The Rooms Between

She enters the room. The door has always been there — unpainted wooden panels, a brass knob, no keyhole — standing between her bedroom and the bathroom every morning and every evening, and yet she cannot remember if she has ever stepped inside.

A groan escapes from the hinges, smooth beneath her fingertips. The air shifts: cold and damp brushing her face, warmth pressing at her back. She wonders what she had hoped to find — a linen closet, a hidden nook for forgotten things? But this is a whole room, impossible between the bedroom and the bathroom, and yet it exists. A turret-like circle painted in desert pink, stars fading gold across the ceiling, sagging where dark mould spreads tendrils down to meet thick velvet curtains and the spindle-legged table at its center.

She breathes cautiously, the scent dank and forbidding, her primal instincts warning her not to go further, not to inhale too deeply. Fear whispers that stepping fully inside may close the door behind her, trapping her within the creeping decay. Yet curiosity draws her, a fingertip tracing the edge of the door as she moves forward. On the table sits a small stack of clean white paper and a pen with an arrowhead nib — hers, always hers.

She steps fully into the room. The door falls back against its frame, but it does not close. She imagines a window, though there is none, stretching out over hills and valleys, towns sleeping beneath the night. She sits, lifts the pen, and finding it empty, pierces her wrist to fill the reservoir with her own blood. Then she begins to write.

When she sleeps, she dreams she is a rabbit and a fox, leaving trails of blood across the grass. Pain, hunger, fear, and hope course through her as snow falls in the darkness, covering her in white. Shivering, she wakes, unclenching her teeth, rising from her bed, moving toward the bathroom — but pauses at another door.

The door has always been there — white panels, silver handle, no keyhole — impossible, yet impossible is the rule in these spaces. She hesitates, senses the cold air press against her face, the warm hall at her back. She wonders if it will be a boiler, a hidden passage, something mundane. But instead, it is a slender rectangle, painted in summer yellow with faded crimson flowers, the ceiling sagging where mould spreads, tendrils reaching down around velvet curtains and across the floor to an old oak desk.

Primal fear warns her to turn back, but the paper and pen call her. She moves forward. She sits, filling the pen with her own fluid, piercing the eye this time, and begins to write again. Dreams follow: a lamb and a vulture, half dead, half still breathing, terror and patience, despair and hope, until the sun blazes overhead and bleaches the world clean. She wakes, sweat-damp, knees unlocked, steps forward, yet pauses at yet another door.

Thick hardwood planks, iron ring, no keyhole. The impossible persists. Stone walls painted with animals in faded ochre, ceilings jagged, sagging where mould spreads over an animal pelt. Cold air on her face, warmth at her back, fear tightening her chest, yet she moves forward. She sits on the stone floor, filling the pen with the juices from her own gut, and writes. Dreams carry her into the sea: she is a seal and an orca, spilling entrails into foaming waters, horror and delight mingling as the surf breaks over her. She wakes, startled by the morning light, the dog nudging her hand.

Another door, painted to match the wall, broken handle, empty keyhole, yet still present. She has tried to brick it up, smash it down, decorate it with balloons, but it persists. Inside: a cell of flesh, pulsating and alive, mould creeping across blood and muscle. Fear warns, yet the paper and pen call. She steps in, fills the pen with saliva this time, and writes.

In sleep, she is grass, rooted and small, witnessing a monster she cannot escape, feeding on the stories she has written. Strength fills her as the dream fades. She awakens, stretches, and for the first time, walks from her bedroom to the bathroom without hesitation, carrying the weight of her stories with her. The doors remain, impossible yet insistent, but she is no longer afraid.

Every door, every room, is a threshold. Every act of writing is an act of courage. Every dream, a testament to survival and creativity, shaping the woman she is, and the writer she continues to become.