Alex had always considered his home ordinary, a small two-bedroom house nestled at the edge of town. The walls were beige, the furniture well-worn but familiar. Nothing in the house ever seemed out of place, until one night, when Alex found a door that hadn't been there before.
It stood in the hallway, just past the bathroom, where there had always been a blank wall. The door was simple, made of pine, with a brass handle that glimmered under the dim hallway light. Alex reached for it, hesitating for only a moment. A chill ran down his spine, but curiosity won over. The handle turned easily under his fingers.
Behind the door was another room—a living room, but it was wrong. The walls were the same color as his own, but the furniture was slightly askew, as if it had been rearranged by someone with no real sense of order. The curtains were drawn, but light seeped through the edges, unnatural and dim.
The strangest thing, though, was the silence. No hum of the refrigerator, no distant sounds of traffic, no rustling from the neighbors next door. Just an eerie stillness that pressed against Alex's ears, like the whole world had fallen quiet.
Alex stepped inside, eyes scanning the room. Nothing seemed dangerous, but the wrongness lingered in the air like a scent he couldn't place. He crossed the room and opened the window. A gust of stale air rushed in, as if the world beyond had been closed off for years.
Turning back to the door, Alex's stomach lurched. The door was gone.
Panic clawed at his throat. He searched every corner of the room, every inch of the walls, but the door had vanished. There was no sign of it, as if it had never existed.
Just as fear began to tighten around his chest, the door reappeared—this time, just in front of him. Alex's heart pounded in his chest as he reached for the handle once again, desperate to escape. The familiar hallway greeted him when he stepped through. His home was back to normal, as though nothing had changed.
Shaking, Alex closed the door behind him and sat on the couch, trying to calm his racing thoughts. It must have been a dream, a trick of the mind. But when he glanced down the hallway, he saw the faintest outline of a door, almost imperceptible.
Days passed. The door continued to appear. Sometimes, it was in the hallway, other times in the kitchen, or even in the closet. Each time, a new reality awaited beyond it. Some were similar to the first, strange but benign. Others were more unsettling: a kitchen where the sink overflowed with black liquid, a bathroom with mirrors that reflected nothing but darkness, a living room where a figure sat in the corner, unmoving, staring.
The doors, once small and manageable, began to grow larger, more menacing. Each one seemed to beckon Alex deeper into this nightmare.
In one version of the house, Alex encountered an older version of himself, sitting by the fire, his face marked with years of sorrow.
"You shouldn't have come here," the older Alex said, his voice hollow. "This isn't your home anymore. It's mine."
Alex froze. The voice sounded like his own, but it was wrong, twisted. It was as if it came from someone who had been lost to time, someone who had given up.
"But… why?" Alex whispered. "What happened?"
The older Alex smiled, a sad, knowing smile. "This is what happens when you can't escape the endless loop. When you don't let go of your past… of your mistakes."
And then, as suddenly as he had appeared, the older version disappeared, leaving behind only the faint scent of smoke and dust.
Alex stood frozen for a moment, the words lingering in his mind. The endless loop. What did that mean?
The doors continued to grow more complex. They no longer led just to rooms, but to entire worlds that felt simultaneously alien and painfully familiar. Alex wandered through them aimlessly, growing more desperate to find the way out.
In one version of the house, he encountered a room filled with versions of himself—some laughing, others crying, some talking endlessly about things Alex couldn't understand. Each version felt like a fractured piece of his mind, each one representing a different path he could have taken, a different decision he could have made.
And then, in the darkest corner of this room, Alex found the final door. It was unlike any he had seen before. It was huge—massive, towering over him like a monument. Its surface was made of polished black stone, etched with strange symbols, pulsating as if alive. The handle, cold and smooth, seemed to call out to Alex, daring him to open it.
With trembling hands, Alex turned the handle and stepped through.
The room was empty—nothing but white walls and a single light hanging from the ceiling. But the silence was deafening, the air thick with the weight of expectation. Alex turned in a circle, eyes searching, but there was nothing.
Then, a voice echoed through the room, familiar yet distant.
"Welcome back," it said.
Alex froze.
Before him stood a version of the house—his house. The hallway, the rooms, everything exactly as it had been when he first noticed the door. It was the same place, but something was different. Something felt wrong.
"Where… where am I?" Alex asked, his voice trembling.
The voice laughed softly, the sound almost cruel.
"This is the beginning," it said. "You've been here before. In fact, you've always been here."
Alex's heart sank. He looked around, eyes wide, and finally understood.
He hadn't been escaping the house. He had been circling around it, over and over, trapped in the very loop he had tried to break. The doors, the endless realities, the distortions—they had all been part of the cycle, part of his own mind, unable to escape the one place he had always feared: himself.