Gemotions

"Ms. Eleanor Vance." The words swam before her eyes, blurring with the tears she couldn't seem to stop. The package, heavy with an unknown burden, lay on the floor near the door. It was addressed to the woman who had lived here before her, the woman whose absence had cast a long, dark shadow. The woman who… well, the less said, the better.

Every day, the box mocked her.

She found herself checking the locks obsessively, the click of the deadbolt echoing in the stillness. Sleep offered no escape; her dreams, once vibrant, were now haunted by fragmented images and suffocating darkness.

She picked it up. She dropped it. Then, she opened it.