I never believed in curses. I laughed at the idea of haunted objects, rolled my eyes at ghost stories, and treated anything labeled “possessed” as kitsch meant for gullible collectors.
Until the box.
The Dybbuk Box came into my life through an estate sale in New Orleans. I was there for work—an antiques dealer by trade, always hunting for rare finds with high resale value. The house was a 1920s French Quarter mansion, long abandoned after a fire. Most of the items were soot-stained, water-damaged, or already picked over by the time I arrived.
Then I found the cabinet.
It was small. Dark wood, maybe mahogany, with symbols carved into the sides—Hebrew letters, scratched in by hand. Its hinges were sealed with wax. No label. No price. I asked the man running the sale about it. He looked uncomfortable.
"That piece isn’t for sale," he said.
I offered double.
He refused.
I waited until closing time and slipped back into the room. Left cash on the desk. Took the box.
That’s where everything went wrong.
At first, I didn’t open it. I placed it on a shelf in my home office, beside a brass telescope and a jar of Victorian-era marbles. But from the moment it entered the house, the energy changed.
Lights flickered. My dog refused to go near the room. He whimpered at the door. Barked at the walls. I blamed it on age, wiring, maybe rodents in the attic.
Then came the dreams.
They weren’t nightmares, exactly. They were... visitations. A dark room. A shadow moving just out of reach. Whispered words in a language I didn’t recognize but understood in the pit of my stomach. Sometimes I’d wake with the taste of iron in my mouth, heart pounding like I’d run a marathon.
One night, I woke at 3:06 AM. The Dybbuk Box was on the floor. I hadn’t touched it. The wax seals were broken.
I never opened it. I swear I didn’t.
But something had.
That week, my health deteriorated. I developed a cough that wouldn’t go away. My teeth ached. I saw a doctor, but tests came back normal. I started hearing footsteps in the hall when I was alone. My bedroom door creaked open at night, even when latched.
Then came the shadows.
Not normal shadows—these were wrong. They moved independently of the light source. They hovered near corners. Once, I saw one crawl across the ceiling like smoke, then disappear into the vent.
My dog—Cooper—vanished.
One moment he was in the backyard, chasing birds. The next, gone. No gate open. No hole in the fence. I searched for days. Put up flyers. Nothing.
The box sat on my desk like it was mocking me.
I decided to burn it.
I took it to a field outside the city, doused it in lighter fluid, and set it ablaze.
It didn’t burn.
The flames danced around it. The wax melted, the symbols blackened, but the wood didn’t so much as blister.
When I returned home, the box was on my kitchen table.
I hadn’t brought it back.
I contacted a rabbi. He listened patiently, then asked to see the box. When I showed it to him, he stepped back like I’d drawn a weapon. He crossed himself—though he wasn’t Catholic.
"That’s not just a Dybbuk," he said. "That’s a prison."
He told me that some spirits can’t be banished, only contained. That the box wasn’t cursed—it was containing a curse. And I had broken the seals.
I asked what I could do.
"Pray you didn’t release it fully. Pray it’s still attached to the box."
He offered to take it, to attempt a ritual. I agreed.
That night, I dreamt of a woman with no eyes. Her mouth stretched too wide, sewn at the corners with thread. She reached toward me and whispered, "Mine now."
I woke up bleeding from my nose and ears.
The rabbi never returned my calls. When I drove to the temple, it was boarded up. Empty. No record of him having worked there.
I started documenting everything. Set up cameras. None lasted more than three days—batteries drained, lenses cracked. I uploaded some clips to a private forum. Other Dybbuk Box survivors contacted me. Said they’d experienced the same things.
One sent a photo of his box.
It was identical.
Another described the woman in her dreams. Word for word.
They called her She Who Was Taken. A spirit of vengeance. Betrayal. Once a victim. Now a predator.
Then one night, I woke to find Hebrew carved into my wall. It wasn’t there before. I translated it phonetically, using the photos I’d taken of the box.
It read: "Open and become."
I moved cities. Changed my name. I buried the box in a cemetery at midnight, surrounded it with salt, and poured concrete over the grave.
It didn’t help.
The dreams continue. Items in my home vanish, then reappear in impossible places. A crucifix I nailed to the wall melted into ash. I don’t remember doing it, but one morning I woke wearing clothes I didn’t own, with dirt under my nails and a key in my hand.
It opened nothing I recognize.
I don’t know what’s real anymore.
But I know this: the Dybbuk Box isn’t a relic. It isn’t a game. It’s a doorway.
And I didn’t just open it.
I walked through.
If you ever come across a box like mine—small, wooden, sealed with wax and carved with symbols—do not touch it. Do not take it home.
And above all...
Do not listen when it starts to whisper your name.
Because once you do, it remembers you.
And it wants to come back.
