[ WP ] One day , you find a mysterious box . The letters on it read 'Conquer-the-World Kit ' .

Connor poked his head into the musty darkness of the attic and groped around for the light switch. After a moment he found it, and the room was bathed in the warm, golden glow of two lonely lightbulbs hanging from the very peak of the ceiling. 
 
 The death of his grandfather had been an unexpected event for Connor. Despite years of declining health and faulty memory, the idea of a world without a loved-one was unthinkable to the teen, who had thus far been lucky enough to know an intact extended family. 
 
 Connor pulled blankets off of the stacks of forgotten boxes and bits of furniture his grandparents had collected over the years. His grandmother had sent him up to retrieve a box of clothes to donate to the church, but Connor had other goals. 
 
 In the very back of the attic, sandwiched between a dilapidated bookcase and a stack of boxed Christmas ornaments, there were two footlockers. The first had belonged to Connor's grandfather, an officer in the Vietnam War. The one below it had belonged to *his* father, a foot soldier during World War II. Connor's grandfather had never allowed any member of the family to look inside. 
 
 Connor slid his grandfather's trunk into another nook and examined the lock of his great grandfather's. He tentatively pulled an old brass key from his pocket - as his mother had no brothers, he had inherited the little envelope containing it. 
 
 The key slid smoothly into the lock and it clicked open. Connor's heart beat just a little bit faster as he opened the clasps and pulled the lid of the trunk up. 
 
 The contents were covered in dust. Connor carefully pulled out an M1 Carbine, a helmet with flaking paint, and a threadbare set of fatigues. The patch on the jacket - Wycombe - was the same as his mother's maiden name. There were other contents as well - manuals, novels, a handful of pictures, but nothing that would warrant keeping the trunk locked and hidden for so many years. 
 
 Connor rummaged around at the bottom of the trunk. In the back left corner he felt a latch. A quick tug released the false bottom of the trunk and revealed a new set of contents, these ones much more interesting. There were several ancient leather-bound books with obscure or disturbing titles - arcana, rhetoric, warfare, mythology - all simple and ambiguous. There was a pistol and a dagger, each of a German design, and a polished black stone the size of a baseball. In the center, thicker than the rest of the books, a final tome, this one completely unmarked and bound in black leather. Connor pulled it from the trunk and opened it to the first page. 
 
 The paper was thick and coarse - papyrus - and the ink was faded. There was no text, but rather line after line of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Connor's eyes narrowed as he flipped through the volume, which was filled with sections of Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Latin, some unrecognizable language that bore a resemblance to Mongolian, Chinese, Japanese, French, and finally German, among others. 
 
 The book's 20 pages or so were blank. Connor turned back to the German. On the last page, there was a small footnote in English. 
 
 *If you find this, * it read, *hide it or burn it. The choice is yours. * 
 
 Then further down: *Do not touch the rock. * 
 
 Connor glanced at the polished stone nestled between the pistol and the dagger and felt an insatiable desire to take hold of it. He reached toward it slowly, ignoring the panicking voices in his head. 
 
 He touched the stone, and the world went completely white for a brief second. He looked down at the trunk and felt nearly the same as he had before, but something was off. It took him a moment to realize what it was. 
 
 The book was lying open on the floor. The warning, presumably from Connor's great grandfather, was the same. Then Connor looked at the German. The words, the pronunciations, the grammar were as foreign as they'd ever been, but as he pored over the text, coherent thoughts began to materialize in his mind. The words made sense. 
 
 *''... and now I must accept that my methods were flawed,'' * the German read *'' I have wasted my gift and caused unimaginable pain without achieving even one of my ultimate goals. I must go now, and accept my fate. To the reader of this book: do not touch the stone. If you do, resist the temptation you will begin to feel. * 
 
 *Signed, * 
 
 *Adolf Joseph Hitler*'' 
 
 Connor pursed his lips, flipped back to the hieroglyphics, and began to read.
