The Door Opened at 11:39 PM

to being on our own. My parents worked late shifts and rarely returned before midnight. The house, tucked at the edge of a dense forest, always felt too quiet, too still after the sun went down.

Alex arrived just after sunset, carrying a bag with snacks and a dusty Monopoly board. We played a few rounds on the living room floor, half-listening to the old box television flickering in the background. Around 9:30, we lay in our sleeping bags, whispering about the abandoned subway station three miles from the house. It had been shut down in 1932, just after the market crash, and my parents always warned me never to go near it.

“They used to send people down there,” I said. “Criminals, or those who got sick. They left them to rot.”

Alex looked intrigued but nervous. “We should go tomorrow,” he whispered.

I smiled. “If we’re brave enough.”

We eventually drifted off to sleep, but something woke me later. A sharp, distant noise. I sat up, heart thumping. Alex stirred next to me.

“What was that?” he asked groggily.

I wasn’t sure, but it sounded like a gunshot. I checked the clock. 11:39 PM. That didn’t sit right with me. Hunters came into the forest sometimes, but never this late. They knew the dangers of wandering these woods after dark.

Trying not to panic, I walked quietly to the bedroom window and peered into the black wall of trees. Fog drifted between the trunks, thick and unmoving. I couldn’t see anything. I turned to Alex.

“We should go back to sleep. Probably just... hunters.”

Before I could finish, a long creaking sound echoed from downstairs.

The front door had opened.

Chills raced down my spine. Alex’s eyes widened. We didn’t speak. We just moved, quietly, swiftly. We ran into the bathroom, locked the door, and turned off the light. The silence was suffocating. My breath came in quick, shaky pulls.

Then came the footsteps. Slow, deliberate. The weight of each step thudded against the wooden floor. They stopped just outside the bathroom door.

We froze.

Then came a knock.

Not hard. Not fast. Just... rhythmic. Like someone was waiting.

Neither of us moved.

Then the knocking stopped.

We exhaled.

But then came a splintering crack. Wood snapped. Metal screeched. The door was being hacked apart.

We screamed.

A piece of the door broke away, revealing an eye behind a bird-like mask. A Plague Doctor mask. The beak jutted forward, and the single glass eye glowed with a deep red light. The man wore black leather from head to toe, his gloved hands pulling at the jagged wood.

I searched the darkness for something, anything.

The vent.

It was high on the wall, too high to reach.

Alex whispered, “I’ll lift you.”

He crouched down, hands clasped together. I stepped into them and pushed upward, straining to reach the screws. They were rusted, but I managed to pry the grate loose. I looked down just as the man’s arm forced its way through the hole in the door, reaching blindly for the lock.

I grabbed Alex’s wrist. “Come on!”

He jumped, and I pulled, my fingers aching with effort. He was almost through when the lock clicked.

The door flew open.

A flash of movement. A hand grabbed Alex’s ankle. I screamed and held on, but he was yanked down, vanishing into the dark.

“Alex!” I shouted.

I crawled through the vent, heart pounding, mind blank. I landed in the hallway on the other side and ran out the back door, into the freezing fog.

I followed the forest trail, feet slapping against the wet earth. I didn’t think. I just ran. I knew where he was going. The abandoned subway station.

The entrance yawned like a mouth in the hillside, surrounded by vines and broken concrete. I stepped inside, guided only by Alex’s fading screams.

The air was damp and foul. My shoes splashed into ankle-deep water as I descended. My breath clouded in the cold. The screams had stopped. Only silence now.

I moved forward, deeper into the station.

The tunnel was endless. Fog clung to the ceiling, thick and choking. The only sound was water dripping and the echo of my own steps. My flashlight flickered. Then died.

I stood still, listening.

“Alex?” I whispered.

Nothing.

I walked forward, arms out, hoping to feel a wall or a turn. Then I stepped into deeper water. Waist high. Freezing. My teeth chattered.

The darkness felt alive. Like it moved when I blinked. I could swear I saw shapes.

I heard breathing behind me.

I turned. Nothing.

Then I saw it.

A figure. Not just the Plague Doctor. Taller. Thinner. Its face was stretched and pale, its arms too long, its fingers dragging in the water. It was watching me.

I turned to run, but the subway had changed. The path twisted, shifted. Doors had appeared on either side of the tunnel. Dozens of them, all rotted and old. I tried one. Locked. Another. Stuck. My breathing grew shallow.

I opened a door and found a stairway. At the top, another hallway, tiled like a hospital. Lights buzzed overhead.

And Alex was there.

Standing in the middle of the corridor, back turned.

“Alex?” I stepped forward.

He didn’t move.

“Are you hurt?”

He slowly turned around.

His eyes were black. Hollow. His mouth stretched into a smile that didn’t belong to him.

“You left me,” he said.

“I tried to pull you up. I didn’t let go!”

“You let him take me.”

“No!”

He reached out, and the corridor warped. The tiles melted into flesh. The lights flickered and popped. The hallway dissolved into screaming.

Then I was falling.

I woke in my bed.

The sunlight poured through the window.

The TV was on. Monopoly pieces lay scattered across the carpet.

Alex was gone.

I called his name. Nothing. I searched the house. I screamed for him in the forest. No one answered.

When my parents got home, I told them everything.

They called the police.

No signs of forced entry. No blood. No axe. No Plague Doctor mask. No Alex.

Just me.

They said I imagined it. That Alex never came over. That maybe I had a nightmare.

But Monopoly was still there. The vent was still open. And in the bathroom, just beneath the sink, I found something the police missed.

A single black leather glove.

Still wet.



The End