There are doors that creak open in dreams. Old, rusted things, edged in forgetfulness.
But this one… this door had no hinges. No frame. No welcome. It simply was—an aperture in space shaped like a wound, pulsing faintly with a heartbeat that didn't belong to this world.
And yet, someone approached.
Boots tapped against unseen ground, echoing into nothing.
His steps were rhythmic, not cautious but… deliberate. A little too deliberate. Like a man used to walking onto a stage.
From the veil of grey came a figure clad in sweeping black—a top hat tipped ever so slightly.
A long cloak danced behind him, flaring with each step. His gloved hand twirled a single playing card between fingers, flicking it through the air.
His name was Rowel.
A magician.
Or so he claimed.
"Now, now…" he whispered, brushing off dust from the bronze doorknob. It was cold. Colder than the night.
He hadn't come here by accident, for he travelled through doors from realm to realm, following a strange lull. A hum that echoed through every realm he visited.
His magic allowed him to transverse and move freely, but never catch that strange, yet nagging hum.
He stood there in shock, soon as he heard it again. That faint hum emerging from the other side of the door. A child he was chasing was humming this lullaby and now it was coming from behind the door.
"Show time baby—without the sweet starch though."
He adjusted his top hat, straightened the frills of his coat, before twisting the doorknob, he devoured the last bits of the sweet potato he had gotten from the shop just near the alley. With a single breath, twisted the knob.
"Well… that worked?"
The world blinked.
And then he fell.
He landed not with a crash but a hush, like a curtain falling at the end of a performance. The void around him shimmered.
Not darkness, not light. Something else. A vast silence that felt aware.
Rowel stood slowly, brushing off invisible dust as if the fall had been part of an act.
"Well, that was dramatic. Ten out of ten for suspense," he muttered. His voice echoed. But not like echoes should.
"No handle. No 'Welcome, traveler.' Not even a doormat. Great! What is it gonna be now? A circus of dancing clowns in front of digital screens?!"
He said satirically, in a mocking tone. Referring to something he saw frequently in another modern reality.
Suddenly, the air shifted.
Something watched him.
He felt it—not just the feeling of being seen, but of being... anticipated. Like someone had already read the punchline of his next trick and was waiting to see if he could still land it.
He blinked. "Well that's not creepy at all."
The space was dark, dim. Almost blinding.
Not a field. Not even a void. It was absence masquerading as presence.
Rowel's first instinct was, naturally, to break the tension.
"Well who would've thought someone would be here," he said aloud, voice bright and sardonic. "Care to show yourself?" He felt it, something watched in the darkness, but didn't move.
The silence did not break.
It responded.
"You step where echoes curl into silence, and ask if someone is here?"
The voice was soft—but vast. It rippled through the air like silk on stone.
Feminine, but not in any earthly sense. Ancient. Heavy and just wrong somehow.
❝You are not the first to wander into the marrow of forgotten realms, magician.❞
Rowel's brow twitched.
❝I am shown. It's the eye that lies, not the form. Look long enough, and you'll either understand... or leak from the ears.❞
She steps forward. One step. It's not threatening, but the sound that follows is the cracking of glass—inside Rowel's thoughts.
"…Right. That's new." His eyes darted around, scanning the space. He began to feel the pressure as moments passed.
Whatever was there, wasn't to be joked with.
❝Why are you really here?❞ She asked, voice penetrating the darkness itself.
❝Curiosity? Coincidence? Or did you think something like me could be pocketed like a card trick?❞
Rowel maintained silence, but the pressure in the invisible void grew on his back. "Not good…"
She didn't appear. She unfolded.
From the dark rose a figure that bent sense and shape—like the concept of a woman filtered through ancient fury and silent hunger.
Her skin shimmered like shadow-forged steel, smooth but marked by glowing slashes of red that pulsed like old wounds.
Her hair moved like it remembered being smoke. Behind her, tendrils of red and black spiraled outward, draping the void like war banners from another cosmos.
Eyes—some seen, some merely sensed—blinked across her form like scattered stars, and they did not look friendly.
A goddess?
No.
Something much, much older.
And she smiled, with her eyes slightly squinted. Definitely not kindly.
At first, he was struck with awe. But something inside him moved for the first time in ages.
It wasn't fear. But a strange mixture of both interest and unease.
Rowel recalls reading in a series of books belonging to one of the human realms he visited, about Eldritch beings.
He thought it would be just a myth. Fantasies, told at campsites.
"Lovecraft… you mad genius," He muttered, his voice barely heard, as he stood before her. Even the distance between them warned him to not step further.
She circles him, trailing a claw along the air behind his back—not touching, but close enough to make the hairs on his neck stiffen with instinctual warning.
❝...Everyone brings something when they stand before a god... even the mad.❞
"Sorry, forgot to bring the apples," He said, satirically. Out of an old habit.
Silence. Only for a moment until he heard from behind him something that sounded like a sigh.
❝Bland…❞
"Oh, me or the apples?" He said, but no response was given back.
She ignored his jest.
❝You smell of intent, magician. You built a door to this place, didn't you? Not stumbled. Not summoned. Designed. Like a man carving a lock and whispering for a key.❞
She appeared before him again. Gliding, still, not walking.
Of course, she would know way too much. However, this door out of all doors he conjures, spawned on its own. Which made it strange that out of all times the darkness would call for him now.
Rowel straightened his coat. He had to go along, otherwise he wouldn't know what his fate would be. Because whatever stood there, was much more than he was.
"You can tell that I'm a magician?" He squinted. "How do you know what magicians are?" he turned around looking at his coat, tophat then his bottomless pockets that held many strange things. He thought it was his appearance.
"Tsk.. You flood my mind with questions, you know that?" He said, rubbing the back of his head in confusion.
❝More questions. Good. It means the brain hasn't rotted completely.❞ She said, mockingly.
She leans in, just enough for Rowel to feel the gravity of her—not physical, but conceptual.
Rowel realized that it would be impossible for him to maintain shape the longer he stared at her. For even the concept of reality around her seemed pointless.
❝I know magicians the way fire knows dry wood. The way oceans know sinking things.❞
Her finger lifts—not touching him, but pointed just inches from his chest.
❝You weave. You tempt fate. You barter meaning from void. That scent never changes.❞
He started pulling cards from his sleeves, falling onto the invisible floor, an action against his will. As if he was being controlled by an invisible force.
It was her, bending his own reality, controlling his actions.
"Wow… didn't know I could do this," He muttered in surprise, eyes widened.
❝And yes, I know what magicians are. I knew them before your language had a word for 'spell.' Before you learned to adjust your tophat even❞
He looked at his tophat, perfectly fine. He didn't know whether to feel offended or afraid.
❝So ask, little conjurer. You're already unraveling. Might as well make a mess worth watching.❞
She waited, not in mockery, but with a deep, coiled readiness. With the faintest glint in her expression...
She enjoyed this.
She draws back then, swirling with a movement that shouldn't have grace but somehow redefines it. The red tendrils trailing her shift like torn banners in wind that doesn't exist.
Rowel froze mid-adjusting his spectacles. He didn't wear them earlier, but he had to, because he could feel his eyes hurting.
He was indeed unraveling slowly. The concept here didn't exist, and his magic was waning.
He took a breath. "Wow I guess..."
With a flick of his fingers, a plush, velvet chair appeared from thin air. He sat down like he owned the space, crossed his legs, and continued to polish his glasses with his handkerchief.
She watched the chair manifest with an arched brow. It wasn't, surprise, but an appraisal, like a predator seeing an unfamiliar pattern in a familiar prey.
As Rowel sits and wipes his spectacles, so calm, so composed, her expression flickers into something sharper.
Not irritation.
Interest.
❝Ah. Dramatic.❞
She circles the chair like a slow eclipse, not with impatience, with focus.
Her movements silent, her form casting no shadow despite the light bleeding oddly from the air and her many eyes.
❝You polish your lenses while speaking to something that devours vision. Either you're brave... or cracked beautifully down the middle.❞
Then, without warning, she lowers herself into a seated position across from him. Not on a chair, but on a twisting, living mass of red and black that blooms into a throne-like sprawl beneath her.
"As long as it has 'beautifully' in it, I guess.." He said, now finally realising that he is down to his last resort. Talking. He realized that no matter how many times he tried, a magic such as conjuring doors in this place won't work.
And whatever sat before him, on the other side of the table. Wasn't clearly going to let him.
Flowers of impossible geometry spiraled around her feet, vanishing as quickly as they formed.
❝Finally not taking the situation as a jester, Rowel?❞
She says his name as if she didn't learn it—she remembered it, and only just now decided to let him know.
He scoffed, adjusting his spectacles on his face. He realized that she can also read his mind.
Truly, there was no way out.
He stared into the void or rather, into the middle distance, like a man who just realized he left the stove on… six hours ago… in another life.
His expression was the perfect fusion of calm acceptance and existential despair. Honestly, he wasn't surprised.
No raised brow, no twitch of emotion, just that blank, soul-deep stare of a man who's emotionally well-done.
"Yep, I'm cooked," He muttered.
❝Not exactly yet,❞ She said, with a mocking grin formed on her impossible visage.
I mean… things can't get any worse right? Right….?
❝Let's make things… more interesting, shall we magician?❞ She paused for a moment, ❝Look up,❞ she said so calmly.
Just when he thought things wouldn't get worse, it did as he looked up.
His eyes widened, more like, expanded—as if trying to physically comprehend the horror hovering above.
His mouth parted slightly, lips twitching like they were considering quitting the job of being lips altogether.
There it was: a glowing red, countdown—10:00—ticking away.
He didn't scream. He didn't run. He just sat there, face frozen, and his mind it meant one thing:
So that's how Rotisserie chicken feel.
❝Since you've been asking questions—and still want to ask more. Each question you ask now will cost you 1 human minute.❞
Her voice flowed like still water over shattered glass—too calm, too quiet, and all the more terrifying for it.
She placed one hand on the edge of the table. Just barely. As if even wood might flinch at her presence.
❝Your life is now, barely worth ten minutes. So what will it be, Rowel? Time is ticking❞
Rowel swallowed—loudly, dramatically, as if his throat had just betrayed.
He shifted back ever so slightly, a hand twitching as if it wanted to cast a spell—but even his magic seemed to be whispering, "Bro, let's not."
And above his head, the countdown continued.
09:53
09:52
09:51
…