Taking a moment to weigh my options, I turned around and made my way back through the obstacles and to the computer chair parked in front of the desk.
Narrowing my eyes, I quickly placed the flashlight in my mouth to free up my hands and started measuring.
’Hmm,’ stretching my arms out in a t-pose as far as they would go, I got a rough measurement of the width of the chair before spinning around and observing the open path to the safe.
For a few short seconds, I simulated the route I would need to take in an attempt to see if it was possible, but after the eight failed mental simulations, I gave up on that idea and dropped my arms.
’Fwwweeew, come on, Taylor, there has to be something around here that I can use.’ Spitting out the flashlight and exhaling softly, I rotated my head around, looking for anything at all that I could use to reach the safe’s dial.
But to my dismay, there was nothing, not a single thing apart from the hundreds of boxes…
’Heh, am I really going to have to move boxes…sigh, fine…’ resigning myself, I toddled my way toward some of the double stacked boxes, since they were the only ones even remotely close to something I could move and gently pushed the top box to test its weight.
Five minutes and eight box shoves later, I had my own small box tower set up, and let me tell you, I was already sweating my ass off. Mind you, in total, all I did was move five boxes, but for someone as weak as my present self, it took quite a lot of effort and careful planning to set this miniature staircase up.
To make matters worse, once I DID get the combination dialed in, I would then have to climb back down my little boxy staircase and move them all back to their original positions before being able to open the safe door.
And that was exactly what I did; almost 20 minutes after I first entered my Granpa’s office, I finally had the safe open and the room back in the disorderly state it was when I got here.
Luckily, my Grandpa maintained the safe relatively well and had a habit of lubricating the hinges, so although the door probably weighed in excess of 50 pounds, even with my meager amount of strength, I was able to get it to glide open.
Standing there, with the flashlight in my mouth, I found it incredibly difficult not instantly to give in to my insatiable greed.
Dozens of massive gold bars, hundreds of silver ones, and multiple binders filled with expensive and rare coins, the contents of the safe were magnificent to look at, and I knew damn well that if all of this stuff had been in my hands 30 years in the future, I would have been INSANELY RICH!
Unfortunately, when my Grandpa eventually did pass away, my Aunt Penelope would cause a massive argument and eventual legal battle between herself, Uncle Gideon, and my Father, as they completely threw Grandpa’s Will out the window to begin fighting over the vast wealth he left behind.
I will say, though, that some good things came from the battle, as it was because of this that I was able to learn the combination for his safe. Back then, no one knew the combination because Grandpa conveniently forgot to leave it behind, so while everyone was freaking out and calling someone to crack it…I happened to be the one sitting on the ground, going through the numerous boxes of documents until I found some random scribbles resembling numbers.
As it turns out, those numbers were what eventually the Safecracker would determine to be the combination. All these years later, I still had them stored in my head, unaware that I’d be needing them at some point.
In contrast to my short stature, I found myself standing in front of the massive safe after taking care of the lock.
In search of something both valuable and inconspicuous, my eyes scanned around.
Eventually, I reached for one of the large books of coins and took it to the ground before flipping through; since I was the one who had listed all these coins up on E-Say, a virtual marketplace back in 2005, I had a rough idea of what their value would become.
However, there were more than a few EXTREMELY rare pieces whose value couldn’t be determined at the time and ended up sitting in the hands of my Father until the day he pawned them for pennies in comparison to their actual value.
’There were five coins that I determined needed to be put up for auction if we were to get a proper value for them, and here…they are.’ Flipping to one of the last pages in the binder, I swiftly located a set of very tiny, circular pieces of metal.
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They were crudely shaped, obviously crafted by hand, and according to the plastic holder in which they were stored, they were very old Greek Coins.
I remember when my Father took them to be appraised. The guy had told us they were worthless and probably fake, which caused my Father to go off the deep end in fury, but I knew better.
Something about these coins haunted me for years to come, and that was the fact that they had shown up online many years later, thanks to having sold for millions of dollars.
That’s right; they were AUTHENTIC, but only because there were so few left in existence was it very difficult to recognize them unless you knew what you were looking at.
Seeing as they were in the bottom binder, practically buried under a f**k ton of highly valuable items, I had a suspicion that they wouldn’t be missed if they vanished.
Thus, these five coins had my future progress written all over them. With speed and finesse unbefitting someone of my age, I removed the coins, placed them on the floor beside me, and put the binder back where I found it before subsequently closing the safe.