I need help. I need to find a door. If anybody has seen a strange door, please get in contact with me. Something terrible has happened, and it all started when I found a door where there shouldn’t have been one, when out for a run.
I’m not much for exercising, really. I’ve tried going to the gym but I never really liked it; too many people, and they all seem so much fitter than me, it was all a bit intimidating. But I do enjoy running. Perhaps I don’t run as often as I should, but I try to go for 5k about twice a week.
So a few days ago I got home from my coffee shop job around 6:30, put on my running gear, and headed out. Now I should note that I don’t take anything with me when I run, except what I have to; my front door key, and a smart watch with GPS to track my route, but no camera.
About half way through my run, I reach an underpass. I’ve run this route plenty of times before and know it well. But this time, something was different. The light just seemed slightly off, perhaps. I would have thought nothing of it, and forgotten it in seconds, if it weren’t for what happened next.
I heard some sort of weird loud noise, a sort of chirping. It sounded like a dozen chickens when seeds have just been thrown down. It was coming from a gap in the concrete, a sort of corridor maybe 10 metres long. I looked around; there was nobody else in the underpass, so I slowly walked down the dimly-lit corridor to investigate.
It turned out to be two squirrels having a fight. When they saw me one ran right past me; the other tried to climb the concrete, fell down, and then followed the first. I mentally shrugged, and was about to turn to go when I saw something else.
At the end of the corridor, the concrete had a small hole. At about the height of my waist was a vertical slit, about the size of a letter box. It was barely visible in the dim light from the underpass, and I don’t think anybody could have seen it without actually walking into the corridor. It reminded me of a door handle, so of course I did what anybody else would do. I put my hand in the slit, and pulled.
The wall came outwards. There was no sound, like you’d expect from concrete grinding on concrete. A door of stone just swung open, as effortlessly as if it were automatic, to reveal a dim orange glow. Curious, I stepped through the doorway.
I had expected a small corridor, maybe some pipework, perhaps just a storage cupboard full of cleaning supplies. The room I entered was huge. So big that it didn’t make sense; I was sure it stretched higher than the road above. The orange light bathed the whole place, though I couldn’t see the source for it. There was nothing in the room, except doors that appeared jet black against the orange light reflected from the walls. I counted them later; there were over a hundred.
My heart was pounding. I had no idea what this was. Surely it wasn’t possible? I nearly turned and fled, but for some reason I didn’t. There was nothing to see here, so what about through one of the doors? I picked one at random, pushed it open, and stepped through.
If I’d been astonished by the first room, this was … beyond anything I could have anticipated. Two giraffes stared at me. Behind them I saw two kangaroos; to their left, a couple of dogs. None of them reacted to my presence, and I would have assumed they were stuffed, except they moved slightly, blinking and breathing.
I guess I was in shock, as it took me a few seconds to look further. They weren’t the only animals here. From where I stood I could see camels, gorillas, bison, polar bears, antelope, and a fair number of mammals I didn’t even know the names of. When I regained my composure I started to walk around the place, and found other animals, seemingly grouped by type. There were insects here, reptiles there, all alive but unreactive. I remember thinking it was like a cross between a zoo and Noah’s Ark. The first room was big, but this was unbelievable. But what really weirded me out was the birds and the sea creatures. Birds hung in the air without flapping their wings, and fish floated above the ground, apparently just fine with levitating out of water.
I was deeply weirded out, but also fascinated. I wandered around that place for, according to my watch, two hours. And yes, for those who might be wondering - there were dinosaurs in there too. It was nearly 9 when I decided I needed to get home. The animals were pretty well organised so it wasn’t hard to find the door, and I got back to what I now call “the lobby”.
This was when I realised I’d made a terrible mistake. The doors all looked identical. I tried to call my boyfriend, but of course I had no signal. Rather than guess, I decided to just try them all, one by one. I took my shoes off, leaving one at the door I’d just come out of to mark it, and would leave the other at the exit when I found it. As I opened the first door I noticed that there was no cold feeling on my feet. In fact, despite being dressed in my running gear, I hadn’t felt cold all this time. I should also be hungry by now, but there was nothing. Well, whatever; it was hardly the strangest thing about this place. I pushed open the adjacent door.
Another enormous room. The door was only two metres to the left of the first door I’d entered, but the right wall - if it existed at all - was much further than that. At this point though, I wasn’t even surprised. In here were thousands of rocks. They were all of different types and sizes, from tiny sand, to boulders, to things far larger than houses. I don’t really recognize rocks, but I did see some that looked like the hexagonal stones from Giant’s Causeway. I didn’t linger here, and left to try the next door.
The next was a room full of technology. Huge old-fashioned computers, modern smartphones, printers, and what I think was one of those oil wells you see in films set in Texas. After that was furniture, a place that looked like a massive IKEA (but one that you can walk around freely). Then a room full of various drinks, then basically a clothes shop, and at last -
I pushed the next door and saw the concrete alleyway. I dropped my shoe to mark the door, retrieved my other shoe, and got out of there. As I was putting my shoes back on, my watch connected to the network, and auto-updated the time. It was 6:58. Apparently, no time had passed while I’d been in that strange place.
I got home, microwaved a lasgne, and suddenly my exhaustion caught up with me. I went to bed at 9, though my body felt like it was closer to 2 in the morning.
My boyfriend Steven is a nurse, and was on the night shift that day. When my alarm went off in the morning he was sleeping next to me. Steven isn’t the best when woken up, but still I shook his shoulder gently. He opened a pair of grumpy eyes and I ran my mouth off to him. I don’t think I even paused for breath for about two minutes.
When I let him get a word in, Steven assumed it had all been a dream. And honestly? So did I, kind of. It all felt so real, but he was probably right. He must be right. I got ready for work and let Steven go back to sleep. And for the rest of the day, things were pretty normal.
I was closing up that day, and got out around 7, after sunset. As I left it occurred to me that I had my phone with me, and the underpass is just a couple of minutes from my walk home. So I went back. The slit was barely visible, but it was still there. I started filming, and opened the door. It hadn’t been a dream.
This time I took my shoes off right away, and left one at the exit. I counted the doors; there were 112. I had a notebook and pen with me, so I decided to map the place out, methodically working my way around the lobby.
I tried the doors I’d entered the day before. They were the same, so at least something made sense here. Clothing, Beverages, Furniture, Technology, Rocks, Zoo. I spent a bit of time in the Zoo, filming the animals barely moving, and took hundreds of photos. Then I moved on.
The next was the Arboretum. Thousands upon thousands of plants, from scraggly grass all the way up to enormous trees. I remember thinking it was odd that they apparently didn’t need ground; they just sprouted up from the floor. The floor was the same in the whole place, some kind of smooth surface, a bit like stone, and tinged orange from the light that somehow bathed every room.
After that was the Library. I have no idea how many books have been written, but I feel certain that every single one was in there. They were arranged as though on bookshelves, but there were no actual shelves. The books simple hovered in mid-air. At that point I wasn’t even surprised.
The next room was without doubt the most terrifying. The room itself was empty, just that orange glow. But where the other rooms had been silent except for my footsteps and breathing, this room was filled with sounds. It was difficult to make out, but I think it was every sound that’s ever been heard. I’m fairly sure I heard car engines, birds tweeting, animals roaring, and people talking - and screaming. I walked straight out of there, shut the door, and sat on the floor for a few minutes. I hadn’t been filming, but there was no way I was opening that door for a second go.
I had just about had my fill of this weird place, and resolved to try just one more door. I looked across the room and was relieved to see my shoe still in front of the entrance door. I stood up and tried the next door.
I was getting the feel of this weird world. I understood its rules, and I was just cataloguing and mapping now. I knew that whatever was behind the door would be just things, some kind of things, in an orange room.
Yeah, right.
The room - if it was a room - was black. I never stepped into it, but I don’t think there was a floor. I have no idea how big it was, but - well, how big must a room be to contain all the planets in the Solar System? In science lessons we once made a model of the Solar System to scale in the playing fields. From the edge you couldn’t even see most of the planets, but in this room they were all much closer, and I think they were life-size. I could see Saturn with its rings, Jupiter’s red spot, and even the Earth. From this angle I could make out most of Asia.
This was amazing, but all a bit much. I felt dizzy, and quickly stepped back and closed the door. I’d had enough, at least for today. I put my phone down to put my shoes on, and left.
Yes, I left my phone in the lobby. I didn’t realise until after I got home. I thought about going back for it, but honestly I’d had enough for one day. I could get it tomorrow. I still had my notebook, and started writing down what I remembered. I was still doing this when Steven got home.
I’m not sure if Steven truly believed me, but he was always a good listener. After I’d told him everything I’d seen that day, he told me about something called a Developer Room. In computer games, the programmers sometimes make a special room for testing. They’ll put a copy of every item in the game there, so that they can test how they work, and sometimes they’ll forget to remove the developer room when they publish the game. Apparently some gamers got in trouble a few years ago for accessing the developer room in an online game, and got banned when they took stuff out of there to use against other players.
Was the place I’d found a Developer Room? What did this mean? Is the world a game, or some kind of simulation? I hadn’t thought to take anything out of there, and I’d even left the photos and videos inside, on my phone. The only thing I’d brought from there was my notebook. If I wanted to prove it was real, a few pages of scrawled notes wouldn’t do much.
Steven offered to go back there with me. So we went to bed, I called in sick the next morning, and we headed out there with the biggest backpacks we owned.
I let Steven open the door, and he walked in ahead of me. “It’s … it’s real!” he gasped. He started walking around the room, and no doubt would have got lost if he’d been on his own. My phone was right by the door where I left it, so I picked it up, put my shoe in its place, and showed him around. Steven’s a lot smarter than me and I’ve sometimes felt a little intimidated; I confess I felt a thrill at knowing more than him for once.
I don’t know much about computers, but Steven’s a real tech nerd. His eyes lit up when we got to Technology. He loves museums, and this was like heaven for him. We were there for a while, with him naming old vintage computers, when he saw something that really amazed him. It was, he said, a new phone. It looked like any other to me, but Steven told me it wasn’t released yet. Apparently it’s a 2024 model, and Steven didn’t even think they’d built a prototype yet. He picked it up delicately and put it in his backpack. He gathered together a few things he wanted to take. I decided to leave him to it for a bit, and have a look at my photos.
There was no signal, but my phone was still at 90%, just as it was the previous day. Of course. My photos were all still there; they automatically get uploaded to the cloud, so I walked outside to get a signal.
The moment I stepped outside, my photos vanished. It didn’t even look like they got deleted; they were there, and then they weren’t, as if they’d never been taken. I stared at my phone for a moment, then I remembered what Steven had told me about that computer game. People had got banned for taking things out of the Developer Room. I had taken my notebook out, but I suppose firm evidence wouldn’t be allowed.
At that moment I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around to see Steven barely standing under the weight of his backpack. “This one’s full”, he said. “Can I take yours?”
As he stepped towards me, horror dawned on me. “Steven, NO!!!” I shouted. But it was too late. Steven swung his backpack down out of the door. Immediately the door slammed silently shut, with Steven and his backpack on the other side. I grabbed for the door handle - but it was gone, the concrete perfectly smooth, with no evidence it had ever been a door.
That was three days ago. I stood by that door, trying to open it for hours, fruitlessly. The next day I bought a sledgehammer and started smashing the wall. It’s just concrete, solid, uncaring concrete. I reported Steven missing, but what can I say? His family are devastated, but the police don’t seem to care. I haven’t told them what happened. What could they do anyway?
I need to find that door. I never got tired or hungry in that place, so I’m sure Steven is still alive, trapped there. We’ll leave everything behind, please, I just want Steven back. If anybody has seen a door where there shouldn’t be one, a door that doesn’t make sense, please contact me. I’ll forget all about the rooms behind. I just want him back.