It began like something remembered from a dream. The man didn’t know how long he’d been standing there, soaked through, staring at the ribbon of colour slashed across the sky. The rain had stopped, but the clouds hadn’t cleared. They hung low and heavy, paused mid-collapse.
The curve of colours wasn’t right. It arched lower than nature allowed, sagging over the tree line behind his cottage. Its hues pulsed, too vivid, too full, as if something beneath it breathed.
And it was breathing.
There was something else too, a sensation he couldn’t name. Like being watched through a keyhole, like something had noticed him the moment he noticed it. He didn’t remember stepping off the path. But the gravel was gone, and pine needles whispered beneath his boots. No birds, no wind, just that thick, watching silence.
The man had heard the stories. Children’s tales turned rural warnings, jokes about gold and fae and doors to elsewhere. He used to laugh at them. But this wasn’t a story. It felt like the end of one, or the start of something else.
The curve of colours pulled him.
The hues shimmered with every blink, shifting in rhythm with his thoughts. Violet for a lie. Yellow for the friend he never called. Blue for the fear that never left. Each one familiar, as if someone had woven his regrets into the light.
And then music. Soft, sweet, a lullaby half-heard in childhood, sung through teeth not quite human. It came from the other side of the light, just beyond the arc’s curve. It called without words. And under it, layered in the hum, something else took shape, a phrase, never spoken, but buried deep in the marrow of his thoughts: Don’t stop now.
The forest gave way to a clearing that didn’t belong. The trees didn’t thin, they stopped, abruptly, as if they feared it. The grass shimmered silver. The sky was brighter. The air metallic. And in the centre, where the curve of colours bled into the ground, stood a door. Wooden. Weathered. Damp around the edges like it had rained from within. No frame, no hinges, no handle, just a door, standing alone.
He didn’t call out. Didn’t turn back. He moved forward like someone remembering steps in a dream. The circle around the door hummed as he crossed it. The door creaked open.
No sound from beyond. No light. Just depth, endless and wrong.
He leaned in.
Something moved.
Not fast. Not aggressive. Just aware.
Then came a voice, close. Intimate. His own.
“Finally.”
His breath caught. He stepped back. The ground shifted. He tried to speak, but nothing came.
The trees did not move. The sky did not blink. From the open door, the hum returned. Not music now, a whisper.