The Door

Three

Draining the last of his coffee, Steven moved to the steps.

"Where's Ben?"

A shrug. Ben must have been the man.

"Your friend?"

A nod.

"I haven't seen him, sorry."

"He just followed you into the washroom to check if you were alright."

Did he? Steven frowned. Apart from the guy being friendly enough to show concern, he hadn't seen him. He shrugged again.

"Sorry. Don't know."

He turned to leave. He needed to see the person the woman had been speaking to. He'd recognised the tone of the man, but there was more to it. More meat to the bones of his voice. It had taken him a while, probably longer due to suddenly feeling ill, but finally he realised what had triggered a connection. The voice wasn't just familiar. It had sounded odd coming from somewhere other than in his own head with a column blocking some of the real substance. It wasn't something you expected to hear another person using. Not your own voice.

Whoever the animated woman had been speaking to, the man's voice belonged to Steven.

He did his best to not run down the steps. He should have, he thought, looked for the pair when he was coming back from almost throwing up in the sink but his thoughts seemed to be whirlpooling like the water down the drain and a caffeine fix felt more important. It wasn't until he was swallowing the last dregs and being questioned about a lost friend that a synapse in his brain woke up and clicked into place.

Beyond the pillar was the bar. It was empty. A lone cup and saucer was being cleared away by the barman. The couple had gone. Steven looked around, his heart thudding in his chest, urging his feet to move as quickly.

A laugh, sparkling and full of vigour. There they were! Just leaving!

Running through the reception area of a large hotel was the perfect way to draw attention to oneself so Steven moved as fast as he could whilst still giving the impression of walking. As he was about to go through the revolving door, an elderly couple entered it, fumbling over which would go first and worried it might catch their heels if they weren't fast enough. The man smiled as he managed to escape the clutches of the door and emerge unscathed on the inside. Steven couldn't help but smile back.

The woman, not quite as mobile as her husband, stumbled as she tried to copy his manoeuvre. Steven automatically held out his hands to catch her before she fell.

Pain.

Flashes of darkness burned through his mind, harsher than the brightest light. How dark could burn at all was something he had no time to contemplate as the shadows dissolved to show a doorway. The doorway. The one which shouldn't have been there but was. The one which he'd automatically passed through. But... More than a mere door. A portal...? His whole body shook. Blood trickled from his nose. The blue of his eyes began to change as if they were melting into black.

"Dear? Are you ill? Can we help?"

A figure. Massive. Holding something. AdvancingLoomingReaching.

His vision cleared. The couple were walking away, looking back at him. They were shaking their heads and whispering. He pushed through the door as quickly as he could, making the revolving mechanism strain. Outside, the heat hit him. Even at this early hour - he'd been eating breakfast so assumed it was before 10am - the humidity and heat were vying with each other to be victorious in making as many people as possible uncomfortable. The entrance to the hotel was in a small side street leading onto a much wider and longer one. Steven rushed to the main road, wiping the blood on his sleeve. He could hear his mother berating him for being disgusting but her voice sounded far off as if she were calling him not from death and youthful memory but from somewhere much more distant. As if the recollection was somehow not really real.

He easily picked out the woman's mass of hair crossing the road and turning to the left. He hurried after, moving with the throng of people amassed at the junction but being careful to weave between them. The pair were walking quickly and he struggled to gain ground without accidentally touching one of the people milling around. Someone caught his arm. It was a glancing whisper of contact which neither really felt, but it was enough. He staggered, bumping into first one person then being pushed into a group of four.

PAINPAINPAIN