The Painted Door

Chapter 1

The toll of the bell of the morn rang through my room as I rubbed the dust from my eyes. BEEPBEEEPBEEEEEEEEEP!

"Oh for the love of god, shut the fuck up!" I yelled, smashing my phone screen to silence the alarm. I rolled my carcass out of bed, went to the bathroom, brushed teeth and hair, got dressed and then sighed, picked up my headphones and bag to leave when I heard faint voices from the front door. I guess the cleaners are in again. I leave my room and head downstairs, but avoid the front entrance and head towards the back of the building to leave for work. I appoach the back door and am about to leave through it when I notice another door, a door painted in flaking red paint, the handle looked old and the hinges were rusting into the frame. I placed my hand on the handle of this door and thought to give it a pull or push. Something was stopping me, I thought nothing of it, but I swear it looked familiar; I had definitely seen it somewhere before. I walked out the back door and the bright sun of the morning hit my eyes, I squinted and adjusted to the light; something was very strange though. I woke up this morning to overcast weather; maybe it was clearing up. I walked to my usual stop to catch the bus, but I couldn't help but notice that things seemed a little different, I was also getting strange looks from people as I waited for the bus; eventually I could hear them muttering something like '... is it him?', '...no way', '...call the police'. That last one struck a chord, so I yelled across.

"Call the police for what" the people across the street started looking panicked now more murmurs about me; what the hell was going on? The bus pulled into the stop and I boarded, the driver looked surprised to see me.

"Been a long time since I saw you last mate" he uttered with surprise

"Yeah, cause yesterday morning was such a long time ago" I chuckled, paid for my ticket and slumped into a seat, typical British sarcasm. It's just the way we live. I checked my phone to see the time, and I let the hills and roads roll past as I stared out the bus window blankly and thinking about the hell that was going to break loose today, season changeover was always the most hellish landscape of torture that our higher-ups gave us. I felt someone sit next to me, so I looked over my shoulder to see who it was, maybe someone I knew. It wasn't. It was a random girl who was just looking at me, like I was causing her offense by existing.

"Can I help you?" I asked, plainly

"Are you alright?" she asked, "Genuinely"

"That's rude. And yes, I'm fine!" I barked

"You sure mate, cause like I 'aven't seen yous on this route for a spell innit" she continued

"What are you talking about?" I asked, "I was on this bus literally yesterday" I stated

"Mate, you have dementia swear down" she said, then moved away from me. How fucking rude of her, I decided to leave it. My stop was coming up now anyways. I got off the bus in Corby and again, something was different from yesterday, the cinema had entirely new films on. That's weird that they've replaced the whole line-up in a day; I guess yesterday was the last day of all the films they had, it sucked for me because I was longing to watch Alien: Romulus, guess I've got to wait now for it to be out on streaming now. I dragged my feet up to the store where I worked, my manager was behind the tills and I walked in and simply said 'morning Frank' when he reacted like I'd just shot his mother in front of him.

"FUCKING CHRIST!" he shouted, throwing a pen across the store, "Where the hell have you been, Harry?" he bleated.

"Are you stoned?" I asked, "I was literally here yesterday, you tool" I laughed, Frank didn't look amused

"Harry, are You stoned!" he scoffed, "You haven't shown up for your shifts for a long time, mate. Lois is breathing down my neck asking that I terminate you" he continued, my heart skipped a beat when he said this.