The Violet Gate

The year was 2008, and I was eleven, on the cusp of becoming something else. Our school had taken us to a place called Crosswater Pines, a sprawling nature reserve with cabins that smelled of damp pine and old woodsmoke. I remember the exact moment I saw the name painted on the gate: ‘Welcome to Crosswater Pines’. That gate would come to mean something else entirely.

The first night, after a day of orienteering and campfire songs, we were sent to our bunks. The cabin was long and narrow, with eight bunk beds lining the walls. I was in the second bunk from the window, the one closest to the door. I slept fitfully, the unfamiliar creaks and rustles of the forest making me toss. But it wasn’t long before I fell into a deep, heavy sleep.

In the dream, our principal, Mr. Hargrove, was making his rounds. He was a tall man with a hawkish nose and eyes like pebbles. In the dream, he floated from cabin to cabin, his feet barely touching the ground. He would peer through the windows, and if any child was awake, he would open the door, step inside, and that child would vanish. I saw him approach our cabin, his hand reaching for the door latch. He turned the handle, and the door swung inward.

At the exact second he stepped over the threshold, I jolted awake. My eyes snapped open, and I found myself staring up at a dark figure looming directly above my head. It was tall, shapeless, like a column of smoke condensed into flesh. The only thing I could discern clearly were its eyes—two intense, glowing orbs of violet, pulsing with a light that seemed to come from nowhere. It made a sound, a low, mournful groan, like the creaking of a dying tree. My breath caught in my throat, and I squeezed my eyes shut, my heart hammering against my ribs. I lay there, rigid, waiting for something to happen. After an eternity of silence, I dared to open one eye. The figure was gone.

Morning came with the sound of birds and the rustle of waking children. I sat up, shaken, and looked around. The other girls were rubbing their eyes, laughing about the night’s ghost stories. I turned to my cabin-mate, a girl named Mia, who was in the bunk beside me. ‘Did anyone come in here last night? I thought I saw someone,’ I asked, my voice trembling. Mia gave me a puzzled look and shrugged. ‘No, I didn’t hear anything. You were probably dreaming.’ But I knew what I saw.

The rest of the camp passed uneventfully, but I couldn’t shake the image of those purple eyes. When I returned home, I tried to tell my parents, but they dismissed it as a night terror. Years passed, and I filed it away as a strange, inexplicable event. But then, last month, I found myself back at Crosswater Pines for a school reunion. The place had changed, but the cabins remained. That night, I stayed in the same cabin, same bunk. I didn’t sleep well, but nothing appeared.

It was only at the end of the trip, when I was walking alone near the old gate, that I noticed something odd. The paint was peeling, and beneath the ‘Welcome to Crosswater Pines’, there was an older, faded inscription: ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here’. The gate creaked, and for a moment I saw a flicker of violet light in the forest beyond. I remembered the figure’s eyes, and I understood with a chilling certainty: it was a guardian, and the gate was its door. It had been waiting, watching, and I had only glimpsed it because I was on the threshold. I backed away, and I have not returned since. But sometimes, at night, I still see those violet eyes when I close mine, and I hear that low, groaning sound, as if it’s calling me back.