That Door

• January Moore, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2020

I can’t feel my body, but somehow I’m walking towards something I won’t see. I might never see. My eyes are bloodshot and stinging, and sweat is dripping from every part of my body. Even though I can feel these things, I can’t feel any part of my body. My vision is blurry but is coming into focus, slightly. I fall, not very far but I hit the ground at tremendous speed, banging my head with a thud. My vision is fully blurry again, I can’t see a thing. Something I don’t know is pulling me closer and closer to the thing I can’t see. “What is behind it? What is in it?” I think these exact words, not daring to say them, as I’m transfixed on walking forward.

“It’s a door to a great place.” a cackling voice says.

I wake up, panting, sweating, every part of my body is hot, burning. But each part of my body is fine, not like before. I’m in my navy blue bed with plants and many types of nature surrounding me in my bedroom. I looked out the large glass window and I think that I would see a quiet suburban street, as I normally would. But instead I see a jungle, what I have always wanted to live near a jungle or even better live in. I’m living the dream of my lifetime. I’ve had this dream since I was three. I jump out of bed shocked, and get dressed into my camouflage outfit, get my binoculars and all the other gear I got for Christmas.

The only thing that is toning down my excitement is that this place isn’t my house, it has a icky, eerie vibe about it. It makes me frightened and I feel like I shouldn’t be here.
All the doors are the same door that the one in my nightmare but more clear now.

Once again I hear the voice, croaky this time though.
It says, “ Choose a door.”

So many thoughts are running through my head. The main one is too strong for me to put actual thought to it.

I point.
“That door.”