Closet in the Night

Closet in the Night – by QDesjardin

It is one night when I hear strange noises from my wardrobe closet that I shuffle out of my bedsheets, groggily put on my slippers, flip the light switch on in my room, and apprehensively approach my closet door. My eyes almost seem to sting from the light – and I see what time it is on the bedside clock: 2:53 AM. 

The noises continue. Through the muffle I imagine I recognise the sharp screeching of a bat, amidst many noises I have yet to discern.

I lay my fingers around the handle, and it seems harder than usual to turn.

Alors! The closet door suddenly jolts as I pull it outward, as if a vacumn had tightly held it in. Smoke and dust arise, and I reflexively shut my eyes as a strange, addictingly sweet scent enters my lungs; it reminds me of a mixture of blueberry and vanilla. How intoxicating.

But once the smoke has gone, what catches my attention is the uncanniness inside. All the clothes on the hangars – everything has disappeared.

In my barren closet, there's only a doorway on the other end. A violet door, seemingly glowing with its own light, with the outline of a rose flower embedded on it.

It's silent now. I wonder if the sounds were a mere figment of my imagination – on the rarest occasion, I'd hear things, and it feels almost so real that I ask others if they've heard them too. But they don't.

My quivering breaths seem to putter out my lips as I feel my own heartbeat under my chest. Some adrenaline is surging through me, clearing my head.

The door is still there.

It's too vivid an experience for me to say I'm dreaming. The hardwood floor is greyer than usual, and the steps I make leave ghostly impressions – footprints. Even when I lean and touch the walls (so cold), my fingers are coated with dust which I rub off on my pajamas.

Up close to the door, I start to feel light-headed, as if a soothing lull has been made inside my head, wanting me to fall towards it like a pillow.

When I lay my fingers over the violet door, a kind of electricity flows through my hand and arm, making them feel fuzzy. The door is so different from any door, or anything else in the world. It's slippery – my fingers easily glide over the slick surface. Electrified jello comes to mind.

Then I notice it has no door handle. I look around, and there is just the rose outline covering it in the middle. I try touching the outline, and I feel the door sliding inward with my hand.

I press harder, and my hand sinks in entirely, before I yank it back out. Tingly. A mark shows on the door where I've pressed it, before it mends itself anew.

Is this how you're supposed to enter..?

I'm a little shy about getting caught in-between and getting myself suffocated, so I'll have to put some effort into my entrance – do it all in one go. I brace myself, and I punch through the rose crest with a fist, feeling my arm disappear inside, sensations of heat and cold meshing together. I follow through, shoving my shoulder inside, and I struggle for a while – avoiding putting my own head in until the last moment when I gulp air, holding my breath (to plunge underwater).

I'm immersed in the doorway. It's so overwhelming, my entire body is being subject to fuzzy sensation, stimulating me, piercing my very skin. I wiggle my way through, my lungs slowly building up on me – until I feel the open air on the other side.

I finally pop my head out in the open – phew! I let out a large, heaving gasp, and the air is startlingly humid, as though I'm in a steamy sauna.

In actuality, I'm surrounded by grey webs, their elaborate patterns stretching down forth to the end. Giant spiders come to mind; lots of them, and they must've had plenty of time on their hands to have filled the tunnel's depths.

I don't mind spiders myself usually. They're quite cute once you get to know them. Most people freak out about spiders, like snakes and bees, but I find them terribly misunderstood – they're not there to scare people like you and me; they're just hungry for those annoying mosquitoes and flies that pop out every summer, now and then.

But then again, I'm not sure about the spiders that have made webs so large that their individual, silky strands are tangible to the eye. Maybe these spiders are meant to spin hapless visitors into cocoons.

Or maybe they're not even made by spiders.

The sounds I heard come to mind, and I stand there, staring at where the tunnel must end – my imagination running wild about the fantastical things that could devour me to bits.

I look back at the doorway, where I've came from. I might go clawing back into my bedroom like a scardy-cat if it comes down to it – but right now, there's no turning back yet.

Except.. I actually have to pee.. merde. It's an awkward moment-- I should've gone to the washroom beforehand. (But it could be one of those trick doors that disappear the moment you even look away from it. It's a standard horror movie trope.)

No helping it now. I hope nobody minds if I.. loosen my pants right here and.. like dogs do, I'd be marking my territory, haha.

..

After I put my pants back up, I notice how my urine starts to hiss through the webs, like it's acid. It eventually leaves a gaping hole at the spot, and then a gust of sucking air comes through the hole, dragging loose webbing and particles into it.

Then the hole grows larger and larger, rapidly devouring with a fiendish appetite, the edges caving in on itself.

I should be running – the webbed floor is quite sticky, and it's a little harder than usual for me to haul my legs up. I feel the gust of wind tugging back at me. It grows stronger every second.

I quickly get tired. My legs start to ache and my lungs burn. A feeling of futility settles in me – I'm not going to outrun the collapsing tunnel, and so I glance behind.

It is an abyss. Fluttering web debris swirling in empty black air, with blossoming smoke. The violet door seems to linger in the midst of space like a frozen illusion. It seems my only escape is now unreachable.

But at least the abyss isn't expanding anymore.

I wonder if I take a few steps forward.. would I fall forever? Non, maybe I'll find that out later. The only option now is to progress the other way, to see where it leads. Let's find out how deep this rabbithole goes.

I'm tip-toeing amidst the webs. It starts to feel like I'm going downhill, even though the tunnel hasn't curved one bit. Going further, the sensation starts to make my tummy turn, and I feel my hair and pajamas shifting.

Then I have to hold on to the side webs – I'd be slipping (forward?) down otherwise.

And then I'm falling before I know it, and I tumble and bounce along the webs, waiting to hit something hard.

It's all a blur.

..

I awaken to the soft and gentle flow of warm water, lapping over me, my breasts and my nose, touching me all over. The wetness is very soothing. There's light scattering all over the cavern walls, stalactite shapings that are inviting for my eyes to linger upon.

I wish I could linger like this.. forever. It's one of the most beautiful sensations I've ever experienced.

And then I begin to float. I hear the water trickling underneath me; I imagine the water itself is lifting me up like a petite child in her mama's arms.

Slowly I shift. The stalactities seem to move, and I briefly imagine myself floating over an alien, jagged landscape before I'm lifted by my head and back, raised until I'm standing again.

There, I see a clear wall of ice, as lightly blue as the sky itself, and my own, bare reflection upon it.

(I'm quite ugly..)

I avoid making glances with myself at first. My face, in its own way, it is terribly plain and disgusting for me to look at. It could have been one of many different pretty faces I've seen worn by different people. I wonder who could ever really love a woman like me – adore me as they would an exquisite beauty, instead of giving indifferent complements (because politeness expects you to.) My mother and father always say that I'm the prettiest they've ever laid eyes on.. somewhere along the way, I've realised better than that white lie.

I try touching the ice with a finger. It touches me instead. The surface seems to bend and ripple around my hand, and I'm caught – I should know better. Ice can freeze you in place, just wait until you get dared by your friends into sticking your tongue out on the metal pole!

This time, the ice here is crawling down my finger, onto my hand, and then pouring its chilly veneer over my wrist, my arm..

I'm going to be entirely frozen before I know it. But I don't scream this time. My rapidly beating heart is relaxing with the forecoming of my hibernation.

I hope it's true what they say – that cryostasis is possible. That once you get preserved, you can make it out alive when you get unfrozen.

I find myself gulping air one last time, before the ice envelops my face.

I don't die.

It's the seamless transition between closing your eyes in bed, and suddenly you're dreaming before you know it. I'm right above the wispy clouds, high in the daylit sky (the stratosphere) and it's the same blue colour as that ice before. And it's so cold. My breath struts out into petite icicles. Frost has already covered portions of my pajamas, and my fingers and cheeks have gone numb. My lungs want to burst from the stabbing air.

I'm not falling though.

I'm lingering between the point where the misty clouds and the vast blueness meet. It's one of my deepest fantasies, this kind of moment. I've always adored the blue sky. It hums with a kind of mystery and wonder and fascination – the same sky shared whether you're in a shantytown or the most exquisite city in the world.

I'd like to be able to dance with someone I like, over here. Just the two of us, sharing this moment, to a beautiful, heartrending tune.

And then I see it.

It's a lone mass of cloud, higher than its brethern. A dark castle awaits on top of it. It is approaching me, like a balloon that floats under the wind.

And then I'm standing by the castle's drawbridge, its spindly gates already open to me. Hoping that it'll be a bit warmer inside, I enter.

My feet clack on the checkerboard (chess) floor. My steps echo through the dark, sculpted halls. I'm in confined space once more, as I navigate and explore the rooms, populated by fine furniture and faded tapestries. There are bedrooms, study rooms, libraries with the tallest shelves. A vague ambient light follows me wherever I go, assisting my vision.

I come across the dining chamber. It's as large and gloomy as a cathedral hall, with glass tables that extend from one end to another, with silverware, plates filled with fruit, steaming meat and assorted dishes. The smell is tantalising – I'm feeling more thirsty though.

I look around for some water or drink in a cup. I find one by the very end of the table lineup; it's an ornate goblet, with clear glistening water still inside it. How long has it been left out, I do not know, but all I care is to carry the goblet to my lips so I could suck and swish the water around in my mouth, before I swallow it, feeling the water drip in my throat, feeling so satisfied afterward.

I take the goblet with me, just in case I happen to need more.

And then I wander off – I find a gated passageway, eclecticly framed by a wreath of pink roses, where behind it there are stairs that spiral up and up. I try and pull the gate open, only to feel the same electric tingle of that violet doorway on my fingertips.

I pry the gate towards me. The gate's frame wobbles unsteadily, like soft rubber, but still holds firm in place. Then the idea comes where I try pulling and pushing the gate rhythmically, as if I were to make the playground swing go higher, and soon the gate warps backward, tumbling entirely onto the ground.

The stairs seem to take forever to climb. I manage to catch glimpses of the outside sky through the small windows I pass by.

And at last, when my legs are on the verge of crumbling, I find an ornate door, and inside is a curtained bed, with a framed mirror and other cupboards on the wall.

I notice there's someone resting on the bed, and I slowly approach, not wanting to startle, and I pull the curtain back.

It is a man, lying perfectly still with his hands clutched around the hilt of his sword. His handsome face seems to beckon me, as if I were to be the rescuer of the Sleeping Beauty, to lean in and kiss his salty lips.

I try that. They're cold to the touch. But he is still lying there, eyes wide shut.

Hm.

I open his mouth a little bit, and with the goblet, I carefully pour the rest of the water down his lips, and I see the colour return to his features, his cheeks beginning to glow red with liveliness.

His eyes open. They're brown eyes. They're very pretty. (My own eyes are blue.)

"Who are you?" he asks me.

"I am.."

I don't know if I've ever told him my name, before I wake up back in my bedroom – a rude awakening from my alarm clock's chimes to 7:40 AM. When I check my closet, it's what I've always remembered; my spare clothes on hangers, with some of my old binders and trinkets laying around. I push the clothes aside, to find no doorway leading somewhere indescribable, much to my dismay.

Maybe I'll eagerly await the next night, when I would make my way back to the man in the castle when that rose doorway comes. When I can tell him who I am.

The End