A Door in the Fog

The fog rolled in just after midnight, the kind that swallowed everything in silence—the trees, the houses, even the stars. Elia stood at the edge of the field, the wet grass brushing her ankles, heart pulsing as if the mist itself had stirred it awake.

She shouldn’t have been out there. Not at this hour. But dreams had a way of clawing her from sleep when the moon was just right—dreams of whispers, of strange music, and of something calling her name from the deep mist.

She had followed the sound this time. Past the stone wall, through the old orchard, and into the thick white nothingness that felt more like a memory than weather.

Then she saw it.

A door.

Standing upright on its own with no walls around it, framed by the fog and rooted in the middle of the field. It was made of old oak wood, worn but not rotting, with carvings too faded to read. The handle was brass, cold and untouched by rust. And though there was no wind, the door creaked ever so slightly, as if it had just closed… or was about to open.

Elia’s breath caught. She stepped closer.

Her grandmother used to speak of “thin places”—spots where the fabric between worlds grew soft. Where the impossible waited patiently to be believed in. Elia had always smiled politely, dismissing it as myth. But now, that same hush her grandmother used to fall into when speaking of the in-between settled in her chest.

The closer she came, the warmer the air felt. It was subtle, but real. One step, then another, and the damp chill that had clung to her skin faded. Her hand hovered over the handle. A whisper slipped past her ears, not words exactly, but a feeling: welcome.

She turned the handle.

What lay beyond was not the other side of the field.

It was… a forest. A different one. Sunlight dappled the ground, filtering through trees with silver leaves. The air smelled of lilac and something older, something ancient. Birds she couldn’t name sang songs she felt she once knew.

Elia stepped through the door, and it gently clicked shut behind her. She spun around. The door was still there—but freestanding and alone in this new world, as if it had always belonged here.

A path emerged beneath her feet, soft and moss-covered, winding through the silver woods.

She walked.

The forest wasn’t empty. Shadows moved behind the trees, not threatening, just… watching. Once, she glimpsed a stag with antlers that shimmered like glass. Another time, a girl no older than ten stepped from the trees, handed Elia a small stone, and disappeared again without a word.

The stone was smooth and warm, carved with a rune Elia didn’t understand. Yet somehow, she knew it meant “safe passage.”

Hours—or minutes, time was strange here—passed before she reached a glade lit by shafts of golden light. At its center stood a figure. Not man, not woman, not beast. Cloaked in ivy and time, it looked like a guardian grown from the forest itself.

“You found the Door,” it said in a voice like rustling leaves.

“I didn’t know I was looking,” Elia replied.

“All who come here have heard the call. Few listen. Fewer believe. But you… remembered.”

“Remembered what?”

“That there is more than the world you’ve seen. That the mist doesn’t always hide things—it reveals them, to those ready to see.”

Elia felt tears prick her eyes. She didn’t know why. Only that something long buried inside her had just exhaled.

The guardian stepped aside. “This forest holds truths, Elia. Yours among them. You may walk its paths. Ask. Learn. Heal. But the Door only opens twice: once when you enter. Once when you’re ready to leave.”

“And if I’m never ready?”

“Then perhaps you’ve already found home.”

Elia spent what felt like days in the elderwood. She spoke with creatures born of dreams, read from trees that bore fruit shaped like memories, and learned the songs of the wind. With each step, the ache she hadn’t known she carried lightened.

But one morning, she woke with a knowing.

She was ready.

The path led her back to the Door. It stood waiting, still shrouded in fog, still humming with quiet invitation.

Elia looked behind her. The forest didn’t vanish. It simply watched.

When she stepped back through, the field was quiet. The fog was lifting. Dawn broke across the sky.

No one believed her story, of course. Not her brother, not the townsfolk. But they noticed something: Elia smiled more. She walked as if the ground itself welcomed her.

And sometimes, when the mist rolled in just right, she would return to the edge of the field.

The door never reappeared.

But sometimes, in the silence, she heard the forest whispering her name.

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