“The Door That Wasn’t There Yesterday”

Lila Morgan first noticed the door on a Wednesday morning—the kind of gray, uneventful morning that should have been incapable of housing anything extraordinary. She was padding down the hallway of her grandmother’s old house, still half-asleep, intending only to grab a mug from the kitchen cabinet. But as she passed the linen closet, she stopped.

There, between the closet and the bathroom, was a door.

Not a new door. Not something that had been installed recently or even secretly. No—it looked old. Its paint was cracked, its frame slightly warped, as though it had grown here, not been built.

Lila blinked once. Twice. Harder the third time. But the door remained.

She leaned closer. The knob was tarnished brass, cool when she pressed her fingers against it. Dust formed a pale outline around the hinges, perfectly undisturbed—as if the door had been closed for years. But that wasn’t possible. She’d lived in this house since she was twelve. This stretch of wall had always been unbroken plaster, decorated by nothing more than her grandmother’s cross-stitched sampler: Home is where the heart can rest.

Now the sampler was gone. And in its place stood this door.

Lila swallowed. “I’m overtired,” she whispered to herself, though she didn’t quite believe it.

For a long, silent moment, she simply stared. A part of her, buried but stubborn, whispered that she should ignore it. Walk away. Make coffee. Pretend nothing had changed. After all, the house had always felt faintly off-kilter since her grandmother passed—quiet in a way that wasn’t peaceful, but expectant. Like a held breath.

Still, the curiosity tugged at her, insistent and cold.

She pressed her ear to the wood.

Nothing. Not a whisper of movement inside. But the air around the door felt subtly different, as though colder currents seeped from its edges.

Lila curled her fingers around the knob.

It resisted at first, sticking as if glued. But with a small, reluctant groan, the mechanism turned. Something about that sound—like a sigh exhaled after too long—made her skin prickle.

She opened the door.

Behind it was darkness.

Not pitch-black nothingness—but a room without any lights, its corners swallowed by shadow. Lila’s heart thudded unevenly. She reached blindly along the wall for a switch, but her fingers met only cold plaster.

The smell hit her next: dust, old wood, and something faintly metallic.

Her breath trembled. She almost shut the door right then.

But then, from somewhere inside, she heard the softest sound—like a footstep scuffing against the floor.

Lila froze.

“Hello?” Her voice wavered. “Is someone in there?”

The room didn’t answer.

Against better judgment, she stepped inside. The wooden boards creaked beneath her weight. The darkness felt thick, almost physical, brushing her skin like a heavy curtain.

After a few seconds, her eyes adjusted. Shapes emerged.

It was a bedroom. Small but familiar.

In fact, painfully familiar.

A narrow bed sat pushed against the right wall, its quilt neatly folded—an old patchwork one, faded blue squares stitched together by careful hands she knew well. To the left, a desk held a stack of yellowed notebooks and an oil lamp. And on the far wall hung a framed picture of a woman with a soft smile and silver hair pinned back in braids.

Her grandmother.

A sharp ache formed behind Lila’s ribs.

She stepped toward the desk. Each movement stirred layers of dust into the air. How long had this room been sealed away? And why hadn’t she ever known it existed?

She picked up one of the notebooks. The cover was cracked and curled, but when she opened it, the handwriting was unmistakable—her grandmother’s precise cursive.

Day 231. The door moved again last night. I heard it shuffling down the hallway. It’s growing restless, but I can’t let it leave this room. Not yet.

Lila’s throat went dry.

The door… moved?

She turned the page.

Lila can’t know. The house likes her—too much, perhaps. I will have to be the one to keep it contained.

A cold shiver ran down her spine.

“What is this?” she whispered.

Behind her, something clicked.

She spun around. The door she’d entered through was closed.

She rushed to it and twisted the knob. It didn’t budge.

“No, no—come on.” She yanked harder. The wood absorbed her force like a sponge. The frame seemed… tighter, somehow. As though the doorway itself was shrinking.

A faint creaking echoed in the darkness behind her. The sound of boards shifting. Of weight moving.

“Who’s there?” Lila demanded, her voice cracking.

Something stepped into the faint strip of light under the door.

A silhouette. Small. Frail. Familiar.

“Grandma?”

The figure didn’t speak. It simply stood there, watching her with soft, shadowed eyes.

Lila’s breath hitched. “You’re… you’re not real. You can’t be.”

The silhouette tilted its head—an achingly familiar gesture.

Then it lifted its hand and pointed at her. No—not at her. Behind her.

Lila turned slowly.

Where the bed had been was now only darkness. A deep, roiling black that churned like storm clouds. And from within it came a low, hungry hum—almost like a heartbeat, but wrong. Too slow. Too heavy.

The silhouette stepped backward into the darkness and dissolved like smoke.

“No!” Lila shouted. “Come back!”

The darkness answered only with a pulse, as if responding to her voice.

The door behind her rattled violently.

Lila threw herself at it again. This time the knob twisted beneath her hand. The door swung open just as something cold and unseen snatched at her ankles.

She lunged through the threshold and slammed the door behind her, gasping, collapsing against the hallway wall.

For several long minutes, she didn’t move. She just breathed, shaking, trying to ground herself in the familiar wallpaper, the soft hum of the refrigerator, the morning light.

When she finally dared to look at the door again—

It was gone.

The hallway wall was once more smooth plaster, unbroken. And her grandmother’s cross-stitched sampler was hanging in its old place.

Lila pushed herself up on trembling legs.

On the floor at her feet lay a single object: the notebook she’d taken from the room.

She picked it up.

The last page—unfinished—held one final sentence in her grandmother’s handwriting:

If the door returns, Lila, don’t let it open for you.

Lila closed the notebook.

But deep in the wall, she heard the softest sound.

A hinge shifting.

Waiting.