I’ve been locked in my study for so long, scribbling at my overfilled journal, every tick of the clock making me jump just the slightest bit. Every scuff of the boot of a servant in the hall sends me into a panic. I pace when I have the strength and when I don’t I sit as far from the door as I can get.
Suddenly a raspy knock shakes the door I’m staring at so intently. I let out a shriek as I jump to my feet, when my brother’s voice rings out from behind the door. “Hey? You good in there? We’re all worried about you!”
“I am just fine, please leave me alone, it is of the utmost importance. I just need you to stay away.”
My brother tries to speak, but cuts himself off. I hear his light boots stomp off down the corridor.
“He doesn’t understand, he never could. I need to keep him safe.” I sit back down across from the door, ever vigilant. Never sleeping, rarely even blinking. The door would not catch me unawares. Not ever again.
“I don’t understand what Bartholomew’s problem is! He’s just locked himself up in his room like a cretin!”
“Please brother, have some sympathy for poor Bartholomew. He’s sick in the mind, there’s nothing to be done. He’s always rambling about some monster or something. I don’t get him.
“There’s nothing to get! He’s a lunatic, let’s put him in the looney bin!” Rodrick says, waving his arms manically.
“There shall be none of that! Not in this household!” A darkly dressed woman says from the adjacent doorway.
“Lady Lumen, my apologies. I know you care for your husband.” Rodrick says, bowing his head.
“I care deeply for the man, despite his oddities. I’ll have him cared for here as he recovers, there’ll be no ‘looney bin’ nonsense again, do I make myself clear?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Good. I’m going to see to my dearest and see how he is. If you’ll excuse me.”
She slowly walks down the hallway, her heels tapping against the floor. As she approaches, the shuffled sounds from behind the door stop dead, the silence on either side of the door palpable.
She leans close to the door, listening to shallow, quick breaths from the other side of the room. Of her dearest husband quaking in fear of her walking on the other side of the door. She reaches up to knock but thinks better of it.
“Dearest? Are you okay in there?” She says in her singsong voice that used to comfort him on any difficult night.
He only whimpers in response, chairs squeaking as he pulls farther underneath a desk in the room.
“Darling you’re worrying me, what’s wrong? Please tell me.” The southern bell speaks in a soothing tone, only worsening the poor Bartholomew’s state.
“You’re not real. You’re not the real Lumen! You’re just the door, the damn door always knocking. Knocking! Always all the time! It drives me crazy! Whispering to me, and telling me lies. You’re just here to torment me even more! Go away! Go!”
Lumen steps back in shock, she’d never heard her little lovebug talk this way, even in his darkest moments he’d never ever speak that way to her.
“As you wish, darling.” Lumen says sadly as she steps away from the door, Bartholomew only screams senselessly at the door.
“How is he, lady?”The woman asks.
“Not good, he seemed to think me an illusion of some kind. I know not what he sees in there, but I’m worried he’ll drop dead from fright soon enough.”
“You should consider-” Rodrick starts before being cut off.
“Enough!” Lumen commands. “I know your brother is the inheritor of your fathers estate, you can’t do this to him! If you speak of it again you’ll be removed from the grounds and not allowed to return, by my power in my husband’s absence.”
“He’s not absent! He’s crazy! He babbles of monsters and whispers, and he’ll snap eventually, I’ll not be held responsible for his damage to you and this whole estate. This will end poorly.” Rodrick says before storming out of the room, grabbing his scabbard by the door.
Lumen sighs in relief, “Huff, that boy. He thinks himself the only child of his father. He’ll be the death of me. Of all of us.”
That night, Lumen sleeps in the master bedroom down the hall from her husband’s study. The study that he’s locked in, screaming at all hours of the night. Finally, frustrated not only by her husband, but all the things that’s being said about him. They’re being insulted, demeaned, degraded. She’d had enough. This is all Bartholomew’s fault, so she has to take it upon herself to knock him out of it.
She gently knocks her knuckles into the door, “Honey we need to talk.”
She hears him shriek, knocking chairs over as he jumps from her knock. “Go away! If you are real this time I don’t want to speak to you! You can’t be here!”
“You need to stop this childish behavior! You’re a respected adult, you can’t be doing this to us, to me!” Lumen says, desperate to get through to him.
After a moment, Bartholomew responds with, “No, no don’t say that! You can’t say that! I’m trying, I’m trying so hard back here. To stop them! The knocks, the incessant knocks, I can’t let them in! Don’t you see! They’ll get in! I’m guarding, you! Just leave me to my task! I’m begging you, Lumen, please. I am trying to save you, to save us all!”
Lumen pauses, shocked at the desperation in Bartholomew’s voice. But she can’t accept his words, he’s crazy. She has to show him that.
“I’m coming in, honey!” Lumen says as she rattles the doorknob.
“No! No honey don’t! Please, please I’m begging you stay out! Please! Don’t hurt her! She doesn’t know what she’s doing please let her go! Stop!” Bartholomew begs pathetically as she pushes the weak wooden door past the stop. The door swings open to a sobbing Bartholomew, on his hands and knees begging for mercy.
“Bartholomew, it’s okay, I’m here now.” Lumen reaches for Bartholomew’s shoulder as she steps over the threshold. As her step lands she finds herself standing somewhere else entirely. Instead of his sophisticated study, she’s standing in a bare wooden room with a chair sitting at a desk. On the desk is parchment paper and an inky quill sitting at its side. There’s a circular window up above the desk, as if you could only see through standing on top of the desk.
She looks over at Bartholomew, still prostrating. She turns to the stack of papers, all written on with scrawled strokes of ink, almost as if written in a desperate panic. The door slams behind her while she looks away, nothing remaining to hint at what had happened.
She peers through them, looking at the nonsense written on them. They start rather coherently. One entry says, “I find myself in a strange place, I fear if I leave my study I won’t be able to find my way back. I’ll be back home in due time, I’m sure that Lumen will understand upon my return.”
“Strange.” Lumen says, confused.
The text continues, saying, “Upon close inspection, the desk and most of the environment is made up of brown maple wood. Classy choice, if I say so myself. The only things not Maple are the panes of the window up above the desk, and the doorknob. It’s a beautiful brass color, and quite well polished. I find it oddly tempting, something I’ll have to ponder about I suppose. Either way, I’ll continue my search of the room and report my findings.”
“I’ve been here for quite a while, a few hours I would say. I haven’t seen much upon inspection, but I started hearing footsteps behind the door. I don’t know if the door returns me to my own house, or if it would expand into something different, a new world I could explore. The thought intrigues me, but I would miss my dearest Lumen. I couldn’t leave without her, if only she could be here with me. What does concern me is if the latter is true, then what is stepping beyond the maple door?”
“I was thinking of something to write, when there was a sharp knock on the door, it almost startled me out of my seat! I turned, and before I said anything, I heard the voice of Lumen! My beautiful wife! ‘Yes dear?’ She responded in her signature singsong voice, and said ‘You’ve been in your study all through the night! What on earth are you doing?’ I was puzzled by this, so I said, ‘I’ve only been in here a few hours, it should be around dinner time, are you sure?’ She quickly says ‘I’m quite positive dear! We left you to your work. I know how you get sometimes, but I am becoming worried, have you slept at your desk again? You know I hate when you do that.’”
“This absolutely floored me. I’d only been here a bit, it was barely noon when I entered my study to find this room. It should’ve been perhaps four, an hour til supper. ‘Oh, yes dear, I apologize. I got so caught up in my work. I shan’t be long ‘til I retire from the study.’ This reassures my love, despite my complete lie. ‘Okay dear, just don’t be long, breakfast shall come sooner than it feels it should!’ I replied with some generic response, but her final statement made me think. What is really happening? Why am I here, what’s my purpose in this world? What am I doing?”
“Dear what happened to you here?” Lumen says, glancing over at the dischevilled corpse of a man lying at her feet as she reads.
“Things are getting stranger, I hear the footsteps more often, sometimes they are undoubtedly the gently tapping heels of my beloved. Sometimes they feel more sinister. Almost as if large feet are creeping through the darkness beyond the door, almost silently stalking me as I write these words. Sometimes I hear what may be a large claw tap-tap-tapping at the door, so gentle I’d almost miss it if the silence wasn’t maddening. I’m worried to open the door now, because what if I don’t go home? What if I’m not embraced by Lumen and instead some monstrous freak assaults me? I can’t take that chance, not now.”
“The steps behind the door are more pronounced now, they shuffle and meander just beyond what I can see. They sniff at the foot of the door, and gently scratch it with sharp claws. I hear wood shavings clatter to the echoing stone ground beyond the door.
One time, I heard a voice. It was distant. So faint it sounded like it could be wind, but there’s no wind here. There’s nothing here. I don’t know what to think of it, or if I imagined it, but I haven’t heard from Lumen in a long while. It worries me.”
“I didn’t imagine the voice. I was sitting, scraping my foot against the floor in boredom and stress, when I heard a sharp knock on the door. I looked over, and said, ‘Hello? Is that you, dear?’ I didn’t hear anything for a moment, but right before I spoke again I heard my dear Lumen say, ‘Yes dear, it’s me.’ This sets my heart ablaze! It’s been hours since I’d heard a comforting voice, I was ecstatic to hear her voice again. ‘How are things my love? How long has it been?’ She responded in a sickly sweet tone, a tone I’d never heard come from her mouth before. She said ‘It’s been a long, long time dear. So long I’d almost forgotten of you. Things are better now, better now that you’re gone.’ I have never been more distraught, just writing this sends tears to fill my eyes. ‘You were such a burden, but once you left for good, everything worked out. I’m happy now, your brother took your place. You know he’s always wanted it. Just stay gone.’
“‘My love, how can you say that? Has it been that long? I feel as if no time’s passed at all. I just wanted this experience, to see beyond the veil of that which I’ve always known. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to leave.’ ‘I told you, it was for the best. I’m glad you’re gone. Never come back.’ With that final remark, I heard her heels step away from the door into the inky blackness. I kneel on the ground while leaned up against the chair, sobbing my heart out. It felt as if my very soul was ablaze.”
“I’ve decided that that wasn’t Lumen, I can’t live if I don’t believe that was an impostor. Some inhabitant of the land beyond the door that tried to trick me. What its purpose was is unclear, but it without a doubt in my mind is not my Lumen. It can’t be.”
Lumen wipes a tear from her eye before it falls on the scratched, crumpled page before she sets it on the table, pulling the next one from the pile.
“I’ve started hearing whispers from the doors. They don’t sound like anyone I know, but their voices have started to make sense. What I thought was just senseless mumbling, they speak of many things. Things that are, things that were, things that may yet be. Of futures so amazing I can’t believe I could live to see it. Of palaces etched into mountains, as the kings of kings step forwards with their armies to march upon their enemies. Of great powers and greater evils seeking to use it. Of the vast lands beyond the door, the infinite landscapes of immeasurable beauty. Of great and infinite gods and their many eyes. Their fingers reaching and shaping the world I’ve lived in my whole life, ignorant of their influence.
It’s all the things I could’ve dreamed of, as a scientist, and as an explorer. Their promises are sweet whispers in the back of my brain. So tempting to leave it all behind, to leave Lumen behind and just live beyond the door. Spend the rest of existence exploring the infinite cosmos, carefree. I must think on this.”
“I think I have to do it. I hear them beyond the door, they gather so I may step forward. Join them in their march beyond infinity. Step past the mortal coil and revel in eternity.”
The next page is covered in manic scrawlings, scribbles painting an abstract picture. The word NO! Is drawn all over, scrawled with such force it almost rips the paper and dents the sheets below. The scribbles form a horrifying face, twisted and contorted ‘til it’s barely recognizable. It’s inverted and swirling into itself in a grotesque way upon an obelisk with a barbed red halo floating above its head.
The next page is written in purely panicked scrawl, as if Bartholomew had been doing everything he could to hold it together and it wasn’t enough for long.
“I was wrong, I was so so so so wrong. I can’t unsee it, I’ll never live the same way, see things in the same light. They were terrible, monstrous and terrible. They didn’t move an inch, they were perfectly still monoliths in the center of a shining light. A light so bright it burned my soul. They had many eyes but never blinked or moved. Their terrible dripping red halos burned my eyes. Everything I see blurs now, almost shifting as if not of my own reality. It hurts, it hurts so bad. The memory of their countenance fills me with uncontrolled dread. I can barely keep it together. God help me if this door opens again, I’ll die on the spot.”
The next page simply says “I haven’t looked through the window yet.”
The final page is now in a blood red ink splattered and scrawled all over the page. An incomprehensible gibberish coats every square inch of the paper, no space is unused in this insane mishmash of words with no correlation.
Lumen glances up at the window with a comforting blue sky behind it. “What could be out there?”
Upon hearing this, Bartholomew springs up, grabbing her shoulders while babbling.
“Don’t look! Don’t look! I’m begging you never look out there, I believed myself strong. I thought I was an unbeatable explorer, scientist extraordinaire! But I was wrong. You’re strong, Lumen darling, but strong means nothing to what’s out there. Please, You’ll never be the same.”
“Darling, what did you see?” Lumen asks, unsure what’s even really happening.
“Don’t ask me that, something so terrible to think about. Just the thought of it makes my eyes burn. A terrible burn, that blurs reality and something that can’t be real. It’s not real! It can’t be real!”
“It’s not real darling, just come back to me! Come back to the house with me! Our life together!” Lumen says desperately.
“I can’t, the door can’t open. It can never open. I wanted you here to be with me, but not like this. Never like this.”
“Please darling, look. It’ll open and it’ll be our little hallway, we can head right to the room and it’ll all be fine. We can lie down and relax.”
“No! Stop, don’t!” Bartholomew yells too late as Lumen opens the door wide and looks through.
She sees an infinite expanse, a pure white floor and the horizon against a pure black sky. The sense of scale is astounding, feeling so far away and so huge despite being right there. Towering in the incredible distance are huge monoliths, giant gray pillars. Covering the pillars are many eyes, all stoic and unmoving. The tops of the obelisks contort into a sort of face, swirling around itself in an uncomfortable way, squeezing into what vaguely resembles a face. They don’t blink or twitch, they simply stare in all directions. They have bloody dripping thorned halos, the only movement is the blood pouring down onto the pillars from their huge adornment of their sacrifice.
In between the pillars a shadow moves, siding just out of clear sight, only hiding in the peripherals of her vision. As the image burns into her very soul, her sense of being as she stands before the gods burn away.
As the shadow approaches it stands before her, and all the eyes at once turn towards Lumen. A booming shaking that sounds almost like speech echoes through the room, shaking the glass pane of the window.
It speaks of that which must never be seen, those which must never be observed. The things that don’t belong within a mortal’s eye. The shadow reaches out, and she merges into it, the shadow pulling her piece by piece into this warped world where nothing makes sense.
Bartholomew just closes his eyes and weeps as he knows he can’t save her. She’s gone when he finally looks up. The door is closed, and the room is unnaturally still. He scooches closer to the door, whimpering the words, “Lumen?” over and over.
He finally sits up on his knees, every joint and muscle in his body is screaming in pain. If he hadn’t looked away it would’ve taken him too. “Maybe that would’ve been better, I’d be with Lumen, then.”
He glances at the doorknob, trying to will his hand to open it up again, but he can’t do it. “I’m not strong enough, not for you Lumen. I saw it before, I can’t see it again. I can’t do anything.”
He leans against a wall and sinks down, burying his face in his knees. He remembers before, even just a few hours ago or maybe weeks ago when he stepped into this room that should’ve been his study. Was he doomed from the beginning? Or is it too late now that he’s this deep? Because he was too curious? There’s no way to know, he just wishes it had never happened at all.
“Why did she have to try and help? I love her for it, but now she’s gone. Who knows what happened to her when they got her.” He looks up at the window, almost forgetting what he saw out there. The horror that almost killed him faster than the nothing behind the door did.
“I can’t do this anymore. I-I have to do something else. But I can’t open the door again.” Bartholomew shakily gets on his feet, stumbling over to the table. He puts a foot on the chair then a knee on the table, ever so slowly and painfully pushing himself up.
There’s a knock on the door, and then more. A cacophony of knocks and door rattles fills the previously silent room. Almost as if they’re begging, don’t look out the window, just open the door. It’ll be fine if you open the door, you really don’t want to see out that window.
But I’m determined. Whether or not I brought this on myself, Lumen is gone because I couldn’t protect her. There’s nothing left to protect. Maybe it should’ve been this way from the start.
I stand straight up, and looks straight out the window without flinching. I fallsback off of the table, braindead before I hit the floor.