A Key to a door that never existed.

Finding an old rusted key at the sidewalks of the busy streets of Sydney was not an unexpected incident that happened in my life. What felt Incredulous was finding that the key I found was an exact fit to the door at the end of my friends garden, my childhood friend who lives in India. You see why I find it hard to believe now don’t you? Two different people living in two different countries, one finding a key to the door that belongs to the other. I cannot even fathom the probability for such an event to be possible.

Well, things just gets weirder from here on. So keep reading only if you believe in the unbelievable.

It was a beautiful Friday evening when we decided to explore this door to see where it would lead us to. "Did you ask your grandma about the door in her garden?" I asked standing near the door in Diya’s room, though I knew she would probably say storage area or something similar. "No" Diya replied looking slightly bewildered. "Did you forget? Didn’t I remind you to ask her." I said trying my best to watch my tone, not to sound disappointed but I knew I failed to hide it anyway . "No you don’t get it" "What" "My grandma said there never was any door in our garden. I am pretty sure she was telling the truth as she looked absolutely confused when I asked her about the old brick wall with the door in it."

"How is that possible? We saw how the key perfectly fit into that door just yesterday." I said turning to her. "That’s what I couldn’t understand either" she said in a low voice exchanging a few nervous glances to the window . "Should we drop the idea of exploring that place. It doesn’t sound like a good idea. What if...that part of our garden is haunted" her voice broke as she completed that final statement. "Oh come on, just because your grandma didn’t notice that part of the garden doesn’t mean it’s haunted" I said. She smiled, though I knew she was trying to hide her fear that still remained visible in her eyes. I ignored my heartbeat raise as I spoke. "It’s okay it’s not like we are going all the way to some century old haunted place, ghost hunting. It’s just your garden." "Yeah right, true that" she agreed, her shoulders relaxing, relief crossing over her face. "Let’s go then. We will be back in an hour" I said as I felt the key in my pocket. "Look I got us a torch and a bottle of water. It could come in handy just in case it gets late by the time we got back home." Diya said. We then walked briskly over to our front porch and Diya followed.

The garden was behind Diya’s grandma’s house. As we reached the front porch, we turned and hurried straight to grandma’s garden. Nothing unusual happened along the way. We walked past grandma’s beautiful rows of flowering plants, crossing her vegetation section to the part at the end where there were a lot of bamboo trees. Tall and yellow standing on both sides beside the door like huge guards guarding a gateway. I took out the key and Diya watched me as I opened the lock. Once the door flung open we saw nothing. There was pitch darkness inside.

Diya took out the torch and lit it. "Have you been in here before?"I asked her. " No " " How else did you know we would need a torch in here" I said glad she brought it along. She said nothing but her lips curled to a bright smile.

We walked past the door, "Could this be an extended part of the garden?" Diya asked me doubtful as we climbed the stairs the door opened to. I looked around trying to get a glimpse of the place we had entered with the only source of light we had and saw large trees around us. "It doesn’t look like a garden , I think we are in the middle of a forest" I replied as I took two steps forward and then turning around to a full circle to get a better look at the place. "Yes it definitely is a forest" I confirmed. "But why is it so dark in here like it’s midnight. Afterall it’s just 3pm." Diya asked confusion brimming in every statement of hers. "That’s what I am wondering too, a door separating day at our place from the night in here. Just saying it out loud sounds..” A loud thud nearby cut me off.

I pointed the torchlight to the direction where I heard the thud. We never found out what actually caused the thud sound, what we saw in it’s place was a girl about our age who ran towards us warning us to leave.

The mere look on her face told us that staying here for long was inviting trouble. She ran to us and said something strange in a kind of made up language, that sounded more like leaves moving when touched by the wind. She kept pointing at the door, which looked like she was pleading us to go back through the door we came in. "Are you asking us to leave?" I asked her. She seemed to understand what I said as she noded. "Can you understand what we speak?" I asked to confirm as I held Diya’s arm and hurried back to the door, turning to look at the girl as I walked. She nodded yet again, this time I noticed a warm smile on her lips. Though she continued to point us towards the door. I noticed how she exchanged nervous glances behind her like someone she feared might find her here.

We opened the door and entered our garden. As we closed the door we saw the little girl standing at a distance away from us. She looked at us with relief. I knew she was trying to save us from something evil. We ran back to Diya’s room. I stopped to check my pockets. "Diya.. The key. I forgot to get the key" She looked just as confused as I was not having a clue of what was happening. I walked past her bed to look at the door in the garden through her window and the door was gone. In a sprint, we went back to the garden to look for the key. We searched everywhere in the garden. Both the key and the door had vanished. It was like what grandma had said. The door never existed. Except that we know it did just few minutes back. Some adventures never end as we never find out what really happened at the end. Losing that key felt like losing an opportunity to find out answers to a whole new world.

Diya and me, we did a lot of research on this. To find anything that we could find about the door, the key, and that girl we found in the forest of midnight. We never found any direct explanation or answers to what had happened, except that there were reported incidents around the world where people had mentioned this particular incident happen to them. All the case studies done to date, report an old door, an old rusted key and the little girl in the forest of midnight.

I am telling you about this incident that happened to me when I was little, hoping that some of you who may encounter the same incident in your life in the near future will help me find answers to what it all means. If I was to take a wild guess as to what this could be, I ‘d probably say it’s a portal to another darker realm. A strange portal that never stays static to one place as we all assumed portals to be. This one is always on the move. What do you think?

©Aswathi Ashok 2021. All Rights Reserved.

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