A short story by Heidi Dischler.

She did not know how she was born. She did not know who brought her here or how she came into existence. She just knew that she was here. 

She was small, still in adolescence, with scraggly arms and legs that were far too long for her body. She had pale skin, bright red hair, and green eyes the shade of the grass that she often laid in. 

Here was her home. The rolling hillsides; luscious, green grass; trees that shaded her valley; it was all for her. The landscape was always filled with beautiful things that gave the hillsides an explosion of color. It was like a kaleidoscope of trees and grass and wildflowers and sky. The wildflowers, though, were her personal favorite. She loved everything about this place, except for one thing: she was alone. She had no one to share her beloved home with except the animals that so often took refuge here. 

She often got lonely, feeling as if she were the only girl in the whole world. It made her feel like a bird that was alone in the sky. There was nothing in front of her, just miles and miles of clouds. 

Besides her lack of company, her world was an exciting game. She ran with the animals, trying her best to keep up with them. She bathed in the streams. She would climb trees just to see the large expanse of land that was her home. She loved to look at it all—just stare for hours. It was perfect, but the thing about perfection was that it always left something to be desired. 

One day, she followed a small, black dog to a corner of her valley where she had never been. The dog led her to a door that was just large enough for her to fit through. It was a deep colored wood that was seated right into the side of a mountain. She watched with curiosity as the dog nudged open the door, slipping inside of the darkness within it. 

The girl looked back at the expanse of her world, then took in the door before her. She was nervous to see what was behind that door, but one thing was clear: she was going in. 

So, she pushed open the door, stepping inside, and closing her eyes, too afraid to see what would lie ahead of her. 

The girl could feel the difference as soon as the door closed behind her. She felt a rush of wind blowing through her hair. Her mouth became salty as she breathed in deeply. She heard the gentle whooshing of wind and a crashing noise that was so deafening she feared it would sweep her away. 

When she finally mustered up the courage to open her eyes, she was amazed to see a long stretch of white, sandy beaches. She had never seen anything as beautiful as that sight. A large body of water filled her sight and she watched as waves crashed up against the shore, only to be pulled back by some unknown force. She almost laughed in relief and amazement. The vast expanse of water was beautiful. It was so blue and so clear that she could see tiny fish in calmer parts of the shore where pools had formed from the constant attack of the waves.

She approached the water cautiously, afraid that it would pull her back with the waves. When she dipped her toe in, she found that the water was deliciously warm and prickled her skin. It was an experience that she had never had before.

Without any reserve, she ran into the water. She splashed, scaring the fish and other aquatic life away. When she looked out into the distance, she saw a huge monster jump from the depths of the water only to belly-flop back into it. The creature had to be larger than any she had ever seen, but she was not afraid of it. She couldn’t be afraid of something so beautiful. Besides, there was no way it could come in such shallow waters as she.

She spent days in this new land. Days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months. She eventually found the dog who led her to this amazing land and became friends with it. She and the dog would go on wonderful adventures, splashing and chasing and running gloriously free. She was happy, but her months in this land made her miss her old home. The blue crystalline water was amazing, but its constant crashing and movement made her long for this peacefulness of the hillsides. 

When she finally returned to look for the door that led her here, she was astonished to find that there were four more doors. She could not remember which she had taken. It had been so long ago then and her fear was making the decision much worse. 

She would just open each door and peak inside. She wouldn’t go in fully. Once she found out that it wasn’t her home she would just close it instead of walking inside. 

Finally, she decided on a door, but when she went to open it to glance inside, she discovered that the door was locked. She went to the next one on the right, opening slightly only to be sucked into its vortex, the dog jumping in after her. 

That time, when she worked up the courage to open her eyes, she did not see a beautiful land. She only found desolation. An illness that overtook everything it touched. That land was not full of colors. It was not beautiful and teeming with life. It was simply dead. Burned and broken, ashes fliting through the air. 

As soon as she turned around to reach for the door that she came in through, she found that it was no longer there. The girl cried out loudly, frantically turning in a circle to make sure that she had looked everywhere. The door had disappeared. She was trapped. 

So, she and the dog walked for hours in that broken world, never discovering a single living thing aside from themselves. The smoke coming from the charred remains of trees burned her lungs and the snow-like ash made her cough violently. 

Eventually, the dog began barking frantically and she almost cried. There, in front of them both, was a single door. It was black from whatever had desiccated this world, but she did not care, She simply ran up to it and yanked it open. The door splintered under her sudden assault and broke into pieces, revealing the hollow trunk behind it. There was nothing behind this door. No vast expanse of saltwater. No hillsides. Nothing. 

The tears rolled down her cheeks and cooled her face. She reached up to swipe them away and found that her face was covered in ash, black and dirty. 

The dog licked her hand, reminding her that she was not alone. Together, they kept moving, kept going, never stopping. For the first time in the girl’s entire life, she felt fear grip her chest. She struggled to breathe, her throat constricting painfully. Her breath would come in slowly, and when she breathed out, it sounded like a whistle. Tears kept falling down her cheeks, but she still did not stop. She couldn’t stop. The fear told her that if she did, she would never leave this horrible place. She would be stuck forever. 

The whole world felt smaller. It had always been huge to the girl. She never thought that she could feel as if she were in a box, simply walking along its borders for hours. She began to scratch at her arms anxiously, tearing the skin, but she could not feel it. 

Time seemed to drag on. She could not tell how long the pair had been walking, but she knew that it could have been an eternity. Her nails had gotten longer. Her once red hair was then a dirty, dull gray color. She prayed to find more doors. She prayed to see color. 

It was then that the dog barked at her, shaking her back to her strange, new reality. It circled her impatiently and ran ahead. The girl found a new strength and began to follow. 

They were all in the trunks of the black trees. The doors outnumbered the girl and the dog tenfold. Each door was a different size, a different shape, a different shade of burnt gray. All looked ominous and threatening, but she had no choice, she couldn’t stay in that broken land for another second. 

So, she reached for the first door that she could get to, picked up the dog, and jumped inside with her eyes closed. That door did not break. It did not lead to a hollow tree trunk. It did not hold her hostage there. 

Her stomach clenched as she felt the familiar feeling of being thrust into a new world. It was dizzying and made her extremely nauseous. She held tight to the dog against her chest. It whimpered frantically to be let down, so she let it go. 

She heard barking, but it wasn’t the frantic barking that signals danger. It was… happy. Elated. Absolutely beatific. She smiled to herself with her eyes still closed. Breathing in deeply, she could just tell that the air was cleaner. It tasted better and felt good going into her lungs. 

Her eyes sprung open to reveal the third extraordinary world she had traveled to in her lifetime. This one was not filled with large bodies of water—or even rolling hillsides—but this one was a canopy of trees. Trees were everywhere and there were so many of them that they completely blocked the view of the sky. She didn’t mind, though, because anything was better than where she just was. 

The dog raced around her, jumping and barking in complete happiness. She laughed and ran around with it, feeling the bark of the unburned trees. Rain began to fall and she turned her face towards the direction of the sky to let the drops hit her skin, cleaning her from the ash that covered her body. All traces of that broken world were gone. All except for the fear.

She walked more cautiously. She looked before she turned each corner. She stayed close to her small companion. She did not want to find another door ever again.  

While she was exploring with the dog, feeling the gentle rainfall against her face, she found what she feared most. There had to be at least fifty of them, all different shades of green. Some had moss covering the wood. Some had chains wrapped around them. Each were in the trunks of the trees. The doors covered such a large amount of space that she could not even go forward. She watched in horror as large spiders crawled from behind one door and scattered across the door’s frame. 

The dog began giving a low growl and backing away from the forest of doors. The girl could not agree more. So, she and the dog began to build a home for themselves, making shelter—a tiny hut she made completely on her own—meeting new animals, learning how to survive in—live in—that strange, new, beautiful world. 

She learned to calm herself after the nightmares came. She could smell the smoke in ash as if it were real. Her dreams reminded her every day of what she never wanted to go through again.

One day, long after the first day that she came to the canopy of trees, she heard someone shouting through the trees. It was a particularly shady day and she definitely thought that it would rain soon. As soon as she sat up from her perch, the trees were quiet. So, she laid back down, thinking that it was just her imagination. 

She heard the voice again. Louder that time. The voice sounded like hers except deeper. It didn’t sound distressed or in danger, so she was curious to see what the shouting could possibly be coming from. 

Walking among the canopy of trees, she stumbled upon someone like her. He came from the direction of the doors. He was crashing through the trees, neither graceful nor careful of what he might be smashing. He merely looked inquisitive as to where he was. 

She hid behind the trees, blocking herself from view. She wanted to watch him before she made herself known. He wasn’t scared of the trees. He wasn’t scared of the noises that he heard. He simply went forward, not thinking about what might come next. 

In that moment, she envied him. She was jealous of his nonchalance and his seemingly fearless attitude. She was terrified of walking through another door—of even seeing another door—and he seemed to appear out of nowhere without a care in the world. 

She watched him for several more moments before stepping out where she could be seen. He cocked his head like her dog had done many times when it was confused. He didn’t say a word and just stared at her for a long while. Then, he smiled at her. She smiled back at him, feeling an overwhelming sense of calm wash over her. It was a feeling that swimming in the large body of water had brought her, or the feeling that the rolling hillsides provided, or even the peace of mind that she got when she discovered that she was no longer in the broken world. He made her feel safe, serene. She couldn’t explain it, but she believed it had something to do with finally unearthing that she was not alone in that world, the only one of her kind. 

He was also amazed to finally find someone like him. She was beautiful, no longer a scraggly adolescent. Her legs were long and muscular from her journeys and adventures. She was a woman, first stepping out of the shadows with a terrified expression in her eyes that morphed into a tranquility that he could not understand. 

He held out his hand to her as if he had known her all his life and she took it without hesitation. 

For years, they lived with each other and the dog in complete contentment. They loved each other in a way that neither one had ever thought was possible. It was a swelling in their chests, a pressure that was entirely dizzying. They were drunk on the other’s company. It was as if their souls had been waiting for one another, finally coming together to build something stronger, brighter, and more beautiful than anything their worlds had ever seen. 

She could breathe him in, collecting him like air in her inflated lungs. Nothing had ever made her feel so close to the world that she had once called home. To the rolling hillsides and the green grass and the tranquil streams. The peace that he brought her made her fear go away, but it made a new fear develop: the fear of losing him. 

She would often check over her shoulder to see if he was behind her, sure that he was just a figment of her imagination. She would hold onto him tightly to the point where he would wonder if something was wrong. She would stare at him sometimes, waiting for him to disappear right before her eyes. 

He never did, though. 

He was constant. He was loyal just like the dog. He loved her fiercely and madly. He was going to adore her forever. 

He told her of his adventures, how he had also been stuck in a broken world. Not the same as the one she had been in—his was full of monsters and evil. Still, he had not been scared to step through another door. He told her how he kept going. He kept searching. He kept looking for the life that he had always envisioned for himself. He was searching for others like him and he had found her. 

His stories were what kept the girl up at night. She thought about her fear and how it had inhibited her for so long. Still, she could not imagine going through another door. What if she could never make it back?

It was nighttime, and the rain had just begun to fall in a drizzle, thunder growling in the distance. It was the first rain that they had seen in weeks. Their tiny hut that they had made their home so many years ago protected them from the rain. The dog slept soundly, curled into a ball against the girl’s side. She listened to the rain pattering on the roof and looked over to see that he was listening, too. The calmness of it all made them fall into a deep sleep, wrapped in each other’s arms.

She awoke to the boy shaking her. Immediately, she felt smoke filling her lungs and she coughed violently. She began to panic, feeling as if it were one of her nightmares of the broken world. She looked around and found his face, a face that told her she was not in her nightmare, but, instead, in a completely new one. 

The dog was barking in a panic, running in circles and staring back at them. The trees were lit with a strange orange glow that suddenly caused her heart to constrict. It was a fire. Her canopy of trees were on fire. 

The boy pulled her to her feet. He held her hand as they ran across the expanse of the forest. It looked as if the whole entire world was on fire. There was no way around any of it. Except one. 

She knew where the boy was leading her and she was terrified. She had sworn to never go through another door again, but that was exactly where he was leading her. He knew it was their only chance. 

When they all got to the forest of doors—panting, coughing, and faint—they stared at the multitude of options. There were too many doors, but they only needed one. 

The boy pulled harshly on one door just to find it locked. Several of the other doors were locked as well. The girl began to panic. Her breath became ragged and uneven. He stopped trying the doors and grabbed her cheeks in his hands. Even though the world around them was growing sickeningly fiery, he tried his best to stop time for her. He commanded her to look into his eyes. He helped her to even her breathing. He told her that they would be okay. They just had to go through one door. Just one.

A large crack made both of them jump. Suddenly, a tree came careening down between them. They hurriedly jumped apart. She looked up at him from across the burning tree that separated them. The flames leapt out at her, threatening to swallow her whole. She desperately looked for a way around, but the damage had already been done. They were trapped on opposite sides, neither of them able to go into the same door. 

She looked down at the dog. It had come to her side when the tree fell, and then it nudged her hand worriedly with its muzzle. It was time to go. The dog was telling her that and the boy watched, nodding in agreement. 

She shook her head. They couldn’t go through different doors. They would end up in different worlds. She couldn’t leave him. She didn’t want to be alone again. 

She had to go, though. 

The heat was almost unbearable then. They were both sweating, the flames growing closer and closer to them both. The trees couldn’t even be seen through the fire. 

He watched her from across the flames, her beautiful face lit up in fear. He nodded again, tilting his head to her side of the doors. He knew that she wouldn’t be the first to go, so he had to leave her. He had to abandon her to save her. So, he turned and opened the door closest to him, breathing a sigh of relief when he found it unlocked, and stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. 

She cried out in pain, clutching at her stomach as she watched him disappear. The tears trailed down her cheeks as she sobbed. 

The dog nudged her again, more frantically then.

She reached down to pet the dog and cried as she turned around. She was facing a moss-covered door where the moss was falling off in chunks from the heat. Opening the door, she closed her eyes as she always did and walked in with the dog by her side. 

When she opened her eyes, the flames were no longer there. He was no longer there either. 

She heard birds whistling. She opened her eyes to see that she was back in the hillside valley. It was her home—the home that she so often thought back to—but she couldn’t be happy. She didn’t find any relief from being here. 

The dog was joyful, splashing into the stream in bliss. The girl could not join her companion, though. She fell down into the grass, pulling her knees against her chest, sobbing. She never knew how much it hurt to be alone until she knew what it felt like to be with someone. 

She stayed this way for hours, terrified of the desolation that laid before her. It wasn’t until the dog curled up beside her that she found the courage to look up. 

She thought hard about where she was. This was her home. The canopy of trees had led her here again. There was only one door that she had found here so many years ago, but then, as she looked around more closely, there were doors everywhere. The shear amount of doors made her gasp. She had never seen so many in one place. Oddly enough, it made her fear melt away.

There had to be a way to find him, but it involved her opening more doors. Doors that could possibly lead her to broken lands and burnt trees. Doors that would take her away from her rediscovered home—possibly forever. 

But, no. This was no longer her home. 

Pushing back her fear, she stood. The dog stood as well, happy that she had finally gotten up. The girl knew what she had to do. She had to fight. She couldn’t remain stagnant anymore. She was going to find him, no matter what it took. 

It didn’t scare her anymore to walk through the doors. He had taught her that. He had shown her just how much her fear was holding her back. She just wanted to find him. 

She had sometimes wished through the passing years that she had never gone through a single door. That she could take it all back, the adventures, the fear, the pain, the elation. That she could stay in the dark, blissfully naïve. But she couldn’t take them back. So, there was only one option: she would open as many doors as it took, jump through as many worlds, wander as far as her feet would take her. She would find her home again. 

Knowing what she was about to do was what scared her the most. Knowing that if the doors kept multiplying like that had been doing, she may never find him again, she may never find her way back here. But she also knew that if she never tried, if she never opened those doors, she would be lost forever. 

The girl walked calmly to one of the many doors before her. She thought about all of the different places that those doors could lead her. She thought about how he was alone, too. She thought about all of those things as she reached for the doorknob and twisted it. She would go through every single one if she had to. She would tell herself that there was just one more each time. That he was behind the next door. Just one more door. So, she opened the door then. She knew that if he was brave enough to keep going through doors to look for her, she was brave enough to walk in with her eyes wide open.