The hallways beckons.

Only one.

Before the world grew heavy, before the days thickened into silence, Emily and I sat on one bed sharing a vision. In the empty afternoons after the school bell’s ring had long dissipated, we would lie on the plush pillows, hands clasped and staring at the ceiling until the lines in the plaster rearranged themselves into forests, dead cities and anything we wanted.

We learned early a fact that most don’t ever learn. Boredom was a kind of doorway to your subconscious. If you sat still – oh so perfectly still – you could hear the walls breathing, you would float up from your own body to explore.

You could feel the crust of the earth shift beneath your hands as you molded it to fit your ideals. If you wanted to badly enough, you could push a hand straight through it and send the poles shifting around like a magic trick.

I remember Emmy’s small fingers brushing mine being the only feeling in my numb body as we stared for hours to rise from the confines of mortality. A room behind our eyes took us in, like a ritual if we dared to call it such, to suck us into it’s vacuum and force static into our vessels.

We promised together, as we laid there, that we would never leave it.

The afternoons had a certain tang to them – old wood and dust, the iron tang of radiator heat. The putrid humidity filling the room aided in our ascent to the next plane.

I don’t think Emmy’s parents noticed us much. They never seemed to care if they did much for her, though neither did mine so I don’t find that all too surprising. They moved through the house like ghosts and ghouls. They muttered like a séance over bills at the kitchen table, clutching and shaking papers above their head while other figures who have since grown blurry in my mind stepped around them with caution. No surprises that no-one wanted to be Emily’s friend besides me. We matched in that regard.

Emmy always figured it out first. She was much better than me and she could stare for hours without blinking, carving entire cities out of nothing. She had this distinct smile when she found something interesting and it distracted me so badly I would never be able to concentrate on growing numb. Not when she filled me with so much joy.

“Close your eyes tight.” She would speak when she held my hands and attempted to share the fantasy without breaking her dreamlike state.

I would obey though the carpet scratched deep gouges into my knees as I merged through it, opening it up below me and falling deep down into the void. Somewhere far away was a buzzing sound like a disgruntled fly that bashed into a window until it ripped it’s own wings off in unsettling desperation.

The stillness slowed the blood in my veins, choking them into sludge that suffocated my organs of oxygen.

Maybe it was the weight of the world on top of me, that pressure, the presence of some entity holding my hand as it led me up to float around. I opened my eyes too quickly at the touch, breaking whatever the thing touching me was into shattered glass that cut my hand without marring it.

Emily would frown, glare at me in discontented disappointment and looked close to hitting me. “It won’t work if you scare it, Lev.” She still used my nickname, I remember that and if not for those words I wouldn’t remember myself at all. Emmy died a long time ago, now whatever inhabited her body was faking her into believing it was her despite her being her.

Something was patiently waiting behind our eyes, focusing on getting us up to the heavens to speak with God and commune with those passed. We kept screwing it up, mainly me. I would jump with every attempt but the figure kept it’s nerves about it.

The silence was the sort of silence that would spoil if you left it alone like old milk rotting in a jar. You had to sit very still to hear the silence properly.

If you fidgeted, as I did, you couldn’t. It stayed thin. Ordinary. But waiting proved it’s existence, letting the boredom press down behind your ribs and you could feel the shift on top off you.

It was not enough to notice at first, not enough to be sure. The clock was one tick behind, though it felt normal at first; it was exactly one second before though even Emmy wasn’t sure how she knew that. That faint feeling after your best friend went home, though no-one had left. It plagued you and you felt it.

We didn’t discuss it, it would have broken the feeling that, despite being terrible, was the closest thing to happiness either of us could feel.

Instead, Emily reached over. I remember her hands that I can’t feel anymore. Her soft, dry hands that held mine as we watched and waited and listened for the house breathing around us.

She would ask often about doors, weirdly often.

“Do you ever feel like doors are empty behind them?” An odd question, weren’t all doors hollow behind them? That felt like the point.

“I suppose they’re meant to be, Em.” A man was standing in the doorway, watching her with a fond smile on his face. He wasn’t someone that we knew although he was familiar with our names. We never did find out who in God’s good name he was, we didn’t care.

“Maybe they don’t want us.” Emmy was being silly again, giggling out empty questions and statements without waiting for answers. “Maybe they would say to go away if they could talk.” They felt important though, like something more people should ponder before sleeping. She shook her head slowly like she was thinking of something, side to side, a tiny motion making her long hair drape her shoulders in stage curtains.

“No, they can talk.” Em spoke back to herself, quieter and more timidly like she was speaking to someone sitting just beside her. I wanted to ask what she meant, I wished I did, but it felt wrong to speak in the presence of such an important guest.

The house was listening.

Daylight bled out to soak around the world but the lights didn’t flicker on. The power was off again. Perhaps it helped to focus our minds on the burrowing boredom, that was surely a good thing.

The room didn’t feel empty anymore though.

Only two. (Part 1.)

I came back that afternoon, the same way I always did. She was welcoming, offering what little snack foods they had. I, as always, had brought something for the both of us. No doubt it wouldn’t matter, our fantasy world had promised everything we wanted so we would be fed properly in no time. We would get there today, no backing out.

She ate slowly, piecing bits together and eating them together. Emily was barefoot, sitting in an oversized and faded green-knit jumper that covered her hands up unless she pushed it up every five minutes.

The silence wasn’t patient this time, it was tapping it’s foot against the floorboards as they ate slowly. It was hungry too.

We laid there an awfully long time. I barely remember any of it, though I remember thinking the room was feeling bigger than it had yesterday. The corners of the ceiling stretched higher and the walls pressed into my soul until it was molded to fit perfectly into the new door. The one I saw behind Em’s eyes and the one she saw behind mine.

As we were pulled up into the heavens, this time faster than the last occurrence, it was hungrier and it didn’t care for the sacrifice of time this time. It wanted this now.

We were drawn into the sour light coming from the ball of plasma that swirled in front of us and stayed the same distance away as we ran to it, then straight down into the black ink of the floor and we sunk for hours. It was nauseating, smelling like copper and tasting like pure metal. Emily was gleeful, her pupils dilated in excitement.

The glow swirled below us, swallowing us whole and searing our skin down to our bones and refiguring us. It was excruciating but Em laughed all throughout, seemingly enjoying the drawn out torture.

We were spat back out into her house, sitting up and leaving our bodies on the floor, smiling and sleeping just like I wish we would’ve done rather than this. Em ran away; I followed.

The hallways glowed a bright white, electric zaps drawing us closer until it spoke to us without speaking. “Come closer.” It was heavenly but the shivers down our spines forced our feet, one after the other, to run far away. We only stopped, hands still merged together, when I could run no longer. I was always the weaker one, out of breath first in any game we chose to play.

The hallway still glowed, off-white zaps following us like sprites. They looked wrong, like electricity that froze on a wintery day. They waited for our answer and as Emily took a step forward… “Em, no.” My voice was firm, not cracking despite the stress piling steadily onto me. “Something’s wrong here. I think we should go back.”

I backed away a step, having issued my warning. My feet, sticky with static as the carpet clutched onto them, were difficult to move now. It was towards the light or back home.

So she walked to the light.

Towards the open mouth of the doorway that opened to heaven.

Towards the unknown.

I did not follow, not at first. I stood, shaky and clutching my sleeves close to myself in fists so tightly that half-moons cut into my palms. Light thickened the air in my lungs, choking me and promising to stop should I take a further step. The hallways breathed in my oxygen so I couldn’t regain it. And underneath it all, that fucking whisper.

“Come inside. Come see. We kept a place for you.”

I still stood there for a long time mind you. Long enough that the millenniums passing turned back to minutes again after epoch’s of time looped back round. Emily was long gone into the light, her energy still pulled me forward magnetically although everything inside me told me ‘RUN!’.

The whisper came again, right in my ear. “You’re already inside, nothing’s happened. Might as well come deeper, Levie.” It knew my name.

That didn’t mean it was trustworthy though. The bullies at school knew my name, although they were human, this was not. This was a nightmare. I called Emily’s name, I think I did, but it came out far too wrong, too thin and slow like the air held it from her ears.

I passed the first door.

The room beyond was empty unless you counted the light, just a set of four plaster walls that no longer glowed. It felt more like a trap then, like spikes would pierce me from the bottom or top now that I was in.

The books scattering the floors weren’t any recognizable language, although the titles were English but mostly entailed gibberish or general feelings rather than book titles.

I trapsed the halls for hours, finding Emily sitting in the second room. “Thought you’d never come. It’s boring alone, y’know.” She crossed her arms in undeserved entitlement. “Told you it’s fine in here. I tried to get here alone but I couldn’t do it, you do realize that don’t you? Wouldn’t lead you here unless I knew it was good, would I?”

So she led me through the rooms, each a different feeling. Nostalgia, solitude, friendship, hope, uselessness, if I remember correctly. They each sucked more and more hope out of me until I could only sigh out in frustration at the obvious traps she led me into. In fact, this was shaping up to be the end.

The whisper wasn’t words anymore. A deep guttural growl and then a, “Found you.” It was Emily’s voice, but not her demeanor. This was not Emily and it shocked me awake. I refused to enter the room.

Only two. (Part 2.)

Emily stood over me, shaking me awake. “Hey, hey, silly. I told you to close your eyes, not to fall asleep.” She giggled with a hand over her mouth and hugged me tight. Her red hair tickled at my neck. She was smiling, too widely, too slowly. Paranoia fed into reality as the air distorted. Her hands grasped possessively rather than kindly and she-

I woke up again, hand in hand with her. She was still asleep though I figured she would wake up soon. It wouldn’t be too much of an issue if she chose not to though. She must just be tired.

I slept at hers that night. Emily’s parents never cared much about that, neither did hers. In fact they barely ever mentioned it, or realized she was missing.

The next day was bleak, gray skies and the heavy fog that pressed against the windows. It was cold, that biting cold that waited for you to lose concentration for it to sink it’s fangs in and poison you. Emily’s lips were purple and she laid beside me on the carpet, curled in on herself, arms folded tightly against her chest.

She looked scared, her breathing shallow and slow as though the cold had taken over her and she had entered hibernation. The carpet burned my palms as the soggy fibers gave carpet burn. The house was silent, not just empty but hollow. That faint glowing hallway was somewhere, sliding deeper into whatever place I had refused to go into.

She had no response when I shook her. I tried again, harder. Still nothing. Her body stayed stiff and curled up. A tight, stubborn sleep that was frigid and hard to shake.

I don’t remember leaving the house.

I don’t remember calling anyone.

And maybe I didn’t.

All I know is that the next thing I remember clearly is standing in my bedroom with shaking hands and running tears emptying my brain of thoughts as they leaked out through my tear ducts.

Someone called my name but stopped, faint buzzing and a whistle entered my ears but both stopped when I sat down on my bed.

Memories came back slowly, like dry desert dirt absorbing water. First in dreamlike fuzziness, then in flashes of a camera. I saw a bottle of pills. Two. One for each of us.

I saw the two of us curled on the carpet hand in hand, whispering thanks and confessions of love. Swearing we wouldn’t be left alone. Swearing we’d cross over together, hand in hand, as tears rid our eyes of sight.

I saw Emmy smile that true smile, the one she only did when she meant it. And I knew in that moment that I had lost her. I truly lost my best friend.

The white haze engulfed the corners of my vision as static overtook my body, numbing my mind for what I assumed was the last time.

The weightlessness, then the pull. Then that hallway.

Glowing, open, inviting, whispering.

“Come inside. Come see. We kept a place for you.”

But I had refused, held back for a millennium. I’d tried to stop her too.

It wanted to pull me in whole, swallow me up but I had clung to the miserable air and the ugly gravity of the earth.

Cowardice maybe, or something more interesting. I hadn’t wanted to die, not really.

Not like Emily did, skipping towards the light without looking back.

And because I faltered…

Because I hesitated…

She was alone in that room.

Only one again.

The following days stung. The news coming slowly, like I couldn’t understand harsh words even if I’d been hearing them all my life. They said Emily was alive, barely.

Comatose.

“No brain activity,” The nurse had said when I spoke to her. “But she’s comfortable, we promise.”

Comfortable, as if she was sleeping, as if any part of her survived.

It wasn’t Emily in that bed, just the rotting flesh kept from rotting with inhumane tech.

At night, I dreamed of the hallway.

Sometimes I stood in the doorway again, my toes pressed to the edge of the glowing carpet, the whisper coiling up around my ankles like smoke.

Sometimes I dreamed I followed her —

only to find the hallway led nowhere.

Just endless doors, endlessly opening into each other.

Just endless rooms with no windows, no walls.

Just endless, blind mouths waiting to swallow me down.

Sometimes the hallway came to me —

spilling out from behind my closet door, seeping under my bed, humming softly in the spaces between my bones.

A reminder:

You were supposed to come.

You broke the promise.

The pact.

The Tuesday.

The clean detail, then blurring.

Tears, touches and time.

Time to write notes, say goodbye.

Two orange bottles and an agreement that

nearly doomed us both to die. We had spoken enough

that all the words were used up. We were feeling like ghosts before even dying.

Better to finish it ourselves. She passed me a bottle, we downed them this time, unlike the first time we wimped out. Together now, and laying…

Hand in hand.

And listening for the sound of the house breathing.

Until ours.

Stopped.

“Come inside. Come see. We kept a place for you.”