The Door Beneath the Floor

It started with a door.

No, not a real door, not one you'd find at the end of a hallway or leading to some mysterious place, no—this one was in the floor. Strange, right? I didn't think so at first. It seemed to fit, just another oddity in a town full of them.

I'd been living in the old house for two weeks when I noticed it. The house had been empty for years. When I moved in, the landlord had told me it was "part of a neighborhood revival project," but I knew better. The air was too thick with dust, the wood too creaky. It was a house that hadn't seen a fresh coat of paint since 1972, and I'd already begun to notice things—things that made the back of my neck prickle, like something was just a little bit off. Not enough to make me pack up and leave, but enough to make me keep the lights on at night.

The door was in the living room, right next to the fireplace. At first glance, it looked like just another piece of the room—old, warped wood, the kind you see in places that never bothered to replace their floorboards. But then I saw it. The gap. Just a sliver of darkness between two of the floorboards. If you weren't looking closely, you'd have missed it. But once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it.

I told myself it was nothing. Maybe a crack from settling. Maybe there was something underneath the floor, an old pipe or a piece of furniture from when the place was built. But the more I thought about it, the more I couldn't shake the feeling that it was something.

The first time I moved the rug that covered the floor to take a closer look, I almost felt like I was doing something wrong. You know that feeling? The kind that gnaws at you like a bad memory, like there's something you're about to uncover that you can't un-know once you've seen it? That was what it felt like when I knelt down and pulled at the floorboard. It came loose with a soft pop, like it had been waiting, just waiting for me to do this.

Beneath it was a small, black door. No handle. No keyhole. Just a square, perfectly fitted into the wood, dark like the space behind it had been there long before the house ever was.

I should've left it there. I should've walked away, but I didn't.

I'm not proud of this next part, but I opened it. No plan, no thought beyond the impulse that surged up inside me. I reached into the dark, pulling at the sides of the little door like I'd done it a thousand times before. And when it opened, the first thing I noticed was the smell—damp, musty, like a basement that hadn't been aired out in decades. But that wasn't what got to me. What got to me was the sound.

A whisper. A soft, rhythmic whisper. It was almost imperceptible at first, just a low murmur, like someone was murmuring from the other side of a wall. I held my breath, straining to listen, and that's when I felt it—the pull.

I don't know how to describe it. It wasn't a physical tug, not like a rope or a hand gripping you, but it was as if the house itself was leaning in. As if everything—the walls, the air, the furniture—was leaning forward, waiting for me to step closer.

I don't remember much after that. Just that I crawled through. And when I crawled through, I didn't land in another room or even another part of the house. No.

I landed somewhere else.

The air was thick, heavier than anything I had ever breathed. And the light... It wasn't like the light from a bulb, but it wasn't darkness, either. It was wrong. It was pale and greenish, like the faintest glow of moonlight filtered through something you couldn't quite make out.

I didn't know where I was. I still don't.

The first thing I saw when I stood up was a hallway. Narrow, with walls that closed in so tightly that they seemed to bend at the edges. The walls were covered in what looked like old newspaper clippings—yellowed, curling at the edges, faded ink, and pictures I couldn't quite make out. But as I passed each one, I felt their eyes on me, even though they had no eyes.

There was a door at the end of the hallway. It wasn't like the one in the floor. This one was... different. It was solid, wooden, with a brass handle that gleamed in the dim light. But the worst part wasn't the door itself—it was the sound. The same whispering, but now it was louder. Like a crowd of people were just behind that door, talking to each other, and I was the only one who could hear it.

I should've turned around. I should've run back to the floor, back to my living room, back to the world I knew. But I didn't.

Instead, I reached for the door.

When I turned the handle, it was like everything stopped.

The whispering cut off, and there was nothing. An oppressive silence filled the air, thick and suffocating. I opened the door, and what I saw on the other side... Well, it didn't make sense. It was a room that didn't belong to this world. Not really. The walls were covered in something that looked like old, dry leaves, and in the middle of the room, there was a chair. An old wooden chair with something draped over it, a cloth that looked too familiar, too wrong.

I reached for it, even though I didn't want to. The moment my fingers brushed the cloth, the door slammed shut behind me, locking me inside.

And that's when I understood.

The door had been waiting. Waiting for me to open it. Waiting for me to step through.

There's no way back. The house isn't the house anymore. The walls are closing in, the air is thick with that same whispering, and I hear it now, clearer than ever: You should never have opened the door.

But it's too late. I know that now. It's always too late once you've opened it.

And if you ever find a door like the one in the floor, remember this—don't open it.