” their eyesight in accidents involving stabbings, fiery incidents, or acid attacks. And more often than not they lost more than their evil eyesight in said accidents.
Superstitious nonsense it was... of course! But superstitions and false beliefs were the pillars of society; as were greed, cruelty, and emotional depravity. Charitable donations were made by the people every month in order to keep the scum of humanity out of their sight. But only the minority knew that their donations never made it to the poor. And the ones who knew profited from the diversion of the monetary stream and kept quiet. The intended beneficiaries – the ones who lived below the threshold of what society deemed “human” - never knew.
Damon did know! And he loathed the double standards of it all. Not that he could have done much about it. His first and foremost concern was to keep Pandora’s Box spirited away and safe from the fiendish forces, who wanted nothing more than to open it and so unleash all the possible evil into the world. As if there wasn’t enough suffering to go around already! But that probably depended on which side of society you belonged to.
Damon didn’t really belong to either side. He chose to be a beggar because it almost guaranteed that people looked in the opposite direction if they happened to catch as much as a glimpse of him. In the human world, superstition served him well. And the resulting aversion made him almost untraceable.
“
Not so in the world of Evil,” his father had warned him many times. “Evil doesn’t suffer from human idiocy. Evil sits in hiding, waiting patiently for you to drop your guard before it strikes.”
Never. Drop. Your. Guard. This became Damon’s mantra from a very early age. Evil worked slowly – not because it was lazy or dull, but because Evil had all the time in the world. All the time to wait for the exact moment to strike!
“
Evil comes in many guises.” This was another one of his father’s warnings. And Damon listened to all of them – just like his father and grandfather had listened before for centuries since the beginning of time itself.
But time was running out for Damon.
He was 25 years of age with nobody to pass on his responsibilities to. In the harsh world of beggars, Damon was a Methuselah! The few who made it past their early twenties without being either brutally killed or slowly starved to death generally succumbed to a weakened mind and ended their sorry existence by their own hand.
Damon showed surprising resilience. Had to! Because leaving Pandora’s Box without a Guardian was not an option. His father was a wealthy merchant – one who travelled extensively to source the finest merchandise from all over the world. Pandora’s Box was part of his equally extensive luggage pile.
Damon sat down on the mossy log in the dark and humid cave in the middle of the Driftwoods, which he used as his recent hideout. Damon was always on the move. He never allowed himself to stay anywhere for longer than a few days. Once, he had been forced to stay put for more than a week – during a time, when icy winter storms threatened to bury Gaya under eternal ice and snow. He had no choice at that time, but he could feel Evil draw closer, stretching its claw-like fingers greedily towards Pandora’s Box: to hold it, to unclasp the locks that kept the lid in place, and to finally open it – inch by dangerous inch; to release its contents into the winds, never to be imprisoned again. And in so doing, dooming Gaya and her people.
Damon looked longingly to his makeshift bedstead, comprising of a pile of dry forest leaves, covered by a clean, finely woven cape, and nothing more. He was tired to the bone, but he didn’t want to soil the fine cape by pulling it over his filthy body. Damon might have chosen the appearance of a beggar, but he liked to wash his disguise off when he retreated to the privacy of his hideout. With a sigh, he traced his fingertips lightly over the finely woven cloak, before he shrugged off his filthy clothes and made his way to the hot spring to take a bath.
As he soaked in the soft water of the spring, he closed his eyes and allowed his mind to wander back to this very afternoon, and to the girl, who parted with her cloak. Not because she felt charitable towards the filthy beggar in his pitifully threadbare rags, but because she caught his eye and had to. Yes – she had no choice. He needed to remind himself of this fact and not allow his foolish heart to get caught up in daydreams. He resolutely pushed himself into a full sitting position, rubbed his face vigorously with both hands and grabbed for the clean piece of cloth that was his towel.
“
Oh!” The high-pitched voice made his hand stop in mid-air. He jumped up, ready for the imminent attack, training his gaze in the direction of the sound. There was nothing. He slowly lowered his gaze. He could make out the form of a woman sprawled on the ground a few paces away. She must have tripped over a stone when she tried to stake him out.
His breath hitched when she slowly lifted her head to face him. He recognised the girl, whose cloak he was going to use for covers that night.
Covers! Freya! He was naked as on the day of his making. He covered himself as best as he could with his towel cloth, which – because the cloth was of small size, and Damon was a huge man – wasn’t very good.
Dorah blushed violently. She should have averted her gaze straight away! She should have closed her eyes the second she saw… Koalemos! She should have never approached him while he was in the hot spring. What had she been thinking? Too late! The milk was spilled, and the image of this glorious, naked… beggar… Man! was etched into her retina. And all the squeezing-eyes-tightly-shut in the whole of Gaya couldn’t erase it.
Dorah sighed and picked herself up. She meticulously brushed the dirt off her skirts and rearranged her tousled hair.
Beautiful, want-to-run-my-fingers-through cascades of ebony silk… Damon swallowed hard. He shouldn’t! He couldn’t!
“I am… My name is… Dorah,” the beautiful girl introduced herself.
Ah! The ring of her voice. Crystal chimes in a soft summer breeze. Damon closed his eyes and drew a deep breath that expanded his painfully constricted chest.
“Damon,” he murmured. “I am pleased to meet you, Mylady.” He even managed an implied bow. The cloth that covered his loins moved ever so slightly.
Dorah sucked in some much-needed air and fanned her face with both hands.
“I shall retreat and let you get dried and dressed,” she finally said, and Damon thought, he’d detected a nuance of regret in her mesmerising voice.
An hour later they shared his meagre nightmeal, sitting around the fire pit he’d fashioned in the middle of his cave.
“You live here…?” she cautiously took in her surroundings.
Damon shrugged his shoulders. “Only when I am in the area. I am moving around a lot...” he clenched his fists. “It is best not to overstretch people’s kindness...” He didn’t need to elaborate what that meant. Of course, a beggar who stayed too long in one place would eventually meet an accidental end. People’s kindness was a fickle thing indeed.
“What brings you here, Mylady?” Damon tried to divert the conversation. He looked towards his bedstead, where her cloak lay spread out, ready to cocoon him like a lover’s embrace. “You can have your cloak back if it means that much to you...” he offered with much regret.
She blushed violently. “It is not the coat I am after, Damon.”
He looked at her with much intrigue. “What is it then, Mylady, that brings you to a beggar’s hovel?” She squirmed uncomfortably. She didn’t have to give him an answer of course; he was only a beggar after all and as such invisible to most of the Gayans. He scolded himself for being so forthright as to question her. Freya! It was outlandish to address her at all! His heart beat with the audacity of it all… or was it something entirely else?
Dorah looked at him – guilelessly. She met his gaze straight on as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Heavens! Why would she do such a foolish thing?
“You have something that belongs to me,” she said softly, holding his gaze.
Damon swallowed. Her eyes… sapphires in her creamy face, framed by the lush fall of her raven hair. Her lips… Ah! Those lips... Damon felt compelled to write a poem about her beauty, and her kind heart, and…
“The box you guard,” she said softly. “I came to claim it back. It is mine.”
Damon’s flesh tingled. He flew to his feet, and with a desperate jump, he flung himself onto the box to do what he was sworn to do: Guard her with his life.
“Damon...” Dorah’s otherworldly voice drifted over his senses, enveloped him, soothed him, put him at ease. And all of a sudden, he couldn’t understand why this beautiful creature shouldn’t have her box back. She was the rightful owner after all.
Damon was trained to withstand Evil, and with an almighty effort, he lifted the box and turned towards the exit of the cave. It was so hard! Why was it so hard?
Ah, her voice! He wept with joy.
She lifted her hand and wiped his tears away. Tender! Oh. So. Tender.
He had no choice but to kill her.
He was beyond fear and reason when – for the first time in his life - he unsheathed “The dagger, which can only be drawn against Evil.” His father’s words; a legacy, an oath, a vow, and no way back. Damon didn’t hesitate: he plunged the dagger into Dorah’s abdomen, thrust it to the hilt, and twisted.
She froze; disbelief in her sapphire eyes, her red lips forming a perfect O. But no sound came out of her beautiful mouth when she doubled over and exhaled the sweet air that filled her lungs.
The atmosphere changed. Sheen lightning covered the stone walls, and a fierce gust extinguished the torch and the fire in one single blow, leaving the cave lit only by the eerie bluish glow, which coated the walls.
“...open...” Dorah reached out to him, struggling for breath.
“I will do no such thing, you evil witch!” Damon furiously yanked the dagger out of her abdomen to aid her dying.
Damon closed his eyes and drew his head back on an inhale.
He defeated Evil! He should feel elated – but he didn’t!
The dagger dropped from his limp hand and hit the floor with an otherworldly sound. It spun on its tip and created a ringing noise, which grew louder and louder the faster the dagger spun.
Damon was too exhausted to react – even when Dorah’s dead eyes opened, and her bloodied fingers stretched to reach Pandora’s Box. Inch by inch she crawled closer, dragging her broken body across the floor. Electric currents charged along Damon’s skin, and the crackling noise of static echoed off the walls.
“Guide...” her dead voice was like an Arctic breeze. “Open. The. Box!”
Damon faintly wondered how it was possible for Dorah’s dead, broken body to produce such a commanding voice. His fingers itched to bide her command.
“Can’t!” A tortured howl squeezed past his painfully constricted vocal cords.
“Do. It. NOW!” Another compelling command delivered like a death blow.
“...for me, Guide… do it for me...” Her voice was like liquid silver, caressing him, putting his tormented soul at ease. Damon could almost feel her fingers running along his jaw, down his neck, over his bare chest. He shivered. Pleasure – Pain. Right – Wrong. He needed to make a decision and either combust in the fires of hell or die of pure elation in the echelons of heaven. But a decision he needed to make. Anything was better than hanging in the Inbetween, being torn apart by forces that lay beyond his control.
He didn’t hesitate when he grasped the box and unlatched the clasps.
And they came rushing out of the box like a raging river: Pleasure, Love, Compassion, Peace, Truth, Justice, Health, and Life itself filled the cave, crammed it, and rendered the air unbreathable with emotions. They condensed for a moment before they left the cave and spilled into the world of humankind; ready to wipe out the Evil that imprisoned them aeons ago.
Damon watched them. He looked at the empty box; he looked at Dorah’s dead body, her ebony hair that fanned out around her now peaceful face like a halo. In her death, she smiled. She’d completed her mission. And he had been a fool: Believing to fight Evil - when all he’d done was aid its atrocities. He’d killed the woman who came to show him love.
With a smile he picked up the dagger and plunged it into his own heart, hoping for Kindness to grant him forgiveness.
