The Door

In the street there’s a door. It doesn’t matter which street, or which door for that matter. You see, the door moves and changes. Not when people are looking though. You’ve probably seen this door before and not noticed. Maybe in a place you thought you knew, there was suddenly a door, or the absence of one. Sometimes when you’re near the door you’ll hear voices, great battles or music. But it’s not real, it’s the door. Sometimes you might smell food so unbelievably good you can taste it. But that’s the door too. The one thing that is constant, is that if you touch the door, it’s cold. Painfully cold. But only if you touch it. If you merely hover, even a millimetre from it, you wouldn’t notice a thing.

The door is rarely opened, and almost never stepped through. Most people don’t notice it. Those that do tend to think it’s just another door and those that know it’s not, usually know better than to touch or open the door. If you open it, and go to step through, the door will make you feel ill, or scared and generally no inclined to continue.

This is the story of a man called Dave, who unwittingly stepped through.

Dave was drunk.

It was New Year’s Eve and after welcoming in 2023, Dave had downed as much alcohol as his body could take and then a little more. He’d stumbled back to the hotel he was staying in, mostly by luck and a dash of muscle memory. He’d smelled the amazing food his neighbours were cooking as he approached the room, he now called home. In his state of inebriation, it never occurred to him that it was unlikely that people were cooking at 2 o’ clock in the morning.

As he approached the hotel room, he heard singing. It’s uncertain if he didn’t notice it, assumed it was coming from a different house, or thought it was his soon-to-be ex wife, who was the reason he was currently staying in a hotel room. But he was drunk enough to not care either way.
As he opened the door, his dulled nervous system didn’t register how cold the handle was. But it was mid-winter after all, and weren’t metal handles supposed to be cold anyway? And why did he suddenly feel so ill? Maybe he’d drank too much.

He ran to the bathroom, just making it to the toilet before unloading the contents of his stomach into the bowl. 

Dave woke up. It felt like someone had taken a pair of axes to his head and was pounding them repeatedly into his temples. His mouth didn’t seem to have a single drop of moisture in it, and when he tried to drink something, it almost came straight back up.

Feeling sorry for himself, he manged to get to the sofa and curl up. The curtains remained resolutely closed to try to shield his eyes from the laser that was the sun. He had just about managed to keep down a glass of water and was falling asleep, when a woman screamed, causing a small nuclear explosion inside his head.

The pain made him fall off the chair and curl into the foetal position as a woman started hitting screaming at him to get out of the room.

“Hold on, hold on, I’m supposed to be here, look!”

He waved the key still in his pocket at her. Taken aback she stopped hitting him and frowned at the key.

“That’s not our key!”

“What do you mean? This is the Cavendish Hotel, isn’t it? It says that on the thing on the key.”

Dave handed her the key while he closed his eyes and put his head in his hands, thankful the noise and violence had stopped.

“Yes, but this label is wrong.”

She took out a key and held them next to each other. She was correct, the keys had different labels, the hotel name and details matched.

“But I paid to stay here for the rest of the week at least, maybe it’s a new key design and mine just hasn’t changed? Look, the details are the same.”

The woman, who judging by her uniform was on of the hotel cleaners, looked that the two fobs again.

“No, the keys have always been like this. Yours looks like a bad forgery. You’ll have to leave or I’m calling the police. You’ve got 10 minutes.”
And with that, she walked out, taking his key with her.

Dave stood there, unmoving, trying to understand what was happening, when the full force of the hangover hit him again. This time he didn’t make it to the bathroom before his stomach emptied, but had to make do with the kitchen sink. The only positive he could find, was that vomiting had made him feel more human again.

He went to brush the taste of throw up from his mouth, only to find his toothbrush wasn’t there. Nor was his toothpaste. And on further inspection nor were any of his other toiletries.

He ran to his room, wanting to get out of his sick stained clothes, only to find the bed looked unslept in and all of his things gone. No clothes in the cupboard, his phone charger and books absent from the bedside table, and none of his other things thrown about at random over the last few months.

He looked out of the window expecting to see a pile of his things. But all he could see was the cleaner who had assaulted him earlier smoking a cigarette and looking at her watch. He went back inside trying to work out what had happened. The adrenaline was starting to kick in now and his hangover had turned into a dull ache while he tried to plan out his next steps.

The only thing he could think, was that Julia, his soon to be ex-wife, had forgiven him and cancelled his booking. He exited the room, noting a slight look if disappointment on the cleaning woman’s face.

He left the hotel and the excitement he felt about seeing Julia again meant he didn’t notice that the street signs all looked different somehow. Not unrecognisable, but different fonts, sizes and in one case colour. This information all passed through Dave’s head without registering and he walked on autopilot to his old house.

When he arrived, the sun was fully up, and the day was warm. It was at that point Dave started noticing something odd. Last night he’d been marvelling at the Christmas decorations still adorning people’s doors on the way to the New Year’s Eve party. They were all gone and was unseasonably light and warm for January.

It felt and looked like summer. He pulled his phone out to check the date. Midday, January 1st. He looked around and saw a newspaper in the recycling in front of his neighbour’s house. The date on that was July 4th. The year seemed to be correct though, 2023.

He heard voices coming from the back garden and could smell the beginnings of a coal barbecue. He walked to the side a little to see if he could see the garden through the front widow of his house.

He could, but it took a moment to process.

In the garden, cooking on his barbecue, was him. Not just someone who looked like him. It was him. He didn’t quite know how he knew it, but he did. It was a feeling so true that he felt it in the pit of his stomach.

Dave stood for what felt like an eternity just staring, unable to take in what he was seeing, numb to the outside world.

A hand reached around and grabbed his mouth and nose, and pulled his head back, stifling any noise.

“Don’t make a noise, come with me, we’ll talk when we’re safe, you’re not safe here. I found you, they won’t be far behind. Nod if you understand,” a voice whispered in his ear.

Unable to do anything else, Dave nodded. Too stunned to even think of resisting the authority in the man’s voice.

The man led Dave away from what was his house and down a street that he could have sworn hadn’t existed five minutes prior. He walked, guided by the man he was still yet to see, for what felt like hours. When the man finally stopped and opened the door of the most indistinct building Dave had ever seen, he was completely lost.

The man shoved Dave inside, pointed to a chair and said “sit.”

Dave sat, body obeying almost automatically. Now they were inside, Dave could see the man was in in 50s, with a completely bald head. He wore all black combat gear, with an array of what Dave assumed were weapons, not that he could name them. The man’s grey eyes darted around the room, never resting on the same spot for more than a few seconds.

The room itself was dark and almost empty. There were two camping beds set up in one corner, each with a sleeping bag that looked to be about as thin a tissue paper laying on top. The windows were all covered with blackout blinds and the only other furniture, beside the hard wooden chair in which Dave now sat, was a small lamp. The bulb glowed dim and it seemed to be losing a battle to the darkness that engulfed the room.

“How did you get here?” The man asked.

“I just went where you told me to.”

The man hit him, knocking him to the floor.

“Don’t be smart with me, I have neither the time nor the patience for it. How did you get here, to this world?”

“I don’t know, I was at a party, I got drunk, when I woke up, I was here.”

The man nodded in acknowledgement then pulled one of the blinds back enough to see out with one of his eyes.

“What are you looking for?” Dave asked.

“Them”

“And who are they?”

“Bad news. I found you, they will too. You don’t want that.”

The man checked his watch.

“You can call me Kane, by the way.” Said the man.

“Um, Dave. Nice to meet you.”

“They won’t catch us up for a few more hours. We need to be gone before then. You have an hour to sleep then we move.”

Before Dave could say anything, Kane turned, got into one of the camping beds, rolled over and almost instantly started snoring.
Dave was starting to come down from the adrenalin rush that had been his last 12 hours and was grateful for a chance to rest. He got in the remaining cot and closed his eyes, hoping that when he opened them again, he would be in his hotel room again.

After what felt like a few seconds, Dave found himself being shaken awake. He opened his eyes and found Kane standing over him.

“I.. Wha..”

Kane flattened his hand over Dave’s mouth and said in a hurried whisper,

“They found us sooner than they should have. The two of us together must be making it easier for them. We need to leave. Now!”

Dave got up and Kane pushed him through a door int what could generously be called a kitchen.

Kane shoved past him to the only window in the room and he opened it.

As soon as he did, the front door burst open, and a group of five people dressed in similar tactical gear to Kane ran in. Each had something that could best be described as a stick with a handle pointing at Kane, they hardly seemed to notice Dave.

“Run” Kane whispered to Dave as he put his hands up and slowly turned to the people who had just entered.

Before Dave knew what was happening, there was a crackle, and a buzz of energy filled the room. An arc of lightening travelled from a stick with a handle, held by one of the people, to a wall of blue energy that hadn’t been there the split second before.

Dave followed the wispy path of whatever made the wall, from the wall to some strange looking devices around the wrists of the person calling himself Kane. His arms were crossed, and he appeared to be straining against the force on the shield.

“GO!” Shouted Kane.

Dave didn’t need telling twice, but his legs apparently did. He seemed incapable of moving until a second crack and another arc jolted him to his senses.

Dave ran to the window and started to climb out.

“Anomaly 2349, wait, this man isn’t to be trusted, we want to get you back home!” Shouted one of the people with the lightening sticks.

But Dave was gone, out the window and running.

He ran until he couldn’t run anymore and then found a dark alleyway in a side street. Utterly lost and exhausted he curled up into the corner and unable to do anything else, slept.

Dave was jolted awake by a light shaking.

“’Ello, ‘ello, ‘ello, what do we have here then? Drank too much did you sir?”

Two police officers were looking at him. One was standing, a look of vague disinterest on his face, the other, crouching down to be on a level closer to

“Wha…? Where am I?”

“Thought as much. Do you have any I.D on you sir?”

Dave instinctively reached for his wallet, which wasn’t in its usual pocket. It was also missing from his other pockets. He shook his head.

“Well, what’s your name and where do you live?”

“Dave, Dave Jones. I used to live on Glebe Road, but I’ve been staying at the Cavendish for a few months. But this morning they kicked me out and my stuff was gone.”

The police office looked at his college who just nodded.

“Well, Mr. Jones, we got a call about you from the Cavendish yesterday morning, they said you were squatting in an empty room. Also, Glebe Road was renamed two years ago. So, either you’re telling me porkies, or you’re drunk. You’ll have to come with us to the station so we can sort this out.”

Still tired, and not knowing what else to do, Dave got up and went with the police officers. The car was warm inside, and the seats were soft. Dave couldn’t help but sleep until the car stopped outside the station.

After processing, an initial interview, a long wait, a secondary interview with someone else, and another, shorter wait, Dave was led to a cell. He’d lost track of time, but he assumed it must be early evening. Not long after his cell door closed, a hatch opened and food was pushed in. He ate it and then sat on his bed trying to make sense of the day.

After what he guessed to be about 30 minutes, the cell door opened and one of the agents from earlier walked in. The stick that Dave now knew shot lightening was fastened to his back. Dave recoiled to the far end of the cell.

“I’m not here to hurt you. I’m agent 88, and you are in the wrong temporal plane.”

“But Kane said…”

“The man you call Kane was an escaped prisoner, he managed to get here by killing a temporal anomaly like yourself, and he was likely going to do the same again to try and evade us.”

“Kill me?”

“Yes, kill you. You are not of this temporal plane. Therefore, killing you would release a lot of energy, that Kane was planning to utilize to plane hop. Anyway, you must come with me, you need to return to your temporal plane before your allowed life window. Time moves slower here than what you are used to.”

“Life window? And what do you mean time…”

“We don’t have time for questions, come. Now!”

The last word was spoken with such authority, Dave was moving before he realised what he was doing.

“Where are we going?”

In lieu of a reply, Agent 88 stood aside, letting Dave walked past. The next thing Dave knew, there was a pain that started at the back of his head. It moved over the top of his skull and amplified. He felt as though his head was being torn into two halves. Screaming incoherently, Dave fell to the floor. The pain got worse and worse until Dave passed out.

Dave opened his eyes. He was back in his room in the Cavendish Hotel. He looked around and saw all of his possessions. He sighed and said a silent prayed of thanks to whatever deity happened to be passing by at the time. His clock said it was 8 am, on the 1st January. He got up, surprised at how little his head hurt after the party he was at last night. He showered and decided that, after the odd dream he’d had last night, he needed to make amends with his wife.

He ran to his old house, not noticing how old the streets he was so familiar with were now old and crumbling. Not seeing how all the cars on the street looked strange. He turned the corner of his old street, ran to his house, and knocked the door.

After a few moments an old lady opened. She looked oddly familiar somehow, but Dave couldn’t place it.

“Oh, I’m sorry to bother you. I’m looking for Julia Jones, she should live here?”

“Julia Jones died 30 years ago. She was my mother. But I don’t entertain strangers, it’s not good for me at my age. Good day sir.”

And with that, the door closed on Dave’s face.

Dave stood, baffled. He’d seen Julia at the New Year’s Eve party. She was with another man, and that’s why he’d gotten as drunk as he had.

He checked the date on his phone. It was January 1st.

Then he checked the year.

2093.