Chapter 10
576 Words
Lena’s fingers trembled as she pressed her palm against the wardrobe door.
It had been 3 days since the whispers started. “Open me… Lena… open me…”
She wasn’t crazy. She knew that. But every night at 2:17am, the old wooden wardrobe in the corner of her room would creak. Not like wood creaking. Like someone breathing.
“Last chance,” her brother Tunde had said yesterday. “Sell the house, Lena. That wardrobe came with grandma. It’s cursed.”
Tunde didn’t believe her. Nobody did. But Tunde wasn’t there at 2:17am when the air turned cold and the mirror inside the wardrobe fogged up with words: _HE IS COMING_.
Lena pulled the brass handle.
The door opened with a sound like a sigh.
Inside wasn’t clothes. Wasn’t grandma’s old blankets.
Inside was a hallway.
A long, dark hallway with doors. Hundreds of doors. All identical. All old wood, with brass numbers that glowed faintly.
Her breath caught. This was impossible. Her room was only 4 meters wide. A hallway couldn’t fit here.
Footsteps echoed behind her. Lena spun around. Her bedroom was gone. The door she came through had vanished. Only more doors now. Endless doors.
“Welcome, Lena,” a voice said. Not from anywhere. From everywhere.
It was the same voice from the whispers. Deep. Patient. Old.
“Grandma?” Lena whispered.
The voice laughed softly. “Grandma is gone. But she kept this for you. She kept me for you.”
One door in front of her clicked open. Brass number 17.
Lena stepped forward before she could stop herself. Inside room 17 was a version of her bedroom. Exactly the same. Except Lena was there. Sitting on the bed.
The other Lena looked up. Her eyes were completely black. No white. No pupil. Just black like ink.
“You took too long,” Black-Eye Lena said. Her voice was Lena’s voice, but wrong. Like an echo underwater. “He’s almost here.”
Lena stumbled back. “Who’s almost here?”
“The one who lives in the wardrobe,” Black-Eye Lena smiled, and her teeth were too sharp. “The one grandma trapped 40 years ago. The one you just set free by opening the door.”
The floor shook. Somewhere far down the hallway, a door slammed. Then another. _BOOM. BOOM. BOOM._ Getting closer.
Black-Eye Lena stood up. “You have two choices, sister. Run back the way you came. But the door is gone now. Or…”
She held out a brass key. Number 17 was carved into it.
“Or take the key. Open your own door. Become the new keeper. Like grandma did. Trap him again for 40 years.”
The footsteps were louder now. Lena could hear breathing. Heavy. Wet. Like something drowning.
“Choose,” Black-Eye Lena said. “Keeper… or dinner.”
Lena reached for the key. Her fingers closed around cold brass.
The moment she touched it, all the doors in the hallway flew open at once.
And from every room, something stepped out.
Something with too many joints. Something that whispered her name with grandma’s voice.
“Run, Lena,” Black-Eye Lena said. But she was smiling. “Run and see which door is yours.”
Lena turned and ran.
Behind her, the wardrobe was no longer a wardrobe. It was a mouth. And it was hungry.
*END OF CHAPTER 10*
*To be continued in Chapter 11: "Keeper of Door 17"*
- Writer
