It had been a long day and I was getting ready to go home. I reached into my pocket for my keys but to my surprise, there were not there. I looked around my desk thinking that I had somehow dropped them. They had somehow gotten into one of the drawers on my desk. Too tired to really think about it, I grabbed them and set off for home. When I got to my apartment building I pulled my keys out of my pocket to unlock my apartment and I noticed that there was an extra key with them. I looked at it closely. It was a very small silver key that I had never seen before. Wanting nothing more at the moment to get a good night's sleep I put it to the back of my mind and went straight to bed.

The next morning I got up and started making breakfast. I got out a frying pan and made some scrambled eggs with a cup of orange juice. When I had finished my food I grabbed my coat and my keys and set off to work forgetting all about the small key. On my way to work, I stopped by the post office to collect my mail. I had three letters and a package wrapped in brown paper.

When I got to work I sat down at my desk and opened my mail. The letters were just bills but when I opened the package I had a Surprise. It was a very neatly carved wooden box. It was a couple inches and about a foot long. I examined it carefully for it looked very old. On the top of it, there was a tree carved in the wood. I tried to open it but it was closed tight.  I noticed a small hole on the front of it. It almost looked like a keyhole. At that moment I remembered the key that I had found the night before. I grabbed it out of my pocket and slid it into the hole and turned it. With a spring the top popped off the box open to reveal a very shiny almost new looking key. It was a very old silver skeleton key that had gold vines around the handle. Amazed at my discovery I picked it up and studied it. There were no markings on it, I took another look at the box for any sign that would say where it came from but there was nothing. I looked at the brown wrapping paper for a return address to see where it had come from. There was no return address. Puzzled, I closed the box and began working.

When lunch came around I took the box with the key with me to the bakery down the street. I got there just before everyone else so I did not have to wait in a line. I got my usual freshly made beef sandwich and sat down at a table to enjoy it. When I had finished my sandwich I took out the box and opened it again. This time I took the key out of the box. When I grabbed it the first thing I noticed was that it had a warm feel to it. I still had about 20 minutes before my lunch break ended so I decided that I was going to find out what was so special about this key and where it had come from. For the first time, I noticed a small groove running the length of the key. I could just barely see a hint of something in the groove. It was too small to reach my fingers into so I grabbed the toothpick from my sandwich and poked it in. I caught the point of the pick on what appeared to be a small piece of paper that had been neatly rolled into the key. It took a couple minutes but I finally got the note out and did my best to unroll it without tearing it. It was very old and dry, I could hardly make out what was on it at all. I made out what I could but I could not read it. It looked like pictographs or some sort of map. Forgetting all about going back to work I rushed straight over to the house of an old friend of mine.

I went to this friend in particular because he worked at a lab that specializes in artifacts and maybe could help me find out what the paper said and how old it was. When I got to his house no one appeared to be home. I called him excitedly wanting to find out where this mystery had come from. He did not answer. Still parked in his driveway I wondered why he was not picking up. I decided to go over to his lab to see if that was where he was.

When I arrived there I could see his car in the parking lot. I walked into the building hopefully looking for him. After several minutes of searching, I found him on the second floor in a dark room with nothing but a lamp studying an old vase. I stepped into the room with the box. He looked up from the vase and greeted me with a smile. “What can I help you with?” he asked. I Handed him the box told him the story of how I found the key on my keychain and lead to finding the box with my mail. When I had finished speaking he handed the box back and told me that he did not know anything about the box but he could run some tests on it to determine how old it was. I agreed to this idea. The two of us headed to the 5th floor to run the tests needed.

Hours later we had run almost all of the tests we could. There was still one left to try. It was the riskiest of the tests and might harm the box or the key but it was worth a try. He put the items into a compartment and flipped a few switches. The machine came to life with a rattle. After several moments of intense waiting the machine made a loud banging sound and I woke up startled.

I was at my desk with someone standing behind me. “The building is closing down for the night,” a voice said. I got up marveled that it had all been a dream and slightly disappointed. I put on my coat and I reached into my pocket for my keys but to my surprise, there were not there. I looked around my desk thinking that I had somehow dropped them. I looked into the drawer on my desk to find them lying there. I picked them up and noticed something different from the usual. There was another key in the bunch. A very small silver key.