A New Day, A New Door

For as long as he could remember, Haris had lived his life inside a loop—wake up, work, return home, sleep, repeat. The days blended into one another so completely that sometimes he wondered if time had stopped and left him behind. His dreams, once bright and restless, now lay buried under the weight of his routin

But life has a strange way of shifting when you least expect it.

It was the first morning of a new month when Haris woke up before his alarm. A thin slice of sunlight fell across his room, catching on the dust motes floating lazily in the air. Something about the moment felt different—gentle, promising, like a whisper saying, “Look closer.

He stepped outside his small apartment, locking the door behind him. As he started down the stairs, he noticed a new wooden door on the landing—one that hadn’t been there the day before. The building was old, but Haris knew every corner of it. This door was new. Fresh paint, smooth surface, and a small golden handle gleaming as though recently polished.

A chill tingled at the back of his neck.

He looked around. No workers, no signs of renovation, no neighbors. Just the silent hallway and that unfamiliar door.

A small brass plate hung on it. It read:

“New Days Are New Doors of Opportunity. Only for Those Who Enter.”

He stared at it, unsure whether to laugh or turn back. It felt too poetic for the crumbling building he lived in. But something tugged at him—a curiosity he hadn’t felt in years.

He placed his hand on the golden handle.

Warm.

As if the door were alive.

Before fear could talk him out of it, he turned the handle and pushed.

The door opened without a sound.

At first, he thought he was dreaming. Instead of a room or storage closet, he saw a long corridor lined with windows on one side. Outside the windows were scenes—moving scenes—as if the windows looked into different moments of his own life.

In one window, he saw himself as a child, running barefoot through the fields behind his childhood home. In another, he saw his college years, the nights he spent sketching designs and imagining he’d one day become an architect.

A pang of regret hit him. He had abandoned all of it—creativity, passion, ambition. Life had pushed him into a job that paid the bills but drained everything else.

But the windows weren’t only of the past.

Some showed possibilities.

He saw a version of himself presenting architectural models to a group of smiling clients. Another showed him teaching young students how to draw. Another showed him standing beside a building with his name engraved on it.

His heart thudded. Was this… a glimpse of what could be?

As he walked deeper into the corridor, the last window on the right shone brighter than the rest. The scene inside was blank—white, empty, untouched.

Just as he leaned closer, the window flickered. Words appeared across the white surface:

“This future waits for your choice.”

Haris felt his breath catch.

The corridor was beautiful, surreal—but it wasn’t offering promises.

It was offering decisions.

Suddenly, the corridor dimmed as though the world was holding its breath. A door at the very end of the hallway appeared, identical to the one he had entered through but glowing softly.

He stepped toward it, knowing instinctively that this door wasn’t showing possibilities.

It was offering one.

He reached for the handle, but before touching it, he heard a whisper behind him—his own voice.

“Your life can change. But only if you do.”

He closed his eyes.

When he opened them, he was back in his dim apartment hallway. The mysterious door was gone.

Only the cracked wall remained.

Had he imagined it? Dreamed it?

But something inside him was different—like a fire quietly lighting after years of darkness.

That very evening, Haris found the old sketchbook he had left untouched for nearly a decade. He flipped through the pages, each memory pulling him forward instead of back. The next morning, he applied for an evening design course. The morning after that, he registered a small freelance account online.

And for the first time in years, the days no longer felt like a loop.

They felt like doors.

And Haris no longer feared opening them