At the end of the hall

My fingers pranced across the keyboard, rushing to finish my English Narrative. It was five o'clock, and my brother just returned home from work, slamming the door behind him, causing the house to shake. The shaking died down, but there was still a faint tapping heard. The tapping wouldn't stop, it grew louder and louder, and it tapped faster and faster. My thoughts turned into a blur and the words I typed didn't make sense anymore. I grew anxious and annoyed. The tapping had some sort of power over me; it wanted me to find out where it was coming from. As I ventured down the hall, the tapping turned into a booming. I became dizzy, and my vision became blurred as I reached the end of the hallway. The door at the end of the hallway had always been forbidden, and locked, but I knew this was the source of the noise, for it generated a certain power and warmth, and it was drawing me closer and closer. My hand reached out for the doorknob, shaking with fear and anxiety. At the touch of the handle, everything grew silent, the power drained away, and the warmth it generated turned ice cold. Trying to ignore the pain in my head, and the shakiness of my body, I turned the handle to the door, and it opened.

I don’t remember much after that, just the howling of sirens, the screams of my family, and the world fading away from me.

I woke up in the hospital, with blurry vision and yet another pounding headache. I tried to sit up, but massive pain exploded from my waist. As my vision cleared I gaped in horror as I saw myself. My torso was covered in white bandages stained all kinds of red, my left leg was elevated off of the hospital bed; in a full cast; both of my arms were elevated too, with at least 20 pins attached to them. I didn’t even want to see what my face looked like, knowing how terrible it could be. Soon enough, a doctor came in with a nurse following close behind. “There you are!” The doctor boomed. “I knew you’d come around eventually!” he said, with a huge grin on his face, as if I was perfectly fine. “This was the first time you’ve been fully awake since the accident at your home.” the nurse added, quietly. “What happened? How long ago was that? Is my brother okay” I croaked, straining to get the last few words out, wanting to know more. “Shh, darling, your brother is in the room next door.”

“Both of you had been in here for two weeks, ever since the right side of your house when Ka-Boom!” The doctor happily stated, as if everything was right in the world. But it wasn’t. My brother was hurt, my house was blown up, I was in a coma for two weeks, and my life was ruined. My heart began to race as fast as my mind, pounding out of my chest, driving the monitor on my table crazy. “What’s happening?!” The nurse yelled over my heart monitor, racing along with the beat of my heart, until my Mother burst into the room. “Amy!” My heart slowed, a familiar face is all I needed in this time of darkness. 

I returned back to my normal life after two months in the hospital. As normal it could be when living with your Grandma who has 7 cats because your house exploded. We still went to school at Ridgeview Junior High, but with a reputation of having your house blown up, a limp, a broken arm, and a huge scar across your face, things took a turn for the worst, or what I thought was the worst. I mean, when kids start calling you scar-face, or plaster arms, and it gets annoying, but after a while, it gets old, and old is worse than annoying, just ask your grandma. As I lay in bed on the night of the 34th day of school back (and counting), I realized something I should've before. I had memory loss from the night everything happened, and it's all coming back. It wasn’t the fireplace acting up again, like Dad claims, it was the stupid door at the end of the hall that blew up the house. That door was never locked, our parents just couldn’t open the door themselves. It seemed that only I could open the door.

I sat up in my bed, rather abruptly, drenched in sweat from a breathtaking discovery. I climbed the ladder to my brother's bed and started pushing him awake. “What, what is it, Amy?” he spoke, in a furious tone. “I know the real reason the house blew up.” I whispered. “Yeah, I do too, the fireplace was old, and it needed replacing anyways, we were just too late.”

“No,” I responded, “The door. I opened it.” I said, staring him dead in the eyes. He gazed back in astonishment, in silence. “We have to go there, Amy, ever since you were five our life goal was to open that door, it's been 9 years, and it opened.”

“When do we leave?”

“Now.” We gathered as much materials as we needed to get back home, and unlock the true secrets of our childhood. Sweatshirts, snacks, water, and a communication device was all we took, to travel five miles, across the Ohio river, and through the woods, and we had to do it without getting caught. It seemed easy enough, until we actually had to do it.

You could say the escape was easy, except for the fact that every time you moved on the fire escape(outside our window), it emitted a loud HISS, or a loud CREAK. Once we reached the bottom, without being caught, we ran. We got to the house in about 35 minutes, dirty, smelly and drenched in sweat. As I predicted, the house was torn to shreds, charred pieces of wood and metal, lay amidst the burned, dead grass. Everything was gone from our house, everything we ever cherished, but the door at the end of the hall was untouched. It was spotless, no char, no burn, no explosion. “You were right,” my brother whispered. 

“We have to go in,” I spoke, fearlessly, climbing over bits and pieces of what was left of our house to get to the door. “Amy no!” he called. “I almost lost my life to this door! I almost lost you.” 

“It will work this time, Ty,”

“How do you know, Amy? This time you could get blown to pieces; not the house.”

“I promise, Ty, I can feel it.”

“Well, I don’t want to get blown up. Again. I’m leaving.” my brother spoke, as he slowly trudged away from the burning of our house, of our childhood. I turned, tears in my eyes, to face the door, that could potentially end my life. I reached out for the handle, my hand shaking from fear, from anxiety, and the door opened yet again, so I braced for impact.

The door opened to a wide stretch of frozen tundra, with a variety of pine trees scattered across the area, a beautiful range of mountains nearby, and birds floating through the cold breeze. I noticed, in the distance, smoke, rising from a fire. I walked toward the smoke, curious. As I reached the crest of the hill, I looked down upon a village, a very, unmodern village. There were teepees and wooden huts scattered among the valley inbetween the hill and the range of mountains. I saw women, men, elderly, and children, all covered in skin/hide pelts. A man, around 20 saw me coming down the hill, and slowly began to walk towards me, inspecting me with every step. The man drew a sword and pointed it at my face. “Who are you? You are not of this village, what world do you come from, invader?” he spoke, in a heavy, Russain accent. What world? There is more than one world? I thought, and I was about to give an answer, no matter how stupid I may have found, when an older lady lowered his sword with her wooden cane. “Shush, my child, this is the hero we have been waiting for.”

“But Mother-”

“I said Shush!” she yelled, disarming his sword, sending it multiple feet away. “This young lady didn’t mean to end up here, but as the prophecies foretold, we need her.

“I-I don’t understand” I said, my voice cracking from tension. “Just follow me.” The old lady added bitterly. She led me through the village, with people from children to the elderly staring at me in awe. At the base of the mountain sat a hut, with smoke rising from the roof, like a chimney. As she reached for the handle, I spoke. “Stop, okay? I’m not even supposed to be here!” I called. “This was a mistake, now can I please go home?” 

“No.”

“No?”

“Just come in, I have some questions for you.” She spoke kindly, but I heard worry in her voice. I followed, very reluctantly, into what may be her home.

“Please, sit.” she said, motioning to a hide covered couch. “Now, how did you come across my village?” She asked.

“Well, ever since we were little, there was a door in our house that nobody could open, and one day it opened.”

“And now you're here?” she questioned, her voice full of curiosity, and her eyes wide with wonder. “No, the first time it opened it blew up our house, but I came back, and opened it again.”

“And this time it brought you to me.”

“Yes, but why?”

“Let me tell you a story. Tea?” she said leaving the couch to fetch some tea from the stove. As she came back, I took a cup, and tasted the most beautifully prepared Rose Tea I have ever tasted. Before I could comment she began her story; “A few centuries ago, the giants were born into your realm. But soon, they left and found greater interest in other realms, such as the realm of fire, magic, and ice.”

“Which is here.” I added.

“Correct. Although they came here last, in search of a new realm to terrorize and call their own, just like all of the others. My village is constantly on the move, trying to avoid the Newly born Frost Giants. They kill so many of our people a year, and our village population has been cut in half ever since they came.”

“That’s terrible,” I spoke, but only of a whisper, in astonishment.

“Yes, and our prophecy keeper’s last prophecy, was that nobody from our realm could save us, only a hero from the last realm can. So years we waited for somebody to come, and here you are, finally of age to aid us, and to aid the four realms into a safe spot once again.”

“Okay,” I had no more words, I mean how real was this? It sounds legit, but how legit is it? This lady also seemed trustworthy, and not some bag lady living off of the streets of Pittsburgh. “How do I help?”

Gee, did I have no idea what I was getting myself into.