You Should Have Closed the Door

I woke up from a dead sleep in a cold sweat, my eyes darting around the room. It feels as if the walls are staring at me, but there is nothing there. “Why does this keep happening,” I ask myself while slowing getting out of bed and looking at the clock.

3 A.M.  “Of course” I groan

“Well I know I won’t be able to get back to sleep now, SO I guess I’ll just read for a bit.” I grab my book on my nightstand and sit at my desk to read but the feeling that someone or thing is watching me is still nagging me in the back of my head. I ignore it, brushing it off assuming it’s just my anxiety from waking up during the witching hour.

“Too much Creepypasta will do that,” I say to myself as I move to switch on my desk lamp, but for some reason, it wouldn’t turn on.

I try a few times getting frustrated knowing that I just changed the bulb a few days ago. I go to check the plug power cord and notice there isn’t one, at all. I feel my anxiety spiking and I still have that weird feeling, only more so now. I start to question if maybe I’m still sleeping and I think back to the days of my attempts to lucid dream.

“Let me try something,” I say to myself as I start going through my reality check in my head and testing them out. First, I look at my clock again, seeing it’s still stuck at 3 A.M. with the numbers flash as if the clock was reset, which is admittedly strange since if that was the cause it would flashing midnight So next I try reading my book, only to find that all the pages are blank. Still kind of skeptical, I try one more test just to be sure one hundred percent sure this is a dream and I place my finger in the middle of my palm and push it through, and it does.

With realization, I start getting very excited because I’ve never before been successful at lucid dreaming but I try to calm myself, knowing if I get too excited to could wake up and miss this opportunity. However, the feeling of being watched is now screaming in the back of my head and I quickly look around my room again trying to stay calm, but still, there’s nothing there. Once again I push that feeling away and decide to explore my apartment to see what the dream version has to offer.

I open my bedroom door to find that the small hallway to my living room is now an expansive lite corridor with multiple doors leading to who knows were lining the walls on both my right and left side with my door being the starting point face down the hallway; it seemed to go on forever. Every fiber of my being is telling me not to step into the unending expense, knowing if I enter, I will not be able to get back to the safety of my room. As I continue staring in the abyss, counting the seemingly infinite doors, I notice one of the doors on my right is slightly ajar.

Part of me feels as if the door is beckoning me to enter as if it’s inviting me in but I do not dare step outside the safety of my bedroom. So I open my door a bit more and poke my head out slightly just to get a better look and I could see that the door was leaking something that I could only describe as a black smoke that seemed to consume the light around it. I have a strong urge to slam my door closed and pretend I didn’t see anything, but I continue to stare, reminding myself this is just a dream and that I’m completely safe, or at least I thought I was.

That weird feeling I’ve had up to now is almost unbearable and before I get a chance to close my door, the other swings open with force and the thick smoke-like substance starts pouring out but even more so, as if the room behind the door was on fire, quickly smothering all light in the hallway as it slowly makes its way toward the end of the hall, toward me. My body feels like it froze with fear, unable to move as the black smoke grows closer and my fear rise and heart rate rises. I’m terrified now and I try my best to move but nothing works.

As the black smoke inches closer now just a few feet away, I was finally able to move, so I grab the door handle and close my door as fast I could, but it was not enough. Some of the smoke managed to seep into my room as I closed the door, and my body locked up immediately and I fell to the ground as if I was hit with a high voltage teaser. I slowly started to blackout and the feeling of being watched now consumed my mind causing me to wake up.

I woke back in my room on my bed, laying on my back just staring at the ceiling, but I still couldn’t move. My mind goes into a panic as I know what this phenomenon is. Sleep paralysis, I think to myself as I’m completely unable to speak or move, my eyes dart around my room and I can see that my alarm clock is off for some reason, the light that normally comes in through my window from the street lights is now completely dark. I can see anything but dark but I can once again feel as if something is watching me. Just as that thought crosses my mind and can hear a faint voice calling to me from within the darkness.

I strain my ears hard to comprehend what the voice is saying to me, and then I heard loud and clear as if they were speaking directly in my ear;

YOU SHOULD HAVE CLOSED THE DOOR.