They laughed too loud in the dark,

trying to sound braver than they were.

The woods didn’t laugh back.

A door waited where no door should be—

standing upright in the clearing,

not connected to anything,

not rotting, not new.

Just there.

They said don’t touch it.

They touched it.

Of course.

The handle was warm.

Not from the sun.

From something else.

When it opened,

the air shifted—

not wind,

but pressure.

Like the forest exhaled something it had been holding.

No one spoke first.

They just went in.

One by one.

Because they were teenagers.

And nothing bad ever happens to them.

Until it does.

The trees outside didn’t wait.

They moved closer.

They watched.

Inside was…

nothing.

And then, not nothing.

Something blinked.

Not eyes.

Something older.

They tried to run.

But space had folded.

Time dripped.

Names began to slip from their minds.

One turned back.

Another didn’t.

The last one said,

“We shouldn’t have come here.”

But there was no one left to hear it.

And the door closed.

But it didn’t disappear.

It never does.