The Wardrobe of Blue Light

I never told anyone about the pictures in my head. Not my therapist, not my wife, not even my priest. They would have locked me away. They would have said I was crazy. But I know what I saw. I know what I saw, and I know it was real.

It started after my Aunt Marlene passed away. She was my mother’s sister, and she lived alone in a crumbling Victorian house at the edge of Blackwood Marsh. The house had been in our family for generations, but no one had lived in it since my great-great-grandfather died in the attic. After the funeral, my mother asked me to clean out the place before the bank took it. I agreed, mostly because I needed the money, but also because I was curious about the old house. I had only been there once, when I was eight, and I remembered a strange, circular room at the top of the stairs that was filled with old clocks. All of them ticking at slightly different times. All of them stopped at 3:03.

The day I arrived, the sky was the color of old bruises. The house leaned to one side, like it was tired of standing. The front door was unlocked, and the air inside was thick with dust and the smell of rot. I started in the parlor, filling trash bags with yellowed newspapers and broken figurines. That’s when I found the wardrobe. It was in a corner, half-hidden under a dusty sheet. It was tall and black, with strange carvings on the doors – shapes that looked like twisted branches or perhaps grasping hands. I pulled the sheet off, and the wood seemed to drink the light from the room. I opened the doors, and a cold breath washed over me. Inside, there was nothing but a single blue enamel pin, shaped like an eye.

I picked it up. The pin was cold, almost painful to touch. I slipped it into my pocket. That night, back at my apartment, I had the first vision. I was sitting on my couch, watching TV, when the screen flickered and went black. In the glass, I saw a reflection – not of my living room, but of a long, dark hallway. At the end of the hallway, a door was open, and light spilled out. A figure stood in the doorway – a woman in a white dress, her back to me. She turned, and her face was a smooth, featureless void. I saw her reaching out, and then the vision vanished. In its place, I felt a searing pain in my left hand. I looked down, and there was a fresh burn mark, shaped like a crescent moon.

The visions came more frequently after that. I would be walking down the street, and suddenly I would see a red bicycle lying in a ditch, and I would hear a child’s laugh. A week later, I would pass a newsstand and see a headline about a child who had gone missing near that same ditch. The news never mentioned the bicycle, but I knew – I had seen it. I saw a fire escape collapse in a rainstorm, and a man with a yellow umbrella get crushed. Two weeks later, I was on the subway, and a man with a yellow umbrella got on. I tried to warn him, but he didn’t listen. He got off at the next station, and as I watched him walk away, a gust of wind tore the umbrella from his hands and sent it into the street, where it was struck by a truck. He wasn’t hurt, but the vision was close enough.

I tried to get rid of the pin. I threw it in the river, but it reappeared in my coat pocket the next day. I buried it in a potted plant, but the plant died overnight, and the pin was on my nightstand. I even tried to melt it, but the metal wouldn’t even heat up. I was trapped. The visions were getting worse, and I was starting to lose my grip on reality. I started having hallucinations during the day. I would see a mannequin in a store window blink. I would hear a baby crying in an empty room. I would feel a breath on the back of my neck when I was alone.

One evening, I was in my bathroom, brushing my teeth, when the mirror fogged up – but the bathroom was cold, and there was no steam. Words appeared in the condensation: ‘FIND THE WARDROBE.’ My blood ran cold. I knew I had to go back to the house. I drove through the night, the headlights cutting through the fog like pale knives. The house was waiting for me. The front door was open. I stepped inside, and the air was even colder than before. The wardrobe was still there, but now it was glowing faintly blue. The carved hands seemed to be moving, beckoning me. I opened the doors, and inside, instead of the empty interior, I saw a corridor. The same corridor from my first vision. At the end, the door was open, and light spilled out.

I felt my feet moving without my permission. I stepped into the wardrobe and into the corridor. The walls were made of some kind of dark, slick material, like wet leather. I could feel a heartbeat under my feet. The door at the end felt like it was breathing. I reached out to push it open. A child’s laugh echoed from beyond. A woman’s scream. The sound of a fire crackling. And then the door swung open, and I saw what was inside. It was my own living room, my own apartment, but altered – the colors were wrong, the furniture was twisted. On the couch sat a figure, a woman in a white dress, her back to me. She turned. Her face was not empty. It was mine.

I tried to scream, but no sound came out. The figure smiled, and her mouth opened impossibly wide. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I turned to see another version of myself, this one with burning eyes. ‘You’ve seen enough,’ he said. ‘Now you must take my place.’ I tried to push him away, but he was cold as marble. The figure on the couch stood and walked toward me. The world swam. I stumbled backward through the corridor, through the wardrobe, and slammed the doors shut. I was back in the dusty parlor. The wardrobe was still. I ran out of the house, got into my car, and drove until the sun came up.

I haven’t gone back. But I still have the pin. It’s in a lockbox I refuse to open. The visions haven’t stopped. They’ve only gotten stronger. Two nights ago, I saw a news report about a house fire in Blackwood Marsh. The house was my Aunt Marlene’s. They said it burned to the ground. They found a body inside, charred beyond recognition. The cause of the fire: unknown. But I know. I saw the fire. I smelled the smoke. I heard the screams. And last night, I woke up to find myself standing in front of the mirror in my bathroom. The mirror was clean. But my mouth was open in a silent scream, and in the reflection, the wardrobe behind me was open, its interior glowing a blue like a dying star. I am afraid to turn around. I am afraid of what I will see. But I know, sooner or later, I will have to face the thing that lives in the wardrobe. It has been waiting for me all along.