Gemotions

The antique music box was beautiful, its inlaid wood gleaming in the dim light of the inherited apartment. Elias found it on a side table. His sister, Penelope, inherited the apartment itself, a valuable property in the heart of the city. Elias, however, was given the ornate box. A tremor ran through him.

He carefully lifted the lid. The tinkling melody that spilled out was hauntingly familiar, like a half-remembered dream. He wound the key, expecting a cheerful tune, but the music box played something else, something dark and complex.

He tried to stop it, but the mechanism seemed to have a life of its own. He felt a wave of dizziness, a sensation of being pulled under. His gaze locked onto the tiny dancing figures inside the box. They were not dancing. They were swaying, as if on the verge of falling.