The Vermillion Door

I was eight when I first noticed the door at the end of the hallway in our new apartment on Ashford Lane. It was painted a deep, glossy red, like a fresh wound, and it was always slightly ajar, no matter how many times my mother closed it. I asked her about it once, and she said it was just a storage closet, nothing to worry about. But I could hear things from behind it at night—soft scraping, like claws on wood, and sometimes a faint, rhythmic tapping, as if someone were knocking from the inside.

My parents dismissed my fears as childish imagination. My father would pat my head and say, ‘It’s just the pipes, kiddo.’ My mother would sigh and tell me to stop being so dramatic. But the sounds persisted, growing more insistent as I grew older. By the time I was twelve, I had taken to sleeping with my door locked and a chair wedged under the handle. The tapping would follow me to my own bedroom door, and I would lie awake, counting the seconds between knocks, praying for dawn.

One night, when I was fifteen, I woke to a sound I had never heard before: the creak of the vermillion door swinging open. My heart hammered as I crept to my own door and peered through the crack. The hallway was dark, but the red door glowed faintly, as if lit from within. A thin, pale hand reached out, the fingers impossibly long, and gripped the doorframe. My breath caught in my throat as the hand was followed by a face—not quite human, with eyes that were too wide and a mouth that stretched too far. It looked directly at my hiding spot and smiled, showing teeth like needles.

I slammed my door shut and ran to my parents’ room, but when I shook them awake, they blinked at me with confusion. ‘There’s nothing there,’ my mother said, her voice flat. My father just rolled over and went back to sleep. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night, and in the morning, I saw that the red door was closed, as if nothing had happened. But I knew it had.

In the weeks that followed, I became obsessed with the door. I would sit in the hallway and watch it, waiting for it to move. I tried to open it once, but the knob burned my hand, leaving a red mark that matched the paint. I started having nightmares: I was trapped in a room with no windows, and the only exit was that red door, but every time I reached for it, a voice would whisper, ‘Not yet.’

My sister, Clara, was the only one who believed me. She was three years older and had moved out for college, but she came home for the holidays. She saw the door for the first time and shuddered. ‘That’s not right,’ she said. ‘That wasn’t there when I lived here.’ I told her everything, and she agreed to help me investigate. We waited until our parents were asleep, then approached the door together. The air around it was cold, and the red paint seemed to pulse like a heartbeat. Clara reached for the knob, but I grabbed her hand. ‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘It burns.’ She ignored me and turned it. The door swung open silently, revealing a pitch-black void.

We stepped inside, and the door closed behind us, plunging us into darkness. When our eyes adjusted, we found ourselves in a long corridor lined with identical red doors, stretching into infinity. A low hum filled the air, and the floor vibrated beneath our feet. ‘We need to get out,’ Clara whispered. But as we turned, the door we had entered through was gone. We were trapped.

We walked for what felt like hours, passing door after door. Some were slightly open, and we could hear crying or laughter from within. Others were sealed shut with chains and padlocks. I tried one, and it opened to reveal a room that was a perfect replica of my childhood bedroom, with the same posters and the same old desk. But in the corner, a figure sat hunched over, whispering my name. I slammed the door shut, my heart racing.

Finally, we came to a door that was different from the others. It was not red, but a dull gray, and it had a single word scratched into the wood: ‘EXIT’. We exchanged a glance and opened it. Beyond was a long staircase leading upward, and at the top, a faint light. We climbed, and when we emerged, we were in our apartment’s hallway, but the red door was now closed and locked, as if it had never been opened. We never spoke of it again, but now, years later, I still see the red door in my dreams. And sometimes, when I’m alone, I hear the tapping from inside the walls, and I know it’s still there, waiting for me to come back.