I don't remember standing up.
One moment I was kneeling in the grass with Esme in my arms, the world around me hollow and quiet in a way that made every breath feel heavy, and the next I was rising slowly to my feet as though some unseen force had gently pulled me upward. My hands lingered against her for a long moment before I let go, my fingers resting lightly against the fabric of her dress as if I could somehow anchor her to the world simply by refusing to fully release her. But the longer I stayed there, the more unbearable the stillness became.
The meadow continued its peaceful rhythm—grass whispering softly in the wind, sunlight stretching lazily across the earth, distant birds calling out across the open sky—but none of it felt real anymore. It was as if the world had continued moving forward while I had been left behind in a single frozen moment. Slowly, reluctantly, I lowered Esme into the grass, arranging her gently so the flowers cushioned her beneath the soft sway of their petals. Her hair spilled around her like threads of copper light against the green earth, and for a moment I simply stared at her face, memorizing every quiet detail of it as though some part of me feared that if I looked away too long I would forget what she looked like entirely.
"I'll come back," I murmured under my breath, though the words felt strangely meaningless the moment they left my mouth.
I didn't know why I said them.
Maybe because some part of me still believed she could hear me.
Maybe because leaving her there felt like betrayal.
Or maybe because the thing standing in the meadow ahead of me had begun to pull at my attention with a quiet, irresistible gravity that I could no longer ignore.
The door stood alone in the grass.
It shouldn't have been there. Every logical part of my mind knew that immediately, yet the longer I stared at it the more natural it seemed to become, like something that had always belonged in that meadow and I had simply never noticed it before. The tall grass swayed gently around it, brushing softly against the lower edges of the dark wooden surface as the wind moved across the field, but the door itself remained perfectly still. No frame connected it to anything. No walls surrounded it. It simply stood upright in the earth as if the ground had grown it like a strange and silent tree.
I took my first step toward it slowly.
The grass bent beneath my feet with a soft rustling sound, and for the first time since Esme collapsed I became aware of how loud the world suddenly seemed. Every movement I made disturbed the fragile quiet of the meadow—the shifting of my boots through the grass, the faint exhale of my breath, the distant cry of a bird somewhere beyond the horizon. My chest felt tight as I walked, the weight of what had just happened pressing heavily against my ribs with each step forward. Part of me wanted to turn back, to return to where Esme lay in the grass and simply stay there forever, refusing to move, refusing to let the world change any further than it already had. But the door remained in front of me, silent and unmoving, and something deep inside me knew that ignoring it was no longer possible.
As I drew closer, I began to notice details that hadn't been visible from where I had been kneeling in the grass.
The wood of the door was darker than I had first thought—not simply brown, but a deep polished shade that looked almost black where the sunlight didn't touch it. The surface was smooth but not perfectly so; faint lines ran through the grain like quiet veins beneath the wood, twisting and branching in ways that felt strangely deliberate. Running along the edges of the door were delicate carvings, thin lines etched carefully into the surface in patterns so intricate that my eyes struggled to follow them all at once. At first glance they looked like vines, curling and winding around each other in elaborate loops and spirals, but the longer I studied them the more they seemed to resemble something else entirely.
Threads.
Dozens of them.
Hundreds.
Each carved line split and twisted into smaller strands before merging again with others, forming a tangled network that spread across the door like an endless woven tapestry. Some strands crossed sharply through others, while some curved gently around them as if guided by an invisible hand that understood a pattern too complex for me to see.
The air felt different here.
I noticed it the moment I stepped within a few feet of the door.
The wind that had been moving freely across the meadow seemed to weaken suddenly, as though something around the door resisted its movement. The tall grass surrounding it swayed more slowly, the soft rustling sound fading until the entire space felt unnaturally quiet compared to the open field behind me. Even the sunlight seemed dimmer here somehow, its warmth fading slightly as though the door absorbed more light than it reflected.
I stopped a few steps away.
For a moment I simply stood there staring at it.
Behind me, somewhere in the endless sea of grass, Esme lay where I had left her.
Ahead of me stood something that should not exist.
A strange tension settled into my chest, pulling in two directions at once—one urging me to turn around and return to the only person who had mattered in that meadow, the other drawing my attention forward toward the impossible object standing silently in front of me.
My gaze dropped slowly to the handle.
It was made of silver metal, curved gently outward from the door in a smooth shape that caught the sunlight in faint glimmers. The metal looked old but not worn, polished in a way that suggested it had been touched many times even though the rest of the meadow gave no sign that anyone had ever stood here before me.
My hand lifted slowly.
For a brief moment it hovered in the air just inches away from the handle, my fingers trembling slightly with hesitation.
I didn't know what was on the other side of that door.
I didn't know why it had appeared in the middle of an empty meadow.
And I certainly didn't know why something inside me felt absolutely certain that opening it mattered.
My fingers finally closed around the handle.
The metal was cold.
Not just cool from the breeze—cold in a deeper way that sent a faint shiver running through my hand and up along my arm. It felt almost like touching winter itself, a sharp contrast against the warm air of the meadow.
I hesitated again.
For one last moment I turned my head, glancing back across the rolling sea of grass toward the place where Esme lay. From this distance I could barely see her now, only a faint pale shape among the flowers where the wind continued its slow endless dance.
A heavy feeling settled in my chest.
Then I turned back toward the door.
And I pulled.
The hinges opened without a sound.
For a split second I expected to see another field, another stretch of sky, maybe even another world entirely.
But what waited beyond the threshold was nothing like the meadow.
Darkness stretched endlessly in every direction, vast and silent like the empty space between stars. Yet the darkness wasn't empty.
It was filled with threads.
They hung suspended in the void like glowing strands of crimson light, stretching outward in countless directions so far that my eyes couldn't see where they ended. Some were thick and bright, pulsing slowly with a deep red glow that reminded me of a heartbeat echoing through the dark. Others were thin and fragile, flickering faintly like dying embers that might snap at any moment. The threads crossed and twisted around each other in an impossibly complex web, forming an endless lattice that shimmered softly in the dim red light.
I stepped forward without realizing I had made the decision.
The moment my foot crossed the threshold, the air of the meadow vanished behind me.
The space beyond the door felt vast and silent, the faint hum of the threads vibrating softly through the darkness like distant music played on invisible strings.
Every thread moved slightly.
Not swaying like grass in the wind.
But vibrating—like the string of an instrument that had just been plucked.
And somewhere deep within that endless network of crimson strands…
Two threads twisted around each other again and again.
Wherever they met…
One of them ended.