THE DOUBLE DOORS
By Zeb Anderton
SRC Reporter
“I found it. In a box, in a box, in a box, under my bed.” I said.
“Well, I hope you haven't been reading it late at night.” Mum
replied.
“No!” I snapped, flinging it on my bed.
“All right, then. Anyway, off to school, now.” Mum concluded.
The walk was difficult in the snow. It took time, but I was not
frustrated to find the school closed. Smugly, I made my way back home.
“School is off! I'm back! It's a snow day!” I announced, figuring
that Mum was still there.
No reply came.
That was odd. The door was unlocked. Mum never leaves the house
without locking the door. I searched the house. In passing my room, I picked up
the book. A thought struck me: the garden. I ran out through the glass doors,
finding nothing outside.
I was worried, but reason argued against it. She is fine, I
thought.
I turned back towards the house. The book was in my hands. Why
did I grab this? I walked back through the double doors, closing them
behind me... and opened the book.
It was blank. All of it. Just blank pages. I checked the cover. It
was blank, too. I hadn't noticed. A final check confirmed its emptiness.
I closed the book.
*CRASH*
The doors had slammed shut, cracking the glass.
Heart racing, I turned and exhaled. What? How did this happen?
I considered the book, just for a moment. Holding it up to fit my view of the
double doors, I slowly opened the book. Together, they opened.
The book vanished. The doors went from opening, to engulfing the
room around me.
And the world inside the double doors became the world.
Purple walls, orange doors, but otherwise normal mansion. A very,
very big mansion. The window gave sight of only rain and lightning, explaining
the constant rumbling sounds, all else too low for my suddenly minuscule height
to enable me to see.
“Hello” someone said.
I looked around to see a woman at the opposite corner of the room.
She was my size.
“Hello?” I replied.
“They are here.” She observed.
“Who? Who are here?” I asked.
“Not who. What.” She clarified, pointing past me.
I turned to discover plants. Human-shaped plants with root feet,
creeping towards me.
“Run!” She took my wrist and led me through a doorway... into a
water processing factory. This is madness.
A root got my leg. The woman let go of me, and I fell to the ground,
arms shielding my face. Instead of feeling the hard ground, I felt a whoosh of
air. My open eyes informed me of some random fusion of colours.
And me. I watched as I walked to the window, struggling to see over
out. What is happening? Why am I seeing this? How am I seeing this? Another
whoosh and I find myself staring out the window.
After a pause, I turn to see the woman again.
“Hel – oh, hi. How-” She began.
“No time.” I interrupted.
I grabbed her wrist and led her through the doorway.
It was not the factory.
We ran into an office, wide open and glass walls, still oversized.
“The water!” She exclaimed, running over to a water cooler.
I follow, being careful to avoid a loose cable on the floor.
She filled little cups from the water cooler. I saw through the
windows just sky, all the way down.
“Here, use this” She ordered, passing me a cup of water.
“Help... us...” The plants cried together.
“Don't let them touch you!” The woman told me. She threw the water
over them, and they stopped.
I took a good look. They were people. There were people inside the
plants, pleading for help. They began moving. They weren't moving towards us,
but they were moving down. The creatures were shrinking. They were growing
smaller and smaller, then stopped.
I threw the water in my cup over them. They continued shrinking,
until the floor seemed to engulf them. Actually, it did. The floor swallowed
them up. Except one.
The water trickled to the cable. Lightning flashed passed the
windows, and out of the cable. The plant, surging with electricity, stopped
shrinking. The electric effect faded, then the creature expanded quickly,
expanding through the ceiling and the floor. It was stuck.
The hole in the ceiling showed more sky, still stormy. The hole in
the floor showed darkness. It is what sounds it unleashed that was more
important.
*WWWHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOO*
“WHO DARES...”
“WHO... DARES...”
“DARE
YOU DISTURB...”
“DEATH
TO YOU WHO DISTURB US...”
“WHO DARES...”
“What now?” I asked the woman, horrified.
“Hello?” I ventured. She was gone. I looked down again. Great
piercing eyes looked back. Many, many eyes.
The door in had disappeared, replaced with glass. I began climbing
the motionless plant, deciding that up was better than down. Dark mist rose
from the floor. It was moving faster than me. I struggled to reach the top.
It got there first.
The darkness turned into colour. The same colours as last time. I
saw myself throwing water on the plants. I watched it shrink. A subtler whoosh
this time, as I focused to recollect myself. I rushed to the cable, snatching
it away from the creatures, and the water.
The same lightning strike hit a window, shattering it. The glass
shards fell to the floor, causing a crack along the length of the room. The
ghostly howls sounded again.
“This way!” The woman directed, climbing through the broken window
and onto an aeroplane wing.
“YOOOUUUUUUUU...”
“YOU...”
“HOW
DARE YOU...”
I jumped through the window frame, landing on the wing, with a
slide. I looked back. There was no office, no mansion. Only sky, and a black
cloud, spreading in all directions.
“Help me! Help!” I shouted. She was there, pulling me to my feet. I
saw her face clearly in that moment. She was my mum.
“The doors, you must go though the double doors.” She said.
“What double doors?” I wondered.
“The doors on the sides of the aeroplane.” She clarified.
I put my attention to the direction of 'down', which was of no
benefit, as it was still just as much sky as up.
She pulled me further up to the front of the plane. We stopped and
moved slowly to the side of the curved plane surface.
“I'm going to lower you around and down the side of the plane, and
in through the doors.” Mum reassured me.
I held her hands in mine, for dear life, and for the feeling of
security. She laid flat on the plane top, and I slid down the round the plane.
I spotted the mist, advancing fast. It was going to get Mum. She wasn't going
to make it.
“It's going to get you, Mum!” I warned.
“What? What did you call me?” She returned.
I slid further down the side, giving her a look of mixed fear and
distress.
“I'm not your-” She said, fading into the death mist.
Suddenly, her hands vanished, despite being out of the mist. I fell
down the side of the plane. My elbows found the bottom of the doorway. The mist
was creeping down, closer and closer.
Desperately, I hauled myself up and onto the floor. I looked back
out to the garden. There was no mist, no office, no mansion. Only the book,
leaning against the closed glass doors. The book was closed.
“What are you doing on the floor?” Mum asked.
