I'm guessing you guys have heard by now the concept of buying storage lockers that are no longer being paid for at an auction. Well, I heard there was going to be an auction from a buddy of mine in my hometown. Having seen multiple TV shows about buying old lockers I decided I wanted to check it out. I had no intention of actually buying anything since I've seen and heard of old lockers selling for thousands, but I took 500 bucks with me just in case. That 500 was also a hard stop for me, I wouldn't be able to catch the gambling bug if I did bid since they are cash only and 500 would probably end up being the starting bid anyway.

So I get to the auction and there really weren't that many people there, I thought there'd be a lot more. The first three storage units sell for over $3,000 each, I laugh at myself for only bringing 500 but at the same time deep down I knew I was out of my league and would never be able to afford gambling on a unit with that much money.

We get to the fourth locker and I decide I'll probably go after this one. They crack it open and it's much emptier than the last couple we've seen. It's about the size of a standard garage inside but there's hardly anything in it. There were some random cardboard boxes lying about, a rack of clothes, and on the back wall, a wooden door was leaning up against the wall.

Everybody that was looking in during the examination phase is kind of mumbling the same thing.

"You'd make good firewood."

"Looks like clothes are mostly crap."

The auctioneer started the bidding low, at 20 bucks. A couple of people place their bids and it got up to 40, Everybody started going out after this.

I decided to place a bid at the second call for 40 bucks. I should have gone 45 but I went 50. For some reason, I was super nervous about it. Probably the rush of realizing I'm bidding on storage lockers. Anyway, before I knew it I heard "SOLD" as the auctioneer points to me.

At this point I let the train go on without me, there's no way I'm buying anything else, I could only afford this one since there was practically nothing in it. Anyway, I'll tell you the main reason I bought this was the old door leaning against the back wall. It looked like it was in pretty decent shape and my thinking process was that since my uncle does woodworking, he could get that old door shined up and really fancy looking and we could probably get a couple hundred out of it. I could make money on this locker yet.

I head in to inspect the door and find a surprise. The door isn't just leaning up against the wall, it's attached to it. I hadn't noticed before but it also had a small frame around it. It's a legitimate door, I could open it and walkthrough. What was puzzling about this is that the other side of the concrete wall was outside. There's no way a locker like this would have that un-secure of a door leading into it from outside. In fact, none of these lockers should be accessible directly from outside, you had to go in through the main front door, which was much more secure, in order to access the units.

I tried the knob and found the door locked. The knob turned but the door didn't open, so it must have been deadbolted. The keyhole was below the doorknob. What the hell is this? Some kind of joke? Who would build a door on this concrete wall that can't possibly lead anywhere and then lock it?

I decided to forget the door, for now, I'd probably need a crowbar to get the frame apart anyway. I moved my attention to the clothes rack. It was your basic clothes rack on wheels you'd find in any clothing store. It looked like the clothes belonged to an older couple, there were various dresses and a couple of suits, a bunch of polo shirts and pairs of pants. Nothing spectacular but also nothing super ugly. Figured I could find a secondhand store around here somewhere that would buy it off me.

I was about to move along to the boxes when I had an idea, go through the pockets. Duh, of course, go through all the pockets when you find old clothes. I went through all the pants and didn't find anything so I started in on the suit jackets. Nothing. I guess I didn't really expect to find anything anyway, but it would have been nice.

I got to the last suit when I felt something. I patted it down and found there was something in the left inside pocket of the jacket. I pulled it out and found it was a large key. It was probably about as long as a standard ballpoint pen and it had some weight to it like it was dense. And it was ugly, and I mean ugly as hell. It was gnarled and crooked in places, the only places that weren't gnarled or twisted were the two ends: the end with the blade/teeth used to unlock something appeared to be cut erratically. It was cut on both top and bottom which I thought was odd, I struggled to think of the last time I had seen a key with teeth on both sides outside of a car key. As for the other end, a torso of a skeleton was carved out, it held a sword in both its hand together, which pointed downwards and the carving disappeared into the body of the key. The skeleton's arms, despite being completely discernible, were connected to the shaft as well, so they wouldn't break off if the key was dropped. The skull of the skeleton appeared to be frowning with an open mouth. There was an inscription written along the body of the key: "Only in the presence of the three Princes of the Seraphim will the way be open."

My first thought was this key is awesome. Expertly crafted and quite a work of art. I would probably easily be able to sell it as a prop to someone into that sort of thing. As for now though, since I didn't really have any use for essentially a toy key, I put it in my pocket and decided to move on to the boxes.

As I was walking over to the boxes I nonchalantly looked at the door again and stopped in my tracks. I don't know how it entered my mind, or why I thought it might work, but I remembered the door was locked. I walked over to it and examined the lock. The lock was as basic as it got, a simple deadbolt once again. This could have been anybody's front door it was so simple. I put my hand in my pocket and touched the crazy key I had found, not sure why I thought this crazy-ass looking key would open a random locked door leading to nowhere in a storage unit.

I pull the key out of my pocket and the hair on the back of my neck shoots straight up when I see it again. It changed somehow. The blade end with the teeth now only had teeth on the bottom side, the top was completely smooth. I'm trying to think back if I'm somehow mistaken, that there were only teeth on one side of the insertion end the whole time. I think to myself that maybe I'm just psyching myself out. I told myself keys just don't magically change shape, so there must have just been teeth on the bottom side of the insertion end. That was of course until I noticed the skeleton on the other end of the key. It now had a large, open mouth grin. Call me crazy with the teeth end but I *know* the skull had been frowning before. What the hell was happening?

I slowly bring the key up to the deadbolt, thinking it can't possibly fit. This key looked old. I know things can be crafted new but made to look aged but something inside me just felt like this key was hundreds of years old at least. Extremely on edge, I pushed the key into the lock, hoping it wouldn't fit so I could stop feeling like I'm losing my mind. It went right in. My mind shifts from hoping it won't fit to now hoping it won't turn. It did and I heard a click, the door was now unlocked. I slowly reached for the knob and gave it a turn. Extremely nervous, I slowly opened the door. With a nice creaking sound effect for ambiance, the door opened to reveal.....a blank, concrete wall. I let out a sigh of relief and instantly felt better. I even chuckle at myself. This weird key notwithstanding, where the fuck did I think this door was going to go, Hell?

Feeling better, I shut the door and locked it for good measure. I start to rationalize this key. There were probably only teeth on one end all along, I'm just remembering wrong. As for the grin that was once a frown, just looking at the key made me think it must be some kind of gimmick. It's a trick key out of someone's magic kit or something, you do something to it and it makes the frown or grins interchangeable. I must have triggered it on accident in my pocket. I would play with it later to try and figure it out.

I put the key back in my pocket and knelt down next to the boxes. The first couple was worthless. Nothing but old magazines and trinkets. Nothing near as cool as the key I found. The last box I checked I almost disregarded with the others. It was more magazines I didn't feel like going through. I was about to close it back up when my eye caught an old issue of Hustler magazine. I'm not ashamed to admit I leafed through it. Old school debauchery at its best. I did a quick sweep for anything else and there were indeed more, including some old Playboys from the '90s. I didn't get far with those since my fingers scraped against something solid at the bottom of the box.

Buried beneath these filthy magazines was an old jewelry box, eyeing it I figured it was about 10 x 12 inches or so, maybe three or four inches in height. It was plain wood with some intricate carvings on it, though they were pleasant and not satanic like the key I found. There was no lock on it or anything so I opened it up, hoping for some priceless jewels that would make me rich beyond my wildest dreams. There were just a bunch of papers in there, which sucked. Or so I thought at first anyway. There were a lot of handwritten notes on post-it notes and notepad-sized pieces of paper that I disregarded, what caught my attention was the envelope that was resting under a couple of notes. My heart kind of skipped a beat when I read what was written on the outside:

"Instructions for the door."

The envelope wasn't sealed so I opened it and found a small piece of paper with handwriting on it.

"Instructions for the door: how to enter Lucifer's Domain. Three things are needed:

The Key to Hell

The presence of the Three Princes of the Seraphim

A locked door."

I'm not saying I was believing what I was reading at the time, but I had a sneaking suspicion the Key to Hell was currently in my pocket. I read on.

"The door can be any door anywhere as long as it has a lock. In the presence of the Three Princes, the doorway will transform into The Way Through."

I think to myself whoever owned this locker must have made this door as their Way Through, whatever that meant. Their way into Hell? Why in the fuck would anyone want to go there? I read on.

"In the absence of the Three Princes however, the door will function as normal and lead nowhere."

"With the Princes in hand and the Key to Hell, the path to Lucifer himself will open. He will grant infinite enlightenment upon the traveler and grant them one wish: whatever their truest desire maybe."

There was nothing else after that. I turned the paper over to see if anything was on the back and there wasn't. That was it? Where's the rest of the instructions? Who were these princes it mentioned?

I started looking through the ton of other notes in the box to see if anything makes sense. There were random notes about everything. I started wondering how many people had this locker gone through. I was looking for anything related to the princes and finally found something.

"Who are The Three Princes?" There was an arrow below this signifying the reader to turn the paper over. There was another note in someone else's handwriting.

"Here's what I found:

Beelzebub: second only to Lucifer himself, presider over the Order of the Fly.

Leviathan: accompanied Lucifer in the original fall. Now a demonic sea creature, causing chaos in the seas.

Asmodeus: King Supreme of debauchery and wantonness, leads all to temptation and lust."

Reading this over it sounded like these three were or are *serious* fiends. I considered stopping here and putting away the jewelry box, dabbling or meddling in the occult was not something I wanted to get caught up in. But by this time I was hooked. Was this someone's creative writing project? Was this all for real? I did not recognize the name Asmodeus, but I had heard of Beelzebub and Leviathan before. I knew of The Leviathan sea monster before, I never knew he was a fallen angel though.

I decided to look for anything related to the key, I found a couple of notes after a few seconds.

"What's the Key to Hell?"

"Where is the Key to Hell?"

"I found the Key to Hell. Right before I tried to use it its appearance changed." This one caught my interest for obvious reasons. Someone else's handwriting was underneath that.

"Supposedly it changes to fit any lock you want to open with it, it's like a skeleton key for the whole world. The face also changes to a smile when you use its power. You need the statues though or the door won't lead anywhere."

I think to myself what statues? I look through more notes. I found one asking the same question.

"What are these statues?" The paper was small, so there was an arrow for the reader to turn it over.

"The statues are the Three Princes. That's what the inscription means. There is a statue for each prince, you need all three in order to open the door." This was the same handwriting from the person who explained the Key to Hell. Whoever this was seemed to know what they were talking about.

I have to admit this was interesting, I was definitely hooked. I found another good note.

"I have the statues. I don't have the key." A post-it note was attached to this note on the back.

"It's 3:30 am on August 25, 2019. I also have the statues but I can't find the key either. I tore apart Gramma's house and it wasn't there. The fuck is it?!"

I think to myself my God, this was about a month ago. Are the statues here? Something else also enters my mind: were these clothes on the rack in here a month ago when whoever this person that supposedly had the statues was here? Was the key literally five feet behind him and he didn't know? Was I seriously the first person to go through the pockets looking for loose change or something? Of course, I had no way of knowing how long the clothes had actually been there, but still. Also, who was Gramma? Was this locker passed down through the family?

I looked around the room looking for where the statues might be if they're still here. There was literally nothing else in this room. The clothes rack, the door, and these couple boxes of shit. Then I realized something, I didn't bother to look through the second box that was also stuffed with magazines. I decided to revisit this box with the reasoning that the jewelry box was hidden under a bunch of magazines, maybe the other box has something too.

The magazines in this box were lame: Home and Garden, Food this or that, crap I would never read. No wonder I skipped it. Looking back I should have just dumped it, but at that time I stuck my hand in the box and wiggled towards the bottom. I didn't feel anything at first, but after a second I scraped something solid towards the bottom. I pulled it out, I had to give it some force against the weight of all the magazines, but out it came. It was another box but it was larger than the other one, it was about the size of a small briefcase.

I opened it up and almost had a heart attack. It contained three small statues, maybe about a foot tall, each nestled into a precut space that they each fit perfectly in to. I pull them out one by one. They had weight to them, that's for sure. Probably carved from some kind of stone.

The first one was pure white, it was a knight holding a sword by its hilt upside down, so the sword pointed down and the point rested at his feet. The sword was long enough that the knight was holding it as his chest. The second statue was black as night. He held a shield in front of him at his torso with both hands similar to the white statue holding his sword. The third statue was blood red, vermilion maybe. It was not a knight but a scholar, he was looking to his left and in his left hand, he held a book of some kind. It appeared his right hand was turning a page. Whether or not these statues were really part of a way to conjure up Satan, the craftsmanship was amazing. My mind drifted back to why I was even here in the first place, to hopefully sell this crap and make some money. These statues had to be worth a lot even for the craftmanship alone.

It suddenly dawned on me that I am in possession of both the statues and the supposed Key to Hell, and there's also a locked door right in front of me. I get a sick feeling in my stomach like when you feel very nervous about something, like when I was in high school or something and they were handing back the test I needed a good grade on but didn't think I did that well. I had this burning urge to set the statues down in front of the door and use the key to open it. Instead, I ran for it. I hid the statues back in the box, locked up my storage unit, and booked it.

This all happened about two days ago now. The two days I've been sitting on these statues and the key has seemed like 10 years. I'm not a religious person by any means, but my mom dragged me to church when I was a kid. I know who Satan is and that he is the Prince of Lies. Do I really want to meet him? Is this even fuckin real for God's sake? That's also another point. If I don't really believe that this is real or that this is all someone's creative story that other people are contributing to, then why am I afraid? Why haven't I tried to open the door with the key? I think the one thing holding me back is that the key changed like the note mentioned. That's the one thing I can verify as true from all those notes.

I'm torn, I'm too scared to try to open the door but at the same time I need to see this through. What should I do?