Unlocking Books discussion

I stood in front of the dilapidated door of the old mansion; dark windows embedded in the gray stone stared back at me. My skin crawled with a tingling mix of fear and excitement.

In my hand, I clutched a large ring with five rattling keys dangling from it.

The door beside me bucked as some massive weight slammed against it. The aged wood strained against the iron bolts. Splinters and dust fell away.

My heart thundering in my ears, I stepped closer to the door in front of me.

The weight slammed against the door again. The creature, I assumed, on the other side was very unhappy. My sweating hand wrapped carefully around the doorknob.

Sweat beaded around my forehead, running into a growing puddle on the ground.

The lock gave easily and clicked open.

Standing before me was a short man with a white beard that went down to his toes. So short, his head barely came to my shoulder. He hunched over a cane. This couldn't be the man you had hit the door until it nearly splintered to pieces, could it?

"Thank goodness; you have finally come. Don't just stand there gawking. There are troubles to be dealt with." He turned and moved deeper into the house.

I remained standing, feet rooted to the floor. I wasn't sure what had just happened. Was the slamming against the door all in my imagination? Had it been that man? I didn't not know, so i followed the man.

I followed him to the back stairway and down to a rickey door in the wall of the basement. A faint light glowed in the centre of the darkness beyond.

As I approached the source, I discovered, in the centre of the floor, a keyhole.

In the dim light, I could barely make out the wooden planks set in the stone floor where the keyhole lay. I shuddered to think what might be hiding below the basement and scurried past.

"Don't dillydally. We don't have all day. You're the only one with the key!" The man with the white beard beckoned to me and then gestured toward the rickey door in the wall. The faint light glowing through the cracks invited me closer.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart. As I leaned forward I wonder what on earth had I gotten myself into?

The dull gold key fit easily through the hole. With one last breath, I turned it.

I found myself in another room, the glowing light now above me, the key still in my hand. The room seemed empty at first glance, but as I turned to examine it further, what had at first appeared to be shadowed alcoves were in fact eight doorways.

As I stepped toward one of the doorways, the light from above seemed to illuminate more brightly the archway that I stepped toward.

Symbols written in a strange language were engraved above the arch over the doorway. I walked around the room examining each of them in turn, the light somehow following to illuminate them for me. Nervous, I rubbed the pad of my thumb over the key still clutched firmly in hand. It was then I felt something on the shaft of the key. An inscription similar to the ones above each of the doors was engraved on the shaft.

"You insert key into slot and turn. It's not that hard," the man said.

"Why do you want me to open this door? What's behind it?"

"We don't have time for questions, girl!"

"I don't want to make a mistake just because you rushed me."

He smiled. It was a pleased sort of grin. "Good. You've finally learned a few things over the centuries."

What? Centuries? I am sixteen years old!

I was still dwelling on his strange comment when I heard a voice singing. It came from each of the possible passages.

"Do you hear that," I asked as I turned. Once again, like the Cheshire cat, he was gone.

"Down through the passages older than time, open the doors until you find mine," sang a woman's voice.

I held the key up toward the inscription above the door, then stepped in turn toward each of them. The inscription in the key and the that above the fifth door glowed brightly.

Stepping closer, I noticed there was no key hole. I reached out with my free hand in order to search for the lock by touch...

I did not hear the door close behind me, but as my eyes adjusted I turned to face it.

It was gone.

I turned about again and looked into the distance. There I could see faintly a light coming from an opening. I stepped forward.

After what seemed an eternity, I came finally to a doorway. There was no inscription above the arch, nor was there even a door, but what I saw when I looked past the arch took my breath away. Snow capped mountains seemed to rise forever in the distance, dotted with large forests of tall pine trees. There were no signs of life or civilisation.

I turned away from it and continued down the passage.

The next few doorways I encountered held similar sights. A wooded forest in summer, an expanse of hot endless desert, a rocky outcropping with an endless sea beyond it, an endless night sky filled with more stars than I knew could exist, a frightening landscape where fire and molten rock seemed to explode from holes in the mottled ground to flow in rivers toward the horizon, and an equally strange landscape of tall pillars of ice that seemed to sing as the winds blew through them and dance the colours of the rainbow in the reflected sunlight.

For all that I had studied, for all that I knew and had learned of this world, I was at a loss to know where these places might be. The thought crept into my mind. They could be my world, in the past or the future, or they could be other worlds. How many stars in the night sky?

I shook off the thought and walked onward. Some of the doors opened into places I knew and others that seemed somehow alien to me.

One of them, a city of gleaming silver and glass seemed to hold my attention, for this was the place I recognised from the dream. I almost stepped across the threshold but something in the back of my mind kept my feet rooted to the floor.

I turned away and continued down the passage, but there were no more rooms... only an archway at the end of the long hall. I hesitated there, wondering whether to go on or go back.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I wanted to find answers, but was I ready for them?

(This really IS a never ending story!)

Haha! Makani, you are right. ;)

The story was meant to be open-ended, but not left hanging, so please... feel free to contribute toward moving the story forward.

If you'd like to read the story end-to-end, I've posted a copy, as it currently stands at:
The Never-Ending Story.

No, I wasn't ready. In way over my head, I turned around to go back...

...and bumped into an invisible barrier. It sizzled, zapping my skin, and I jumped away.

Nowhere to go but through the door.

I stepped toward the door and found myself walking through an open arch.

The light that had been following me flew away and upward and I found himself standing in what appeared to be the same circular room I'd begun in.

I looked down and found a lantern setting on the floor by the door.

I reached down to pick up the lantern and was surprised to feel that it was still warm to the touch. It had been hours since I'd begun this journey.

Unless someone else came through here and it was not the place where I began?

I wondered if I had missed someone else going the other way.

"Hello?"

Nothing but my own voice echoed back to me.

A short man, wearing tattered robes of various colors, scuttled into the room. His back stooped as though he carried heavy burdens, but his arms were empty. He mumbled to himself as he opened another door and disappeared inside.

"Excuse me!" I hurried after him.

… and found myself standing on a rocky plateau overlooking what at first appeared to be a shimmering lake.

In a blink of the eye I realised what I was seeing was a desert of multi-hued sand. That nearest to me was nearly pure white as the crystal sandsI'd seen on beaches. There were mountains of sand the colour of fired clay brick, others the brilliant orange-yellow of fire, and still others a brilliant purple with splashes of glittering black peaks. Around it all was a sea of golden-brown sand.

As I stood there staring across the painted desert, I realised that there was what looked like a doorway high atop the sea of sand and that through it someone seemed to be staring back at me and the desert.

Did they wonder at this sight as much as I did? Would they walk out across the sand and destroy this moment of perfection, or would they simply choose to look upon it.

I turned away from the sight, looking for the old man.

Behind me, the door I had just stepped through was gone, and a gray mountain replaced the brick wall of the tunnels. The stooped man crawled up a steep staircase carved out of the stony face.

"Hey, wait." I rushed up the mountain after him.

A cat came and said "Do not chase him. My prey!" And snuck after him.

Wendy wrote: "Haha! Makani, you are right. ;)"

(yes "you want to feed the kitty".)