The Forgotten Door

It was the kind of thing you'd come across in one of those weird dreams you're almost sure are real—the ones you wake up from in a sweat, convinced that your subconscious knows something you don't. But this was no dream. It was right there, in the middle of town, as solid as the pavement it was standing on. In Windham, the town with more stories than people, something new had arrived: a door. Just sitting there in the middle of the square, a chipped and faded wooden door that seemed older than anything else around it. No walls, no frame, just a door. Liam, local to Windham for all his twenty-six years, was the first to notice it that chilly October morning. Fumbling his way through half-frozen paths of leaves, he stopped dead in his tracks. "No way," he muttered, shielding his eyes from the rising sun. Was he still dreaming? Word spread faster than any gossip had a right to. By lunchtime, half the town had gathered, staring, whispering, daring each other to touch it. "You do it, Kev," snorted Liam's friend, Maria, elbowing Kevin hard in the ribs. "Chicken?" Kevin scratched his head and laughed it off, but not before shooting a look at the door that said he was every bit as curious. After all, nobody had seen anything like it. It had everyone's minds racing with possibilities. "What do you think is behind it?" Maria asked Liam later, a note of genuine curiosity tripping up her typically sarcastic tone. Liam shrugged. "An old storage unit? Some kind of cellar maybe?" But even he doubted his explanation. Days went by. The door never budged; people stopped and smelled its mystery before going about their routines. But the doors of curiosity swing wide, and Liam couldn't help himself. One evening, with only the moon for company, he slipped out to find some answers. The night air was damp with possibility. He touched the cold door handle and took a breath he hoped would make him braver. It wasn't. "Here goes nothing," he told the silence before pulling it open. Behind it wasn't what Liam expected. No dusty boxes or hidden treasures, just a dimly lit back alley with walls so tight it felt like a hallway. Winding deeper, the echoes of his footsteps sounded louder than they should be, bouncing off graffiti-tagged walls in chilling stereo. And then he wasn't alone. A pair of eyes blinked at him from the dark. He froze, heart pounding until it was all he could hear. "Liam," came an unfamiliar voice, low and cracked, like gravel under a tire. A shadow stepped forward—a girl, hair tangled and eyes wide. "I've been waiting for you," she said. Moments later, Liam learned about Cora's world, an old tale nobody talked about anymore. "People forget on purpose," she explained, pacing as if her thoughts weighed too heavy to stand still. "Windham wasn't always as it is now." Supposedly, Cora's relatives built the very first houses here with hopes and dreams as big as the skies. But those homes, names, and histories were swallowed by long-forgotten agreements and shadows. She knew because she'd seen it all pass from behind this door. "Impossible...," Liam whispered, feeling a shiver that wasn't just from the wind. But something inside him sparked. What if the townsfolk should remember? What if they'd just chosen to forget because it was easier? Who made these decisions, and why did they matter now? Pokin’ all the holes, that curiosity led him up the dark alleyways and through conversations that required nothing short of his courage. By the time dawn returned, it'd felt like years of unspoken truths weighing Liam down. But the town would know. "We all must know," he decided, once back in that chilly square circle. The townsfolk came together in the hours that followed, older faces recognizing names once shrouded. Shock and excitement turned into hushed whispers and tears. And when the first streaks of sunlight hit that puzzling door, Liam—a young man turned unintentional hero—darn sure his mind wasn't playing tricks on him, opened his own doors to a world that Windham had lost too long ago.