The Last Door in the Dark Hallway

There was a hallway in the old ancestral house where I grew up, a narrow corridor that always felt colder than the rest of the building. Even as a child, I sensed something uneasy about it, though no one ever warned me away from it. I would pass by with a book or a cup of tea, distracted by life, yet my eyes always wandered to the very end of that dimly lit passage. There, half lost in shadow, stood a door that looked as though it belonged to another century. Dust coated it so thickly that it seemed carved from the wall itself.

Not once in my entire life had I seen that door open. And despite the countless questions that flickered through my mind over the years, I never found the courage to ask anyone about it. My father avoided the hallway completely. My grandmother pretended it didn’t exist. The entire family behaved as though the last door held nothing worth noticing, and yet every time I walked past it, a strange heaviness settled in my chest.

Still, I convinced myself it was only an unused room. Our house was full of them—places where memories had gathered like cobwebs, untouched and undisturbed. But deep down, I knew this room was different. I could feel it. The air around that door always seemed thicker, as if holding its breath.

Everything changed on the night of the storm. The wind howled violently, shaking windows and sending shivers through the old wooden frame of the house. Rain hammered the roof with a fury that felt almost personal. Sometime after midnight, the lights flickered once, twice, then died completely. Wrapped in darkness, I reached for a flashlight and stepped into the hallway.

That was when I heard it.

A slow, deliberate knock.

Thak… thak… thak.

The sound came from the far end of the corridor—from the door that had remained closed my entire life.

My heart was pounding, but curiosity pulled me forward despite every instinct screaming for me to stop. With each step, the cold grew sharper, biting at my skin. When I finally reached the end of the hallway, I froze.

The dust on the floor had been disturbed—smeared and scattered as though someone had walked through it. And the door…

The impossible had happened.

It was half open.

Panic squeezed my chest, yet I couldn’t walk away. Something drew me toward the opening. When I pushed the door further, hinges groaned in protest, releasing a stale breath of cold air.

Inside the room stood a single wooden rocking chair. It moved gently, as if someone had risen from it moments before. On the wall above it hung a portrait of my grandmother, but her expression was nothing like the warm smile I remembered. She looked afraid. Beneath the portrait, faint white letters spelled out a warning:

“The last door must never be opened.”

On the floor, directly below those words, sat a wooden box tied shut with brittle string. My hands trembled as I picked it up. Inside were several folded letters written by my grandfather, a man who had died long before I was born.

The first letter read:

"If you are reading this, then the memory hidden here has awakened."

The second:

"Your grandmother feared this room. She believed something lived within its silence, bound to this box and kept here only by the closed door."

And the final letter warned:

"Doors can be shut again, but what escapes does not return."

A bitter coldness brushed the back of my neck. I turned slowly, raising the flashlight. In the far corner of the room stood a dark silhouette, unmoving yet unmistakably watching me.

I spun around, but nothing was behind me. When I looked down, however, I saw fresh footprints in the dust—leading from the rocking chair to where I now stood.

Terror seized me. Clutching the box, I stumbled backward and slammed the door shut. I reached for the handle to lock it, but before I could turn it, a soft knock echoed from the other side.

Thak.

A quiet, patient warning.

Or a promise.

“We’ll meet again.”