The Celestial Gobbler

The seemingly empty cardboard box that a student uses for a school project still contains something.  Something unexpected…and unnerving.

Genre: Science Fiction

 

Excerpt:
“What?” I asked. “Is it a bug?”

“There’s an eye, Mallow. It’s looking.”

I leaned over the box, now thinking that a picture of an eye from something my mom ordered had scared my brother.

Just as I peeked inside, he said, “It’s blinking.”

 

What’s the Writing Prompt that inspired the story?
List as many uses as you can think of for a cardboard box.
Source: A Writer’s Year: 365 Creative Writing Prompts. Text by Emma Bastow. Copyright © 2019 HarperCollins Publishers

 

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CREDITS
Story: “The Celestial Gobbler” Copyright © 2020 by Nila L. Patel
Narration, Episode Art, Editing, and Production:  Nila L. Patel

 

Music:
“Trip-Hop Lounge Abstract Background” by Digital Emotions (Intro/Outro)

 

Music by JONATHAN SHAW*
“Checking Inventory”
“Thoughts”
“Midnight Creeping”
“Treading the Unknown”

 

Music by ANDREW SITKOV (MuzStation Game Music)*
“Story at Night”
“Scary Theme #3”
“Evil is Near”
“Scary Theme #1”
“Scary Theme #5”
“Scary Theme #4”

 

*These tracks were part of a music and sound effects bundles I purchased from Humble Bundle and sourced from GameDev Market.

 

Music by Andrew Sitkov and Jonathan Shaw licensed from GameDev Market
Sound effects from AudioJungle and GameDevMarket
Vocal effects created with Audacity
Changes made to the musical tracks?  Just cropping to align with my narration.

 

Find more music by Digital_Emotions at audiojungle.net
Find more music by Jonathan Shaw and Andrew Sitkov at gamedevmarket.net
Find more music by Jonathan Shaw at jshaw.co.uk
Find more stories by Nila at storyfeather.com

 

Episode Art Description: Digital drawing. A cardboard box seen from one edge sitting on a tabletop. The box’s flaps are open. Inside, partly visible, is a sphere encircled by a ring. Extending out from beside the sphere are two thin limbs. One bends down and rests a three-digit appendage on the tabletop. Another extends through the ring and to the left behind the box, one digit visible on the tabletop. A thin tendril drops down over the corner of the box. Next to the box at right is a pencil holder containing several colored pencils. In front of the box is a glass globe ornament. A partly rolled tube of paint spills paint over the table edge from its uncapped opening. At left, several buttons are scattered over the tabletop. Watermark of “Storyfeather” along the box flap at left. The rectangular image at center is made square with a top and bottom border with blurs of color that extend from the colors of the main image.