I stared at the wooden box sitting on my bed and my hands were shaking a little because I knew once I opened it everything would change and there'd be no going back to pretending I was just a normal person with a normal life.

The box was small maybe the size of a book and made of dark wood with these weird symbols carved into it that I'd never been able to figure out and my mother had shoved it into my hands that night when everything went to hell and made me promise not to open it until I ...