It was a beautiful day outside. The birds were singing, the flowers were blooming, rabbits were hopping about peacefully in fields with not a care in the world. It was simply too nice of a day to play outside. There would be no mud to jump in, no worms to rip apart with a satisfying squelch. So Jack decided to stay inside. He figured that since there would be a disturbing lack of things to make a mess of in the outside world, he could wreak havoc inside. Besides, who doesn’t like a nice game of “pull the tail off the cat?
After several minutes of chasing the cat around the house with a pair of pliers, and many more minutes of being reprimanded by his mother, Jack decided to find a new game. Besides, that darned tabby cat had gone off and found some hiding space - most likely somewhere Jack wouldn’t be able to reach. He figured he may be able to bring down the hell and the fury of an unchecked seven-year-old on some old knick-knacks, so he set off to find the ladder to the attic.
Reaching the attic was no easy task, not for a seven-year-old. The cord was too high to grab, and the ladder wouldn’t descend simply from being asked, spoken to or screamed at. However, Jack’s hatred and rage for all things orderly and peaceful won out over this challenge, and soon he found himself in the middle of a rather expansive, if creaky, room, full of priceless heirlooms and innumerable dust mites. After rummaging through many boxes of Christmas lights and other such mundane articles of rubbish, Jack finally found an artifact that piqued his interest.
Climbing down the ladder, Jack set his well deserved prize at his feet, before clunking down to the ground to join it. It was a baby-blue box, with gold trim, strange violet markings, and an orange trim. Looking at the symbols did not give Jack any information at all; Jack was fairly illiterate, as children who care more for havoc and destruction than for knowledge and information tend to be. However, were Jack fluent in ancient Gaelic, he most likely would have returned the soon-to-be explored hell-cube to the dismal attic from whence it was recovered.
Jack’s mother did not often get peace and quiet. So when she stopped hearing the incessant screams of her hellspawn roaming around the house, she didn’t take it as a sign of warning. Instead, she went and decided to get a headstart on dinner. Lighting a candle, she stepped into the pantry to see what she could fix up.
Jack decided that the only reasonable thing to do with this cube was to spin the crank. Several spins and many sharp notes of a children’s tune later, the top of the box opened, and with astounding velocity a miniature figure popped out. At first Jack assumed it was simply a toy, and was mildly frustrated at the outcome. However, after noticing that the figure before him was moving around on his own, Jack’s frustration was immediately replaced with shock and awe.
The tabby cat did not often get peace and quiet, either. After hearing the same span of silence in lieu of the normal hootin’ and hollerin’ of the child, the cat began to emerge from its hiding spot. This would have been nothing of note, except that this event coincided perfectly with Jack’s mother opening the door to the pantry. Rather than jumping off the top shelf of the pantry and hitting the sack of potatoes beneath her, the cat managed to leap from the shelf and knock the candle directly out of the mother’s hand. With a yelp rivaling even the most angry of screams of the young beast of the house itself, the cat and potatoes below quickly became part and parcel of the fire.
“Yeh mean teh tell meh dat yeh can see the future?” Jack said in his thick, childlike accent.
“Yes indeed, and I’m here to tell you yours!” answered the imp, now sitting below Jack.
“How’s ma future gon’ turn oot?” croned the scottish beast.
“Let’s just say it will turn out very interesting. Quite soon, you will be the talk of the town.” replied the imp. He was destined to tell the future, but that didn’t mean he ever had to explicitly state what was going to happen.
“Will ay graw up ta be ah reel big an’ bonnie?” Asked the vain child.
“Let’s just say,” replied the imp. He took a pause, to breathe the air. He could already smell down below the beginnings of the end. “You’ll turn out real hot.”