There it was, sitting in the middle of the empty room.
It was neither male nor female, and held a certain ambiguity about itself. Almost as if it could not decide what it wanted to be. He looked at it in disdain, standing in the doorway to the room. Through the door, a dim light shone into the room, illuminating the creature's few features. From what he could see in the faint light, it resembled a small child, but at the same time it also resembled nothing. He looked down at the key gripped tightly in his palm. It was truly odd, he reckoned, that off all the nondescript doors in that long corridor, he knew which door this key opened.
Behind him, a dry cough sounded. The caretaker of the long corridor was growing impatient, he sensed. Him meeting her was yet another strange occurrence. He had received an ancient slip of paper with details to an unmarked building on an unmarked street in an unnamed town. He still wondered why he had even bothered to come here at all. After all, it was not the first note he had received anonymously, such was his line of work. The reason why he had taken the decision to head to that address still eluded him. How he managed to find the building stumped him even more.
He was dragged out of his thoughts by another dry cough from the caretaker. Silently, he nodded and handed the key back to the caretaker. He took a couple of steps forward and bent down on one knee before picking it up slowly, as though it were a fragile thing made of glass. The moment he touched it, it became, with a quiet noise, a little girl. It was almost as though it willed itself to become one in line with his thoughts. Why he thought of a little girl was beyond him. It was just one of those things, he supposed.
The moment he walked out the door, the caretaker swiftly shut the door and disappeared down an adjacent corridor. He looked at the little girl and took a deep breath before picking the girl up and putting her on his back. She was surprisingly light, almost as if she was stuffed with feathers. Five minutes later, they were out of the building and out on the street. Ten minutes after that, the two of them were on a crowded train heading for the city center. It was getting late, and he wanted to get home as soon as possible.
On the train, people seemed to want to avoid him, as if he was sick with an illness that could spread by eye contact. People would empty the train carriage as soon as he got in and soon he was left alone with the little girl. He placed her down in a seat and sat across from her. She looked at him with large, glassy eyes that seemed to be filled with a mixture of grief, anger, and boredom. After staring at him for exactly two minutes, she looked him in the eyes and asked him,
"Did you read the sign on the door?"
"Was there a sign?" he replied.
"Does it matter?" came the counter-question,
He hesitated, unsure to answer, but by the time he had an answer prepared, she was preoccupied with the scenery flashing by out the window. He settled himself in for the remainder of the train ride and ignored her. A few minutes later, a bell dinged and a vaguely female voice announced the next stop. He got up from his seat and put the girl on his back before preparing to disembark. As they got off the train, he was surprised by the act of everyone physically recoiling from the sight of him and the girl. Putting it off to pure ill manners, he ignored them.
He walked silently down a street with the girl on his back. Neither of them said a word, and they did not meet anyone on their journey. After a solid ten minutes of walking in the crisp, cold autumn air, he stopped in front of an old abandoned house and set the girl down. He nodded at the girl and turned to walk away, back to the train station. He needed to get home. After all, he had wasted more than enough time on this fool's errand.
"Do you want to know what the sign read?"
He paused, foot hanging in the air.
"It read 'Do not open till Christmas'." said the girl nonchalantly.
He fell to the ground as though struck by a bolt of lightning.
