The Door To Possibility

20260103

Written for Luna Asli Kolcu’s “Myths of Winter - Week 5” event.

CW: Mention of depression and substance abuse.

The Door was a constant. No matter where you were, or what state you were in, at the moment where the old year turned into the new, you encountered the Door.
If you were dreaming, it inserted itself into your dream. If you were awake you would find yourself in a trance-like blur, your surroundings fading away until all that existed was you and the Door you hadn’t noticed until just that moment.
Exactly how people perceived the Door seemed to vary, but it was always described as being made of dark, old wood, with a square metal plaque at eye-height. Inscribed onto the plaque were the instructions “Knock. State your intention. Wait.”
There was no peep-hole or eye-slot. No keyhole. No handle at all. Only the Door.
But it listened. And it judged. And it remembered.
Allison knew the moment midnight hit, because all of a sudden she was sober. That was more of a jolt to the system than the party noise cutting out. The room was now a panoramic rendered in smears and dream-forms, the only thing which looked real being the Door.
She walked over to it, her heels phasing through the dark shapes scattered across the floor, and knocked briskly.
“Make people happy.”
It was the intention she’d been giving for years. And every year the door opened, though she swore it’d been opening a little slower each time.
This year silence hung heavy. Then the Door creaked open - towards her, rather than away. And only a little. Enough to let in a sliver of light between the Door and frame.
Startled and curious, Allison slowly leant to peer through the crack.
Her breath caught.
That… was her arm. Laying at an odd, sprawling angle across a floor she didn’t recognise yet knew. Pale. Utterly motionless. Allison’s hands flew together, instinctively seeking the reassuring warmth of life against her fingertips.
Next to the arm was an empty hypodermic needle.
The Door slid soundlessly closed. Allison jerked back.
“What… the… fuck??”
Without answer the Door swung open - properly open, and away from her, like it always did. It led to the same dark corridor with a pinprick of light in the distance.
And she felt wrenchingly certain that it led to the scene she’d just glimpsed.
“Fuck no!”
The Door closed. Its plaque stared at her.
“That… that’s not… what, are you saying I’m doomed to that? Just because I want to make people happy?”
The Door opened towards her. Just a crack. Through it Allison glimpsed herself sitting at her table, a glass in her hand and an empty aching dull gaze on her face.
The Door closed.
Allison folded her arms. “What do you want from me?”
She hadn’t expected an answer. Not in words, at least. But the letters of the plaque fluttered and shifted and rearranged themselves, in the process somehow becoming entirely different. One word.
“Honesty.”
“What, you’d be happy if I said my intention was to leave a beautiful corpse?”
The letters fluttered, shifting again. Multiplying.
“Is that what you WANT?”
“Of course it’s not what I want. But the world doesn’t fucking care what I want.”
“I care. I’m asking.”
Allison paced back and forth, her chipped candy-cane nails raking her arms. Then she tried walking around the Door.
The other side turned out to be identical. Which somehow felt obvious. Like no other outcome was possible. Of course there was nowhere to go but through. And of course there was only one side - this side. The side of the old year. A crystallised moment.
“What happens if I don’t answer your stupid question?”
“We wait until you have an answer.”
“…What does that mean for me?” Allison sank to the ground, hugging her knees and resting her chin on them. “Do I just… disappear? Everyone in the party walks out where they were and I’m left in here forever? A mysterious vanishing person incident?”
“Do you want to disappear?”
“Maybe?” Allison shifted so her forehead was pressed against her knees, hiding her face in the small safe darkness of her huddled body. An old refuge.
There was no creak. No sound at all. No breeze. Yet she knew, before looking up, that the door had opened again. Just a crack.
The scenes beyond flickered like someone was working an old-school projector. Her family stapling “missing” posters to noticeboards. Her friends talking to the police. Tears. Fretting. Quiet moments of mourning her absence.
It was… deeply comforting. Warming. Which was sick, right? Feeling glad that people would be sad if you disappeared. That was so selfish.
The Door slid closed, cutting off the sorrowful slide-deck, then opened fully, facing away, leading, she felt certain, to the future she’d just seen.
Allison picked at her lip. She considered the path.
She shook her head.
The Door closed once more. Its plaque was back to the usual instructions.
Time waited while Allison thought. Her feet tapping soundlessly against the indeterminate floor. Her empty gaze staring through the muddy lack of ceiling. An eternity and two-fifths of uncertain contemplation.
Finally she stood and dusted herself off. Stepped close and rapped on the waiting door.
“This year… I’m going to stop hiding, and seek help.”
The Door swung open. Fully. Away. While the light in the distance was too small to make out details, something about its colours uncoiled her stomach and unwound her shoulders. She stepped into the welcoming dark of the new year’s potential and didn’t look back.

Prompt was “There’s a literal door between December 31st and January 1st. You must knock and state your intention before it opens. Not everyone is admitted. Not everyone wants to be. The door remembers what you said last year. It’s comparing notes.”