THE PACKAGE WITH NO RETURN

It arrived on a rainy Thursday afternoon, sitting on Black Smith's doormat like it had always belonged there. No knock. No doorbell. No delivery truck humming away down the street. Just a box—wrapped in thick, yellowed parchment, tied with twine, and sealed with deep crimson wax.

Black blinked at it, soaked hoodie clinging to his arms as he stood under the dripping awning of his apartment building. He glanced down the hallway. Empty. Checked the floor above. No footsteps. No voices.

He crouched beside the box. No label. No tracking number. Just that wax seal, cracked at the edges, stamped with some kind of crest—an ornate axe laid over a sunburst, tangled in a ring of thorny vines.

"Okay..." he muttered. "Weird Amazon drop-off, maybe?"

He picked it up. The box was surprisingly warm—like it had been sitting by a fire, not in the cold, damp hallway. Inside, something shifted ever so slightly. Heavy, but not metallic. Something solid... and old.

He carried it into his apartment, dropped it on the coffee table, and stared at it like it might explode.

Black wasn't the kind of guy who attracted mystery. His life was plain—quiet job at a courier service, casual obsession with escape rooms and historical documentaries, and a weekend hiking group that barely showed up half the time. No secrets. No enemies. Definitely no distant relatives mailing him cursed antiques.

Still, the box called to him.

He peeled back the paper slowly, revealing a rich mahogany case underneath. It had strange engravings—language he didn't recognize. Inside, nestled in dark velvet, was a lamp. Not the plastic kind your grandma plugs in. This was an old-world oil lamp: brass, flecked with age, hints of blue and gold shining under the dust.

Next to it, a note. Real parchment. Inked by hand.

To the rightful Smith, by blood or fate. Light the flame. Face the question. Earn the answer.

Black's heart thudded once, loud and slow.

He turned the lamp over in his hands. No switch, no lid, just a single engraved line running along its side like a scar. He set it back down, note trembling slightly in his fingers.

"What even is this?" he whispered.

That night, curiosity gnawed at him. He texted a photo of the lamp to his best friend, Jules.

Black: Some antique prank you pulled? 

Jules: Bro what? That's straight out of Aladdin. I wish I was this creative. Rub it. Make a wish. 

Black: Hilarious. 

Jules: Do it for the meme, man.

He didn't. Not then.

The next day, after work, something made him detour into town. Not consciously—more like a pull. His feet took him to a block he didn't usually visit, where a hand-painted sign hung from an old stone building:

Relics of the Unknown – Limited Exhibition

He stepped inside.

The place was empty. Dusty. Filled with glass cases housing strange artifacts: a broken sword, a fossilized eye, a feather that shimmered like starlight. But at the far end, behind a cracked display case, sat his lamp.

Identical. Every scratch. Every swirl of blue enamel. Same scar down the side.

A small plaque read:

The Lost Lamp of the Wishmaker's Line.
Once owned by the Smith family. Provenance uncertain.
Believed to be real. Never confirmed.

His breath caught. He looked around—but the place was deserted. No staff. No guests.

He bolted.

The next morning, he came back—with questions, with nerves, with that cold pit in his stomach. But the building was gone.

Gone.

Just a vacant lot. No sign. No bricks. Nothing but damp gravel and a bent "For Lease" sign swinging in the wind.

That night, he couldn't take it anymore.

He dimmed the lights in his apartment. Lit a single candle. Placed the lamp in front of him.

"Alright," he muttered. "Let's see what kind of weird this gets."

He polished it once with his sleeve.

The flame flickered. The shadows warped. The air pulled tight like a held breath. And then—

BOOM.

Smoke exploded upward. A shape twisted out of it—half-tornado, half-person—before snapping into focus: a man-shaped thing, draped in layered silks, glowing faintly with blue fire and deep annoyance.

"Ugh. Seriously? Right now? I was dreaming about lava pools and sugar fig wine..."

The figure rubbed his face, then blinked at Black.

"Wait. No. Hold on. You're a Smith?"

Black could only nod.

The genie grinned, slow and wicked.

"Hoo boy. Looks like we're doing this again."