During my mid 20s I oft found myself strolling down the hallway of Regalia and opening one of the infinite amount of doors lining the sides. Though they were all different to each other I stumbled from one to the other in the dim light of a flickering chandelier following me down the corridor.
Prying a door open revealed to me a planescape: always unlike the previous though mostly clear to the eyes. Some of these gateways sheltered tranquil gardens, others led to hideous nooks of otherworldly creatures that reached to nib at my hand whenever I sought to close the door as quick as I opened it.
On of them, however, was different. An ordinary one of some elongated bell shape with its rim a foot above my head; opening it revealed to me no dream or nightmare but simple darkness. Though a darkness not pressing, scaring or extinguishing my thirst for life, but a darkness roaring emptiness from a maddening deposit of silence.
As if something spoke to me from across, I yielded and shut the door close. The emptiness was omnipresent to a degree where I could not even remember well what I witnessed, merely the thoughts that swirled within my head along with the visage of the eerie silence.
Driven by curiosity or some unforeseen circumstance, I reached to hold onto the knob and pull the lid open once more, only to witness the darkness emerging, devouring, almost swallowing me whole, sending me on a desperate flight down the corridor though to no avail as the only thing I found was the end of the infinite, a wall blocking my way.
Though when I turned, it was all calm and the hallway was once more never-ending and reaching to both sides I faced. I wandered on for a while intentionally eluding the same elongated door that appeared every once in a while to test my curiosity, and so I wandered from door to door until years passed and I felt I matured enough to understand what I had previously witnessed.
I pried the door open again and when I thrust my head into the Unknown I saw a tranquil garden much alike any I had seen behind other doors, though in its cradle lay a pair of shackles, emerald green and lying shattered in the grass.
I exhaled a sigh at the spectacle and closed the door shut forever.
Adrienne d'Ortonnaise
More stories:
Promotion
Arrival in Calemberg
The Forest Carnival
Reflections
Cemetery
The Carriage
Confinement
The Character:
Promotion
Arrival in Calemberg
The Forest Carnival
Reflections
Cemetery
The Carriage
Confinement
The Character:
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