RehnWriter

A day ago, reality took a nosedive. Something utterly mundane, but at the same time inexplicable, changed my life and my girlfriend Sue’s forever.

It was a door.

I’d finished up work for the day, and when I made it home, I was surprised to find Sue already back from her trip.

She’d been away for a few days, revisiting her home town and catching up with a couple of old friends. After her father’s death, reminiscing about old times had become a big part of her life.

“Babe, you’re already back? Holy shit, I missed you! Why didn’t you tell me anything? I’d have picked you up at the-“

“You’re really funny, Mike, you know that?”

“What do you mean?”

“How did you even have the time to do that?”

“Wait, what’s wrong? What are you talking about?”

“Oh, come on, don’t play dumb with me,” she said, followed by a short, nervous laugh.

“All right, Sue, what are you talking about?”

I could see how she eyed me carefully, looking for a reaction. When she didn’t get one, I saw how a mixture of fear and confusion contorted her face.

“That door! You put it there, right?”

“What door? I don’t know what you-“

Without even waiting for me to finish, she grabbed my arm and pulled me from the living room and into the hallway.

That’s when I saw it: a wooden door on the wall of our hallway where no door should be.

I blinked, closed my eyes, and looked again. It was still there.

“Come on, Mike, tell me you did this!”

Her eyes pleaded with me, waiting to reveal I’d installed it while she was gone. Instead, I just stared at her, speechless.

“What the hell?” I finally said.

Sue didn’t say a thing. She just kept staring at me.

“Seriously, I’ve got no idea what this is. How in the hell is something-“

“Mike, please!” she cut me off. “Tell me you did this for whatever stupid reason!”

I shook my head.

“No, first time I’ve seen the damn thing myself. It wasn’t here when I left for work this morning.”

We both turned to stare at it. It’s strange how something as mundane and dull as a plain wooden door can send pangs of fear and disbelief through your body.

After what felt like minutes, I started down the hallway to approach it. It looked like any other door in our apartment. Nothing was strange about it; no ornate engravings, no rich details, no words of warning. Just plain wood. Well, apart from the fact that it came out of nowhere, that is.

Once I stood in front of it, I tapped against it with my finger. It felt real enough.

When I reached for the handle, Sue pulled me back. Her eyes were wide with fear.

“Don’t you dare, Mike!” she exclaimed. “We’ve got no idea what this is or where it came from, and you’re just going to open it?”

I shrugged.

“Well, it should lead to Daren’s place, shouldn’t it? I mean, his apartment is on the other side of the wall, so…”

My voice trailed off, but Sue was serious in an instant.

“You think he did this? Why? And, I mean… how?”

I shrugged again and made my way to the front door.

Daren, our next-door neighbor, was an older man, a typical no-bullshit blue collar type.

I’d barely rang the doorbell when he opened, staring me down.

“Hey Daren, sorry to bother you, but did you notice anything strange at your place?”

For a few seconds, the man just continued to look at me.

“Like what?” was all he asked.

I opened my mouth, but then closed it again.

“To be honest, I don’t even know how to explain,” I answered.

A minute later, Daren stood right next to me in the middle of our hallway.

“Now, what’s this all about? I’ve got no clue why you’d drag me-“

“That door. You see it, right?”

“Well, it’s a door,” he said matter-of-factly.

In as few words as possible, and half-rambling, I explained what was going on.

“And you’re telling me you’ve got no idea where it came from? If this is your idea of a joke, then-“

“No, it’s not. It was just there, and-“

“Shouldn’t it lead to your apartment?” Sue cut in.

Daren turned to her, frowning.

“What the hell kind of stupid prank is this?” he muttered before he stormed back to his place.

As he did, he cursed under his breath about people ‘installing random doors.’

Soon after, we heard a low thumping from behind the door. It was soon followed by a quiet, barely audible voice calling out to us. Sue cringed back and rushed from the hallway.

A minute later, Daren returned.

“You heard any of that?”

“Wait, that was you?” Sue demanded.

“Sure was. Who else do you think-?”

“What?! I thought-“

“Daren,” I cut off Sue’s outburst. “Was there a door on your wall, too?”

“Nothing. Just a wall like it should be. I still don’t understand any of this. You sure it’s not just a damned closet? I mean, why don’t we just open it and see what’s behind? Probably just the damned wall, anyway.”

“No,” Sue called out, crossing her arms in front of her body.

Her eyes rested on me. She was shaking, begging me to agree with her. Finally, I sighed.

“Sorry, Sue, Daren’s right. Maybe it’s just a plain old door with nothing but bricks and mortar behind.”

“Mike, you can’t be serious! How in the hell-“

“Yes, Sue, I am serious. Fuck, I’m as worried and scared as you are, but, I don’t know, maybe it’s a prank or something?”

“And by who? The renting company? Some crazed carpenter going around, installing random doors?”

I almost laughed, but then I saw just how angry she was.

“Sorry, babe, but what do you want us to do? Put a wardrobe in front of it and pretend it doesn’t exist?”

“Yeah, maybe that’s exactly what we should do! We don’t know what this is or… what might be behind it!”

“It’s a damned door, that’s what it is,” Daren cut in, annoyed at our argument.

“You know, Daren, why don’t you-“

Before she could finish her sentence, I too had gotten fed up. I reached out for the door handle.

Then I took a deep breath, put it down, and carefully pulled open the door.

Sue shrieked in surprise while Daren stood next to me, undeterred.

For a second, I expected something to happen. I didn’t know what, but I was prepared for almost anything.

Instead, nothing happened at all. What lay behind was an ordinary room. It was small, square-shaped, and comprised nothing but white walls and a white wooden floor. Other than that, it was completely empty; no furniture, and no evil entities.

How was there a room here? I should look right into Daren’s apartment, and this room here shouldn’t exist. There was just no way.

“You see it, too, right Daren?” I asked.

The man shuffled around awkwardly, and I could see the confused expression on his face. He opened his mouth, then closed it again before he gave me a nod.

“It’s empty,” I called out to Sue.

“Great, now will you please shut it again?”

For a moment, I considered stepping inside, but then I did as she told me. Sue was right. This was not normal, not at all. A door on a wall was one thing, even if it came out of nowhere. A room that couldn’t possibly exist; that was a whole different story.

“I think I better get going,” Daren mumbled.

I gave him a nod and thanked him for coming over, but he didn’t react, and fled from the apartment, cursing under his breath about the ‘damned joke’ we’d just played on him.

At this point, we should’ve left the apartment. Hell, we should’ve left the moment we’d found that freaking door.

Yet we didn’t. Instead, I did precisely what Sue had told me. I pushed our wardrobe in front of it and pretended it didn’t exist.

I don’t know how we could’ve stayed so calm. The whole situation was just too absurd, too outlandish for our brains to comprehend. It was just a door, after all. How could it be dangerous?

Instead of leaving, we retreated to the living room. At first, we settled down on the couch, but the strange door’s presence was oppressive, almost tangible, like something alien lurking nearby, just waiting for… something. Even worse, from where we set, we could still see the giant wardrobe via the open doorway, and just behind it, the door’s edges.

Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore, and pushed the couch further back, to a point where we shouldn’t be able to see it, but it didn’t matter. Somehow, it was still there, almost as if the dimensions of the hallway were shifting around it, as if the door was moving, following us. It was never truly hidden by the wardrobe, always a faint, looming presence.

Before long, we put on a movie on Netflix, but neither of us could focus on the screen, and our eyes constantly darted back to the hallway.

In the end, exhausted from the day’s strange events, we drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

Suddenly, Sue jerked upright, waking me. Her eyes were wide, her face a mask of confusion, her head slightly tilted, as though straining to hear something.

“Sue? What’s up? Bad dreams?”

She didn’t answer, and before I could stop her, she jumped off the couch and bolted toward the hallway.

“Sue?” I called after her.

The moment I’d made it into the hallway, I heard the sounds of something heavy being moved. It was Sue, and she was pushing aside the wardrobe I’d placed in front of the strange door.

She ripped it open, gasping as she slapped a hand over her mouth. Yet I couldn’t see a thing. All I could make out was a faintly glowing light, both inviting and ominous.

“Sue, what’s going on? What are you-?”

My voice trailed off when I noticed the state she was in. Her eyes were wide, and she was frozen in shock. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“Babe, what-?”

“It’s Dad,” she said, matter-of-factly. “He’s here. I heard him call out to me, and… My god, Mike, he’s right here!”

I stared at her and the open door next to her in bewilderment, not able to comprehend what she was saying. The hairs on my arms stood up, and a strange feeling got hold of me. No, this was wrong. This wasn’t normal. It was dangerous, a voice inside my head screamed at me.

In a few quick steps, I closed the distance between us. I stared at the door, the door she was still holding open, a door that now looked markedly different, almost pristine. For a moment, I felt something, a distant feeling. It was strangely warm, but at the same time, icy cold, like an invisible barrier.

I tried to step forward, but when the icy feeling intensified, I pulled Sue from the door. It fell shut the moment Sue let go of the handle, and an expression of misery came over her face.

“No, Dad’s-“ she said, but broke up when she recognized me.

“Mike, how’s any of this even possible?”

That was it. I had no clue what was going on, but this was enough. I got my wallet, keys, and told Sue we had to get out of this place. She nodded, but the tears were still streaming down her cheeks.

“I swear, he was there, and he was alive! Behind that door!” Sue explained once more.

I didn’t say a word. I didn’t know what I could even say to something like that.

It was impossible, completely and utterly absurd, but so was a door appearing out of nowhere. My hands were clutching onto the steering wheel as I drove on in silence.

“Why don’t you say anything!?” Sue screamed at me.

“And what do you want me to say?!”

At that, she was quiet, and just stared out the window until we pulled up at a hotel not too far from our apartment.

I explained to the young receptionist that we needed a room for the night. Within minutes, Sue and I ended up in a hotel room much too small and much too expensive.

Sue was distant, lost in thought. I kissed her gently.

“Sue, I’m sorry, but whatever it was, it’s not real. Your father’s dead. There’s no way he could’ve been in that room. Whoever, or whatever, it was-“

“And how can you be so sure? How do you know it wasn’t him?”

She started crying again, her small body quivering in my arms.

“Dammit Mike, I know he’s gone, I know… but seeing him again, hearing his voice… I just wanted to talk to him, to tell him how much I loved him.”

“Yeah, I know, Sue, I know.”

I held her in my arms while she sobbed quietly.

Sue and her father had been close, very close. Her mother had died young, when Sue was still a little girl. Her father was heartbroken, of course, but he gave his all to take care of his daughter. Sue loved the man more than anything.

Her father never told her about the cancer. Sue and I had just moved into the city, starting our life together. I guess the old man just didn’t want his daughter to worry.

She only found out months later when she was informed about his death.

Sue broke down that day. There was pain, there was regret, and worst of all, she never go to tell him how much she loved him.

That day, a part of her soul was irrevocably broken; a wound so deep it could never truly be healed.

Whatever this damned room was, whatever she’d seen in there tonight, had torn at it once more, and was now festering again.

As I held onto her, I hated myself for the part I’d played in all this. If only we’d left the place earlier.

An hour later, Sue finally settled down and fell asleep. As she lay there, quietly breathing, cradled up in my arms, I opened my laptop, trying to find anything about weird doors that appeared out of nowhere.

The results were less than satisfactory.

Half were snippets from video games or fictional horror stories shared online. The rest were esoteric articles about so-called dream doors and portals of the mind.

Most rambled on about hypnosis and lucid dreaming, claiming these doors allowed people to confront their fears, relive memories, or unlock hidden parts of their psyche.

I skimmed one article about mental doors unlocking buried memories, but it offered nothing about a physical door appearing out of nowhere. Another described a person accessing different parts of their life through dreams, but it was all just… dreams.

I’d been there when Sue stood in front of that door, had seen her tears, heard her words.

It was maddening. Everything was so close, and yet none of it fit. This wasn’t a dream or a trick of the mind, it was freaking real!

I slammed the laptop shut in frustration. I’d found nothing. Only bizarre theories that didn’t explain a damned thing.

I yawned, rubbed my face, and when I checked the clock, I realized I’d been at this mad search for hours.

Eventually, I just settled down next to Sue, wrapping my arms around her as if to shield her from any additional harm.

When morning came, I was alone in bed.

I called Sue’s name, checked the bathroom, but found no trace of her.

A creeping panic slowly crawled into my mind. Oh god, Sue, don’t tell me you went back!

Panic turned to realization when I saw my car keys were gone.

I never knew what a mixture of adrenaline and panic could do to a human body. The hotel wasn’t far, twenty minutes on foot at the most, but I made it in half of that.

The whole time, I clutched onto my phone, calling Sue over and over again. I screamed at the ringing phone, at the voicemail that answered, but I never reached her.

The moment I entered the apartment, I was greeted by deep, utter silence. You never realize how quiet a place can be until you truly listen.

“Sue?” I called out, her name reverberating through the empty apartment.

No answer. Only the same suffocating silence. I went from room to room, but she was nowhere to be found.

Finally, I tried her phone again. Her happy ringtone cut through the silence, banishing it.

For me, however, there was nothing happy about it. I found it laying in the middle of the hallway.

My eyes darted to the wardrobe, but the door itself was gone. My eyes darted around left and right, up and down the hallway, but all I saw was a blank wall.

I stumbled forward, staring at the place where the door had been, and began frantically tearing at the wallpaper. It had to be there, just hidden! It had to be!

I tore and clawed at the wallpaper until the entire wall was laid bare, but there was nothing, just brick and mortar. Then, for a few mad minutes, I pounded against it, screaming for the damned door, for the room. For Sue. I kept it up until my fists were swollen and my fingers an almost useless, bloodied mess.

Finally, my legs gave out, and I slumped to the floor, a shaking, sobbing mess. I don’t know for how long I sat there.

At some point, Daren showed up, first cursing at the ruckus I’d caused, then asking if I was all right.

I didn’t respond.

By now, it’s already evening, and I still here, still staring at the bare wall.

All I can do is wait.

Maybe it will come back. Maybe it won’t. I don’t know. But what else is there for me now?

The wound inside my heart is still fresh, raw, and festering, always festering the longer Sue is gone. And all I can do is to give into these feelings, the sadness, the despair, the hope, that somehow, it is enough to bring her back.