The Door

"Sophie! Come here," I say, clicking my tongue. This is the third time Sophie, my Teacup Yorkie, has hidden from me. This time, I've been searching for her for nearly an hour. I know there's no way she could be outside, I already checked that all of the doors are closed and locked. I've checked just about everywhere: the cabinets, dresser drawers, bathrooms, bedrooms, under the beds and couches, even in the bathtub.

I sit down at the kitchen table, completely defeated. I pick up my phone and dial my mom's phone number. I call it, waiting for her to pick it up. She answers with a "hello?"

"Hey, Mom. So there's a slight problem," I say, pausing to see what she says.

When she says nothing, I continue, "Sophie is hiding or something, because I can't find her anywhere. I've checked under beds and couches, in the closets, literally everywhere."

"Well," she says after a moment. "Have you looked outside?"

Just as I open my mouth to tell her that I have, I hear it.

BARK, BARK!!

I look around, trying to figure out where her barking came from. I walk around, checking under things and listening for her. She barks again, and it's much closer this time. I run into the living room and see her... outside?

"Samantha? What's going on?"

"Mom, just hold on one second, Sophie's outside and I have no idea how she got out there," I tell her.

How'd she get outside? I wonder. I open the front door and she happily runs in, her tongue lolling out of her mouth. I step out onto the porch and look around, looking for any way she could've gotten out. I don't see anything, so I just walk back in. Sophie barks and runs into the hallway, towards my room. I follow her, out of curiosity. She runs past my room and into the guest bedroom. I watch her jump up on the bed and she sits there, staring at me with her head turned sideways, as if asking if I plan to come in or not. I laugh to myself and turn around like I'm walking away. I hear her nails click, click, click-ing on the floor.

I get into the room just soon enough to watch her slip into a small door on the opposite side of the bed. I walk over to it and open it all the way. It opens up to a stairway that goes down about eight steps. I look at it, wondering if I should follow her or not.

"Hey, Mom. Are you still there?"

"Yes, of course. Can you please tell me what's going on? If you don't then I'm coming over," she says.

"Okay," I say. "So basically Sophie has been hiding, or something like that, for the past two weeks. And I'll look for her and try to find her and I look everywhere and I guess I just didn't put anything together until just now, but every time I found her outside. The first couple of times, the front or back door was unlocked, so it just wasn't weird that she was outside, but this time, all of the doors were locked and closed and she still ended up outside. So when I let her back in, she went into the guest room and I followed her in and when I started to walk away, she went to this little door on the other side of the bed and its got stairs an-"

"Honey, I don't know what in the world is going on over there," she says, interrupting me mid-sentence. "But something is going on and I'm coming over. Okay? Okay."

I open my mouth to protest but she hangs up before a word comes out of my mouth. I start to sit on the guest bed when I hear a bark coming from outside. I run to the window and look out it. Sophie's outside, running to the front of the house. I turn and walk into the living room and open the front door, picking up Sophie and sitting with her on the front porch until Mom gets there.

She gets out of the car and asks me to show her the door, so we go into the guest room and I show her. We talk about it for several minutes and finally come to the agreement that I'll go down the stairs and call out to her when I get to the bottom and tell her everything I see.

I walk to the door and crawl through it. Once I get through the doorway, it opens up so that I can stand up completely. I turn on my flashlight from my phone and walk slowly and carefully down the stairs. When I reach the bottom of them, I'm underneath my house.

"HEY, MOM," I call out.

"YEAH," she calls back.

"I'M ALL THE WAY DOWN AND I'M PRETTY SURE I'M UNDER THE KITCHEN RIGHT NOW. I CAN'T SEE A WHOLE LOT, JUST A COUPLE OF BEAMS AND A LOT OF DIRT," I call back up. "CAN YOU LET SOPHIE COME DOWN HERE? HOPEFULLY SHE KNOWS THE WAY OUT OF HERE."

I don't hear her answer me, but I hear Sophie running down the stairs. She stops at my feet and looks up at me. I reach down and pet her head.

"Hey, Soph. How'd you get outta here, doll?"

She obviously doesn't answer me, just looks away from the door and tilts her head, then takes off into the darkness. I shine the flashlight and follow her. I'm about to call for her when I hear her bark to my left and shine the flashlight towards it. She sees the light and barks again and takes off as soon as I catch back up to her. I follow her again and have to wait for her to bark before I find her again. I hear her bark in an area where I would have to crouch in order to get there. I shine the light and see no obvious danger and decide to go. I crawl about ten feet before I see a light. I crawl all the way to the light and slide out of an opening, hoping that I didn't end up halfway around the block.

I stand up and find myself in my side yard, right outside my window. I go to the guest bedroom's window and knock on it to let my mom know that I'm out and safe. She nods and meets me at the front door.

~Several hours later~

"SOPHIE! STOP BARKING, IT'S 3 A.M.!"

She's been barking for close to an hour. I roll over in my bed to cover up my ears so I can sleep and there's someone. Staring at me through my window.

He notices me and walks towards my window. Right before he reaches my window, he ducks down.

Then the realization hits me.

The door.