Blake
really hated getting mail. That was a given; it was never from anyone he wanted to hear from. Most of it was bills--he was used to seeing those, though Matt had always paid them in the past when they shared an apartment--and the rest was advertisements, junk, and finally, letters from his parents. The only parents in the world, Blake was sure, who still spent money on stamps to send letters to a son who would never return them.
He supposed it was awful of him to just snub their letters. He read them, really. Most of the time. But usually they just made him feel shitty. And there was something terribly fake about them, too, the kind of fake a pair of social workers would show to their depressed and estranged son. They'd always send him things, too, check up on his habit of taking his medicine--if one could call it a habit--ask how living alone was going and ask if he wanted to come home. Blake hated it. He really, really did. And so it was for that reason he usually ignored the things he got in the mail, instead piling them in a closet never to see the light of day.
But with this package, such a treatment would prove a bit difficult. Blake gaped at the human-sized box, face pale as a few delivery men carefully moved it inside of his apartment, and the one thought that made it through Blake's head was something along the lines of,
Great, my folks finally bought me my own coffin."Sign here please, sir," a delivery man said in a monotonous voice, tapping Blake's shoulder with the clipboard. Blake made a kind of stammering noise in response and fumbled for the pen, signing his name slowly and pushing the clipboard away. "Thank you, sir. Have a nice day."
And before Blake knew it, he was staring at this enormous box standing upright in his living room, staring at the address label. Yup, from his parents. Who else would send him something like this? It... it wasn't his birthday, was it? No, Blake's perception of time had been off for years, but it wasn't
that off. Something itched at him--something that had been pretty much dead for as long as Blake cared to think back, which wasn't too long, but he wasn't much in the mood for remembering how many times he'd experienced curiosity. Yes, curiosity. What the
hell had his parents sent him this time.
Blake shuffled to a drawer in the kitchen and pulled out a butter knife, stared at it for a moment, then moved back over to begin cutting the tape on the box to open it. There was really only one way to find out.