The Door in the Dark

Ethan had always been afraid of the dark. It wasn’t the typical childhood fear, though. It wasn’t the kind of fear that came from shadows under the bed or monsters in the closet. Ethan’s fear was deeper, rooted in something that he couldn’t explain, something that twisted at his insides and made his skin crawl every time the lights went out.

Every night, after he crawled into bed, the nightmare would come.

The nightmare wasn’t a strange, out-of-this-world kind of fear—it was real, grounded in something familiar, but so painfully out of reach. The setting was always the same: a narrow alley, barely lit by flickering street lamps. Rain would fall in heavy sheets, turning the cobblestones into slick, slippery traps. In the distance, a door would stand at the end of the alley, bathed in a dim, golden light. But no matter how fast he ran toward it, the door was always too far away. The figure—tall, cloaked, its face hidden beneath a hood—would always be right behind him, moving unnervingly fast.

Ethan had been dreaming this for as long as he could remember. At first, it had been easy to dismiss as just a nightmare, but as the years went on, something began to feel wrong. The dream wasn’t just a random creation of his mind; it felt... too real. Every detail, from the wet cobblestones to the sound of the footsteps behind him, was too vivid. Too clear.

He had tried everything to make it stop. Nightlights. A bedtime routine. Meditation. But nothing worked. The nightmare came without fail, and each time, it ended the same way: just as he reached for the door, his heart would race in terror, and the figure would reach out, sending him tumbling into a waking world where the terror remained, lingering at the edges of his mind.

"Just a nightmare," his mother would say each morning. "You're just stressed, Ethan."

But Ethan didn’t believe it was just a nightmare. He felt the fear, the urgency, the weight of it all. Something told him there was more—something he had forgotten, or perhaps something he wasn’t meant to remember.

One evening, as he lay in bed, trying to block out the impending terror of sleep, a thought struck him like a bolt of lightning. What if the dream wasn’t a dream at all?

Ethan rolled out of bed and grabbed his flashlight from the nightstand. His hands shook, but he had to know. He had to prove it. He threw open his bedroom door and crept down the hallway, making his way to the kitchen where his mother’s old photo albums rested on the shelf. He pulled one down, flipping through the dusty pages until he came to a set of old photographs from when he was younger.

There, in one corner of the page, was a picture of a familiar place: an alleyway, rain-slicked and eerily quiet. His heart skipped a beat. It was the alley from his nightmare.

But that wasn’t possible. He’d never seen that alley before. Not in real life. Not in any of the places he’d lived.

The more he flipped through the pages, the more the details of his memories shifted. There were pictures of him as a toddler, playing outside an old building. A dark, towering structure that, as he stared at the photo, seemed far too familiar.

His throat tightened. He had never visited any building like that. Never.

But the photo wasn’t a figment of his imagination. It was real. That was the alley from his nightmare. That was the place he had been running toward all these years. His pulse quickened.

And then it clicked.

Ethan had forgotten. It wasn’t a dream. The figure in his nightmare wasn’t a product of his mind. It was a memory—one he had buried deep inside, one he didn’t want to remember. He had been there before. In that alley. And that door. He had tried to escape, but the memory had been locked away in the recesses of his mind, waiting to surface.

The more he thought about it, the clearer it became. He had been a child when it happened. Something happened there—something terrible. And the nightmare? It was his mind trying to protect him, forcing him to relive it, over and over again, to make him face what he had forgotten.

He had to go back.

It was a strange feeling, that pull. Like gravity, it drew him toward the alley he’d only seen in his nightmares. His body trembled with fear, but there was no turning back now. He had to face it.

The next night, he walked outside into the cool, dark evening. The rain had stopped, but the air still carried the weight of the storm. He walked through the familiar streets, each step dragging him closer to the alley. His breath hitched in his chest. It was real.

The alley stood just ahead, its entrance framed by the fading glow of distant streetlights. Ethan's heart raced as he stepped into the shadows, feeling the same cold air on his skin. The cobblestones were wet beneath his feet. The sound of his breath was the only noise.

And then, he saw it. The door.

It was the same, just as it had always been in his nightmares, bathed in golden light. He stepped forward, his body almost moving without his consent. The figure appeared at the far end of the alley, tall and cloaked, just as he had remembered.

But this time, Ethan didn’t run.

He walked toward the door. Every step felt like an eternity, but he didn’t hesitate. The figure remained still, watching him, as if it had been waiting for him all along.

Finally, Ethan reached the door. His hand touched the cold metal handle, and everything froze.

For a moment, everything was silent. And then, as he opened the door, the truth flooded back.

The alley wasn’t just a memory—it was the place where it all had started. The figure wasn’t an enemy; it was a guide. The door wasn’t an escape—it was the way forward.

Ethan stepped through. The nightmare had come to an end.