The Yellow Door at Number 12

I was thirteen when we moved to the outskirts of a small, damp town in Oregon. My father’s new job as a regional manager for a timber company meant we had to relocate from our bright, busy city life to a place where the rain never seemed to stop. I was the second oldest of four kids, and while my siblings adjusted with the ease of the young, I felt the weight of every creak and shadow in our new house.

Our new home was a two-story Victorian, old and proud but neglected. The previous owner had left it to the bank, and we got it at a bargain. The paint peeled in long strips, and the garden was overgrown with weeds that reached my waist. But what struck me most was the door on the far end of the second floor—a small, narrow door painted a cheerful yellow that clashed with the faded gray exterior. It was oddly out of place, and I couldn’t help but stare at it every time I passed by.

Mum dismissed it as a storage closet, but my fingers itched to open it. I was in that phase of adolescence where I both craved independence and feared everything unknown. My older brother, Liam, found it amusing that I was so jumpy. He would hide behind corners and leap out at me, laughing at my screams. But I soon stopped reacting, and he grew bored. The door, however, remained a constant itch in my mind.

It was on a particularly stormy night, with the wind howling through the cracks in the windows, that I finally decided to confront it. My parents were out at a work function, and my younger siblings were asleep. Liam was in his room listening to music, oblivious. I crept up the creaky stairs, my heart pounding in my ears. The yellow door seemed to glow in the dim light of the hallway. I reached for the brass knob, cold and smooth, and turned it.

The door opened inward with a groan, revealing a narrow spiral staircase that descended into darkness. A musty smell, like old earth and damp wood, wafted up. I should have stopped there, but curiosity got the better of me. I grabbed a flashlight from my room and began to descend, my steps echoing on the stone steps. The walls were rough, unfinished, and the air grew colder with each step.

At the bottom, the stairs opened into a small stone room. It was empty, except for a single object in the center: an old, leather-bound journal. The pages were yellowed and brittle, and the handwriting was a spidery cursive. It belonged to a woman named Eleanor, who had lived in the house decades ago. She wrote about her life, her garden, and her growing obsession with the ‘whispering’ she heard from the walls. That sent a chill down my spine. She also wrote about a small door in her bedroom that led to a staircase, which she often descended to escape the noise. But as her entries progressed, her tone grew more frantic. She began to describe ‘them’—creatures made of shadow and decay that lived in the depths of the house, and how they wanted to come up. She wrote that she had sealed the basement door with a yellow paint, hoping it would keep them out, and that she would never open it again. The last entry was dated a month before her disappearance.

I slammed the journal shut, my hands trembling. I wanted to run, but then I heard it—a faint scratching from behind the far wall of the room. I swung the flashlight, but the wall was solid. The scratching grew louder, become more insistent, and then a low whisper that seemed to slither into my mind: ‘Let us out.’ I screamed and scrambled up the stairs, slamming the yellow door behind me. But as I stood in the hallway, panting, I realized the door now had no handle on the outside. It was just a flat, smooth surface of yellow.

I tried to tell my parents, but they laughed, thinking I had imagined it. Liam thought it was a new prank. The next day, I found that the door had magically reappeared, handle intact, and I resolved to never touch it again. But every night, I could hear the scratching from behind it. In the deepest hours, I would hear whispers, growing clearer, calling my name.

I started sleeping in my little sister’s room, but the sounds followed me. Soon, I began to see things in the corner of my eye—vague shapes that dissolved when I turned to look. I grew pale and haggard, and my parents worried. I tried to burn the journal, but it reappeared in my room, open to the last page. In a fit of desperation, I decided to descend again, hoping to find a way to silence them.

This time, I took a can of yellow paint and a brush. I thought that if I repainted the door from the inside, maybe it would seal them again. I descended, the stairs now feeling like a descent into a deeper madness. In the stone room, the scratching was louder, and the whispers formed words: ‘You opened us. Let us out.’ My hands shook as I painted the door from the inside, the yellow paint glowing eerily in the flashlight beam. As I finished, the whispering stopped. For a moment, there was only silence. But then, the door creaked and began to bulge inward, as if something was pushing against it. I ran, but the stairs seemed to lengthen, and I felt cold fingers on my ankles. I fell, and the darkness swallowed me.

I woke up in my bed, drenched in sweat. But on the ceiling, in fresh yellow paint, was a message: ‘You can’t seal us in forever.’ From that day on, I lost the ability to see my reflection in mirrors. And when I stare into any shiny surface, I see not myself, but the image of a woman with hollow eyes, her mouth open in a silent scream, forever trying to get out.