His hand trembled as he slid the lock all the way to the right. Click. Giving it one extra, reassuring nudge, he thought, “There, now no more evil can be created.”

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

His knees weakened. From within the bolted box, he heard it: the pen, writing once more.

Elizabeth Lorayne is a printmaker, artist, and an award-winning and critically acclaimed author. Her work has also appeared in The Haiku Foundation Blog, Boston Literary Magazine, and Cathexis Northwest Press. She holds a B.S. from The New School in Manhattan, where she studied art, psychology, and creative writing. She lives in Newburyport, Massachusetts with her husband and daughter.