[ WP ] Create a story with a Key , Castle , Moon , and Flashlight .

The Lantern 
 
 My mother told me, on her deathbed, why she built it. It was a simple device, somewhere between a flashlight and a lantern. With her dying breath she told me to keep it lit at night. I did n't fully understand but respected her wishes. I hung it from our porch and watched over the glow. 
 
 I grew restless and journeyed to the farthest corners of space, not knowing what deep darkness held, but forever intrigued. I brought the lantern to light my way. At last, resolved to return home, I came upon a magnificient castle. Wall after wall of icy rock and gravity belied my entrance, until at last I came upon the entrance. I held up the lantern and the archway before me opened to a crypt. The door, a writhing patchwork of starlight, pushed open easily. I descended. 
 
 I gazed at the boxes strewn around. Each one had held room for dozens of planets, but they were empty, robbed, pryed open by something ancient and sour. Dejected, I spied carvings on the floor and set the lantern down for a closer look. The carvings, glyphs, symbols older than I, split in a wild intricacy of cracks. I picked up the lantern at once and stepped back as a slab of the ground rose, flipped and hovered before me. 
 
 I leaned over to see twelve planets, little balls of life, perhaps the last of their kind. I had only time to take two and tuck them into my cloak before I heard the chittering. So the heatless had waited for me all this time. The ground returned to it's prior position as I ran. 
 
 One of them leapt into me and we tumbled out of the crypt, into the open. One of the planets rolled out and I hastened to gather it before-alas, it had been marked by darkness. A deep crack opened and closed within it. I took it anyways and fled. 
 
 One day I would return, but for the time being I would nurse these spheres, the last of my race. By night, guarded by the lantern as I slept, and I, Sun, would bathe them in light as I awoke. Mars, so marked by darkness, would dry, but for Earth, I had hope.
