The Door

There is a door in my house that has never been opened.

I don't know how long it's been there, or how it came to be.

Still, it sits – shrouded in darkness.

Waiting.

The noises that come from the other side frighten me.

Screams, howls, cries.

I wonder what goes on behind the wooden portal.

I long to reach out, to turn the knob, if only just to peek...

But the cool metal slips through my hand as if it were nothing but a phantom.

Nobody else seems aware of the door.

They all look at me as if I were a lunatic.

As if I needed to be locked in a small, padded room somewhere.

No more than four feet by four feet.

Ha!

But who knows?

Perhaps I do need to be.

If only they knew what I knew.

The horrors that locked doors can bring.

Phantom ones must surely be worse.

The fear that pulses through my veins is unbearable.

It is at its most intense just as I drift off to sleep.

Soundly...

I can feel it.

Waiting for me.

Enticing me.

It can't know my name, yet I hear it calling to me.

Late at night, when the wind is blowing.

Its voice carries on the breeze.

Soft.

Hoarse.

It wants me to come to it.

It waits.

Smiling.