I tried to take life one step at a time. But sometimes it was difficult, being me. Sometimes I tried to run far, far ahead into my future. Other times all I wanted to do is retrace my steps and live in the past. But this day, I planned to just take one step forwards at a time, one by one by one, until I was where I needed to be. I just didn't know where these steps would take me.

It was a rainy day outside, which only reminded me of my name, Raina. I loved the rain even though it made me shiver no matter what season it was. Most people would prefer to stay inside on a rainy day. I had to admit, I had thought about just sticking to my couch with a new book and a cup of tea that was just hot enough as to not burn my mouth but instead fill my body with a cozy feeling. But no, I needed to take some steps outside.

The only thing I truly didn't like about the rain was how it stuck to my glasses and made it difficult to see exactly what was there in front of me. Then as soon as I'd wipe it off, my glasses would smudge or something. But I wasn't going to worry about that, I was going to take another step forward into the rain.

I tended to look down slightly as I walk, seeing my feet more so than the things in front of me. It was a bad habit that made problems in public or at school sometimes, but today there was no one and nothing to get in my way. I liked that, quite a bit. People tended to bother me, especially big crowds. I wouldn't call it social anxiety, but I just didn't like getting stuck in a maze of people who would jostle me around or having to be the one to strike up some sort of conversation. No, I was better off taking my life step by step in the rain.

As I looked halfway up and halfway down, I spotted something glimmering. Immediately, I was curious. Shiny things had popped up before, but usually when I took a step or two closer it turned out to be a gum wrapper that someone had carelessly discarded. It was a bit strange that something would be shimmering so much, though. The clouds only let so much light through, but this object was flashing light everywhere as if it were in a spotlight. It was too interesting to pass up. I sped up my pace a little bit, still trying to think about each individual step as I went onwards.

I reached the shiny object and looked down. It was a key, a simple old key. I picked it up and turned it around in my hand. It was unbelievably clean, much too clean to have been sitting there in the rain and on a sidewalk. For a moment, I thought that it was like someone had left it there for me, just for me. It was like how I thought fairies had left things behind for me when I was little. No, I was taking steps backwards when I needed to keep moving forward. I held the shiny key in my hand and started walking forwards again.

Almost immediately, I started to feel a bit guilty. What if someone had lost this key and was looking for it? Squinting in the rain, I looked around. Surely someone must have only just dropped it in order for it to be this clean. If it belonged to someone else, they must have been nearby. But as far as I could see, although that was not very far in the rain and my droplet covered glasses, there was no one around. It was just me on this sidewalk, on this street. Perhaps if I just kept taking step by step forwards I would find the person who dropped it.

I couldn't help but hope that I wouldn't find whoever had lost the key. It was quite nice, and I wanted it for myself. I looked down at it, clutched in the middle of my pale palm, and was taken aback. The key was glowing. It was literally glowing, producing its own light in a faint haze. This was certainly not any ordinary key. All the thoughts of it potentially being left just for me came back to my head. I tried to shake them all away. This was meant to be my walk forwards, not my walk backwards.

As much as I tried to keep myself moving forwards, I found that at one point I just needed to stop. After taking off my glasses and rubbing them gently with my shirt to no avail, I lifted my face up. I pointed it towards the sky and let the rain fall down on it. The water was absolutely freezing, but something about it just felt beautiful. I didn't even know that you could feel beauty. But there I was, standing there with my glasses clutched in one hand and the glowing key clutched in another, my face raised to the heavens and raindrops falling in my eyes. I could feel beauty and, even if I wasn't literally doing so, I was taking a step forward becuase of it.

Once I was done with that, I began walking again, placing my glasses back on and giving myself the gift of sight again. I wasn't sure where I was going, I had absolutely no plan. But none of that mattered. If I was going to take my life step by step, I would have to get used to having no set guidelines for what the future was going to be like. Just taking my life slow and steady would help. Step by step, step by step.

But then I stopped. My eyes widened. If anyone else had been with me, they probably would have compared the size of my eyes to baseballs or something like that. There was an enormous blue box sitting there, right in front of me on the sidewalk. How had I not noticed that before? I supposed I had been too busy concentrating on each step to notice.

I began to feel a slight vibration in one of my hands. It was the key, the shiny key from before. I opened up my closed hand and saw that it was glowing far brighter than before. It almost my hurt my eyes, almost. Somehow I knew that it was the key to this box. I stared at it for a moment. Public Police Call Box. Pull to open. Free for use of public. There were words all over it. After I had taken it all in, I decided to take another step forwards and use the key.

After turning the cold metal key around in my hand, I placed it into the keyhole and turned. It only resisted a little bit, just as it should. I felt a slight click, and I knew that it had worked. I blinked a few times. There were too many raindrops on my glasses again. I needed to wipe them off, just so I could be ready for whatever was in store. I could feel anticipation rising in me for some reason. I didn't understand it. This was only a box, a big blue box. Yet I felt like it promised something special to me. With a deep breath, I pulled the doors open and stepped back so that I could take one step forwards, inside the box.

I could never have prepared myself for this. Somehow, there was far more space on the inside than there was on the outside. It felt like it was meant to be some sort of philosophical metaphor. But I wasn't going to think about that, not at this moment. I took one step forwards, deeper into the box.

The room was dark, but lights were everywhere so I was still able to see and take everything in. Where I was standing looked like the bridge to cross into a new world, with metal handrails on each side. I took a few steps forwards and looked around, realizing that my mouth had subconsciously dropped open in my awe. What caught my eye was the structure in the middle of the room. It looked almost like the controls to some sort of spaceship, formed in a sort of hexagonal shape. In the middle was a tube with lights in it that reminded me of stars, if stars were a bright blue. The glow of it made me feel safe, and invited me to step in farther, so I did.

I took a look around me and saw that up on the walls were circular lights that looked almost like targets. I would have thought that they would look silly in the room, but they didn't. It just added to the space-like yet inviting atmosphere. But then what really got my attention were the circular carvings engraved onto metal pannels above the controls. They were all unique yet seemed to follow a similar pattern, almost like it was another language. I wished that I was taller, far taller, just so I could reach up and run my fingers across it. I just took another step away from it so that I could have a better view.

As I stood there, staring up at the circles, I realized that I felt as if I never wanted to leave. It was like I belonged here. Maybe the key I had picked up really had been left specifically for me, so that I could find this. I had taken the right steps forward, one at a time, and now I was here and I planned to stay.

A/N This is slightly different from my typical author's note because I am writing this so that I may enter the new Inside the Box competition! I have a sort of reserved excitement about entering this competiton, it's strange. I've been thinking about entering Inside the Box again for quite a while now, and it's hard to believe that I'm actually going through with it. I feel like this competition is going to teach me new things about myself and help improve my writing even further, like it is meant to. While writing this little story, I found that there was some sort of spirit and vibes that I had never gotten when I was writing before. I loved it, actually. Now I'm kind of looking forward to this whole thing. If I were to win this, it would mean so much to me. I'm not going to lie, after I had been doing so well in the first competition and then I flopped in the last round, I was devestated. It never really escaped my mind. I was afraid to enter this at first, because I didn't want to lose. But that's not what this contest is really about. I guess I'm really only understanding that now. Maybe that's okay then. All I can say that this is the right step forwards for me.