"Hey, I'm home!" Tobias called down the dark hall, locking the door behind him as he spoke. He
groped around in the wall until he found the light switch, and flicked it up. The lights came on,
and he took off his coat and folded it over his arm. The kitchen was located next to the door. The
stove pushed against the back wall and a long counter lined the wall. A heavy steel sink was set
in the middle of the counter, with a dark wood cabinet set just below it, housing the plumbing.
Finally, the fridge was set up on the wall across from the sink.
The stove was off and cold, and the kitchen was immaculate, with all the day's dishes having
been put away. The counters were quite literally shining under the kitchen lights. This was not
normal. Tobias always cleaned the kitchen, though he rarely used it. His girlfriend, Alice, almost
always cooked, though she never cleaned up after herself. Annoying as it was, her cooking was
good, and she was neat enough that the clean up was never a major enough hassle to complain
about. He swung his backpack off his shoulder, and hung it on the set of hooks that were fixed
on the same wall as the counter, a foot or so away from where it ended.
There was still no response from the hall. The shower wasn't running, and he was certain that
he'd been loud enough that she could hear him, even if she was playing a game with
headphones on. This was not normal. He frowned, and turned on the hall light. The light came
on, like normal. The hallway was short, being only ten or so feet long. It connected with their
bedroom, and the bathroom.
The hall was not empty. Icy needles tapped at his nerves when he saw it, simply laying flat on
the floor. A large, dirty, rotten box sat perfectly in the middle of the hallway. Dust covered the top
of the box, and some kind of brown gunk was seeping from the seams and sticking to the side.
The cardboard that made up the box was old and clearly rotten, dilapidated past its prime. The
box was held shut by a frayed piece of string, one so old and musty that it looked as though a
small gust of air would snap it in two.
His breathing quickened the longer he looked at it. Tobias backed away from the box. Questions
shot through his mind, too many to focus on, save for the most basic, the most simple and
mundane of them all. What was inside of it? Why was he so scared? After all, it was just a box.
Just a box that was large enough to fit a person inside of it. He reached into his pocket, and
fished around until he retrieved his cell phone. He tapped the security code in, and called Alice.
A cheery ringtone piped up. It was muffled. It could be coming from the room… or from the box.
Either way, it wasn't being answered. As the ringtone continued playing, Tobias took a deep
breath, trying to calm down. Alice was a little absent minded, it was possible that she'd gone out
and forgotten her phone.
He took another deep breath. There was no reason to panic or jump to conclusions. Afterall, he
hadn't checked the bedroom yet. She could be asleep, as she was a heavy sleeper. Tobias
walked down the hall, and squeezed past the box, flattening himself against the wall to avoid
touching it. He felt bumps rise on his skin, and a chill run down his spine as he passed it.
Tobias stopped in front of the bedroom door and was about to knock, but stopped himself. If
Alice was asleep, then she wouldn't hear him anyway. The doorknob was cold in his hand, but
not in a natural way, instead as if it had been frozen or otherwise chilled. He took another long
deep breath, and carefully pushed the door open, slowly and carefully.
The scene that awaited him on the other side of the door was simply impossible, so jarring that
he momentarily froze up after seeing it. He closed his eyes, took another deep breath, and
opened them again.
What awaited him was no grisly scene, no violent image that would change his world, but
something that changed his world in another way entirely. It was a mirror image of the hallway,
the lights illuminating that unsettling, old, dirty, rotten large box. Tobias looked behind him, only
to find the hallway looking back at him.
A quick glance through the doorway showed the same hall again, with no living room or kitchen
to the sides. Tobias closed the door, and reopened it. The disjointed mouth of the hallway still
glared at him. He closed the door again, and leaned against it, leaving one hand on the knob,
and using one hand to clutch his head, running his fingers through his hair and grabbing the
back of his head, pushing it against that door, to what seemed like another world, or perhaps to
something in between. He began to breathe heavily and push his head back against the door
harder, clutching the doorknob even tighter than before, his knuckles white from exertion, the
flat metal handle biting into the flesh of his palm, close to drawing blood.
Beside him, the box shifted towards him, the string groaning as it moved. A soft scraping sound
reached his ear, somehow overcoming the chaos in his mind and his heavy breathing. He froze,
his breathing slowing suddenly and his grip tightening even further. The only warmth he felt was
from the blood that sprung free of his skin as the knob's edge tore through it, accompanied by
the uncomfortable heat of pain. The box shifted again, crawling slightly closer to him, that soft
scraping and groaning winding him up even further, to the point of snapping.
"What the fuck is that?" He asked no one, almost inaudibly. Then it hit him. If the bedroom
wasn't a bedroom… then Alice's phone could only have rung from one place. From the dirty
box. It shouldn't have been hard to break free from the box, with such an old piece of string
being the only visible thing keeping it closed, even if restrained.
The string groaned again, and stopped suddenly, the sound ending in a soft snap, as the string
broke…
… With some other worldly shriek, the box was torn apart and chunks of rotted and grimy
cardboard were flung in all directions! The tension coiled up in Tobias snapped into action, and
he slammed the doorknob down, tearing his hand further and splashing blood against the door.
He shoved all his weight into the door, and it was ripped open, flinging him into the mouth of that
otherworldly hallway. Just as whatever had leapt from the rotted box slammed into the wall next
where he'd been a mere fraction of a second before, so too did he slam the door shut, twisting
the small locking mechanism, sealing it outside, and himself into whatever this new place was.
A heavy blow rammed against the door, followed by another, the impacts splintering and
cracking the cheap, thin wood and violently shaking it in its frame. Tobias placed all his weight
against the door, and braced it as best he could, though he grunted and winced with each
impact, which even when softened by the door, were certainly going to leave bruises.
After a third blow, it became soberingly clear to Tobias that the door would not take a fourth hit.
With that realization fresh in his mind, Tobias jumped back and dashed to the end of the hall as
the fourth blow landed, and the door and parts of the frame came loose from the wall and
shattered against the wall. Tobias slipped around the box that occupied this hallway, which
thankfully, had not opened. He grabbed the doorknob, and tore it open.
Another mirror hallway greeted him, rotten box and all. He heard heavy footsteps behind him,
coming towards him, and he leapt through the door, slamming it shut and locking it behind him
once again.
Rather than bracing the door again, Tobias immediately rushed to the end of the hallway and
yanked the door open, and fled into another copy of the hallway. The door to the hallway he'd
just exited from cracked loudly, and he once again slammed the door behind him. Before he ran
to the next door, something caught his eye. A small number, written in the top left corner of the
door. A three, written in formal script, the size of a person's handwriting.
"What the-!" Tobias' exclamation was cut off, as a room shaking impact knocked a large chunk,
perhaps six inches wide and tall, from the door, which broke down as it flew. Tobias moved his
head to the side in the nick of time, and the fragmented wood slammed against the wall. A pale,
skeletal hand emerged from the hole. The hand was thin, with paper thin white skin and flesh
wrapped around it, and flecks of white paint and splinters of wood adorned the torn knuckles.
As the owner of the hand ripped it back through the door, Tobias dashed down the hall, and
through the next door. He spared himself a glance at the top left corner of the door, and saw a
four, written in slightly large script. He ran through the next, and saw a five, once again in large
script.
With each hall and door Tobias passed through, he saw the same thing, a number that
increased in both size and value with each passing room, and with every hall and door he
cleared, whatever creature, no, monster, followed him, was always right behind him, no more
than a door away.
Finally, he reached door fifteen, the number now large enough to take up the entire upper half of
the door. He turned, and dashed to the end of the hallway. Behind him, the door exploded, far
sooner than it ever had been before. The hallway suddenly felt cold, like someone had ripped all
the heat from it.
Tobias grabbed the doorknob, and pushed it down, and ran through the door, and as he turned
to close it, that boney hand from before darted between the closing door and the frame with
speed so great that he could barely even perceive it, like a car on a race track.
He slammed himself against the door, the edge digging into the creature's hand and causing it
to shout, but the hand remained. As Tobias prepared to slam the door on its hand again, a voice
called out to him.
"W...a…i…t…". It was Alice's voice, strained, as though it hadn't been used in a long time, but it
was her voice nonetheless. He obeyed, stopping himself from slamming against the door again.
An eye peered through the gap. The eye was deep yellow, the color of amber. It was Alice's eye.
Tobias froze, unable to move, even though every single part of his body screamed for him to
move. The hand pulled itself from the doorway. Time seemed to slow around the two, man
and… monster? That hand clearly didn't belong to Alice. But it sounded just like her, even had
her eyes. What was it? It? Or her? In times of uncertainty, Tobias would have turned to Alice. In
this case however, he was on his own.
"Who… What are you?" The words were out of his mouth just as he formulated them. His voice
was shaky. For a tense second, there was no reply.
"I…am…Alice." The voice was stronger this time, though still slower than normal. While the
creature spoke, Tobias slowly edged the door closed, his movements so small and slow that it
was hard to tell if the door was moving or not. Even though it had her voice, Tobias knew that
having the door between him and "her" was safer.
"You don't look like Alice." Tobias said, calmer now, still slowly but surely shutting the door.
"But… I am. Her." The voice was nearly there, nearly up to snuff. Perhaps it could have passed
for her if she were sick, or on the phone, but what he'd seen drove him to finish his task,
shutting the door completely, and slowly resetting the knob. He figured that locking the door
would have tipped it off to what he was doing, so he refrained and instead backed away slowly,
towards the wall, and towards the next door. He had no idea how many doors there were, or if
they'd lead him back home.
"How can you prove that?" Perhaps he'd run forever, or until his body gave out. Then "Alice"
would certainly catch him. But until then, he'd run. He groped along the wall, small, short, silent
steps accompanied by a near silent scraping sound, made by his back as it slid across the wall,
past that dreaded rotten box.
"I can't. I don't look like I used to, anymore. But I'm still me." The creature sounded exactly like
Alice now. If it had started with that voice, perhaps he'd have trusted it more. But he didn't.
Tobias reached the end of the hall, but he felt no door frame, nor doorknob or anything like that.
His breathing quickened, and Tobias very nearly screamed when he realized that there was no
door.
"You sound far away, Toby. Are you still there?" It, "Alice" asked from the other side of the door,
the last line of defense between him and "her".
"Yeah, I'm still here." Tobias managed to choke out, between his rapid breaths. In the corner of
his eye, Tobias noticed something about the box, something different that he hadn't noticed on
the others, though admittedly, he hadn't been looking.
There was a large number, a sixteen, written on the top of the box. He took a shaky step
forwards. It looked just like the other boxes, rotten and dirty, tied with filthy old string. Tobias
nudged it with his foot. It was light, empty, or at least close to it. He took several deep breaths,
and calmed himself as much as he could.
"Toby, please open the door. I won't hurt you." "She" said, tapping the door lightly as she spoke,
as if to contrast all the violent blows from before.
"If you aren't going to hurt me, then why did you attack me, smash down all those doors, and
chase me this far?" Tobias shot back, anger seeping into his otherwise calm tone. He was
surprised that he was as calm as he was, but he didn't let that show.
Tobias pulled on the string, snapping it between his fingers as quietly as he could. "Alice"
seemed to be trying to figure out what to say in response, as "she" was silent for the time being.
Tobias opened the box, slowly, trying to glimpse inside before he fully opened it. There was
nothing inside. Literally. The inside of the box seemed to expand downwards endlessly.
"I… I don't know why I did those things. I only just woke up, realized where I was and what I was
doing. I'm scared, Toby. I won't come in if you don't want me to." "Alice" said from the other side
of the door, "her" voice weak.
It really sounded just like her. But it had made one mistake, only one, a fact the real Alice would
have known. Tobias didn't know what was going on, but even if she'd somehow turned into a
monster, he'd stay with her. Only one thing stopped him from opening the door, letting "her", it,
in.
"Alice doesn't call me Toby. She never has." Was all Tobias said, before he jumped into the
endless blackness of the rotten box. A heavy blow smashed the door clean off its hinges, and
the door slammed against the wall.
As Tobias fell into the darkness, he looked up, to see the creature, "Alice", standing above him.
It had her face, stretched across it's head, like some kind of cheap Halloween mask. It closed
the box, and Tobias saw no more.
Tobias laughed to himself as he fell. He'd escaped whatever that thing was, but now it looked
like he was going to fall forever, trading one fate for another, which was worse, didn't really
matter. Not in the long run, at least.
He closed his eyes. There was no longer any reason to keep them open.