The Other Side

There was only one rule: ‘don’t open the door’.

Sara didn’t ask why when she rented the house. The price was too good to question a strange rule. The door at the end of the hall seemed harmless—its wood swollen with age, the brass knob ice-cold under her fingers when she first touched it. Still, the landlady’s warning echoed in her mind.

That night, the scratching started. Faint at first, like fingernails on wood. Sara shook it off. Old houses creak, she told herself. But as the clock struck midnight, the scratching grew louder, sharper—relentless, as though something behind the door was trying to claw its way out.

By the second night, the sound became a whisper, garbled, almost inaudible. “Open”

She pressed her hands over her ears, heart racing. It was just her imagination... Yet the whispers continued, sliding into her thoughts, curling around her mind like smoke. “Open”.

By the third night, Sara was unraveling. The whispers had turned into pounding, shaking the walls, rattling the door in its frame. A flickering light now seeped through the crack beneath it—sickly and pale, pulsing like a dying heartbeat. She couldn’t stop staring. ‘What’s behind there?…

On the fourth night, she gave in.

Her hand trembled as she grasped the knob. The moment she turned it, the banging stopped, leaving the house in eerie silence. The door creaked open, revealing nothing but darkness.

And then she saw it.

Her own reflection, grinning back from the void, twisted and unnatural. Just as Sara opened her mouth to scream, the figure lunged, pulling her into the darkness.

The door slammed shut.

The next morning, the landlady arrived.

“Another one for the collection,” she whispered, turning the knob and stepping inside.

There was only one rule: ‘don’t let them escape’.