The Doorway

I had the dream again, it was the third time this month. I’d been having it for years, and I couldn’t seem to escape it. I wiped sweat from my brow, closing my eyes against the memory of it. 

Darkness, empty space that if I keep walking, no matter the direction, eventually leads to a giant wooden door. Strange mist looms around it, as if hiding what is beyond. A circular metal handle hangs from the middle, almost out of my reach, it’s shape is an intricate serpent eating its own tail; Ouroboros. 

Every time I reach up to touch the handle an androgynous voice echoes in my head “If you choose to go through this door, you will never return. Your old life will be lost, but a new life gained.” I could never discern if I was terrified or curious, or maybe both at once. Fear always won, I never failed to wake myself up.

  But each time I had the dream, my curiosity grew. My thoughts always came back to the Ouroboros, I knew what it meant. The cycle of life, death and rebirth. It was my only clue. What would happen if I stepped through? What was on the other side? Would I truly never return? These questions ate at me, constantly lingering in the back of my mind. 

I would find myself daydreaming about the possibilities ceaselessly. I couldn’t help myself wondering that maybe I was meant to go through, maybe this new world was unfathomably wonderful. But my fear of what horrors could be beyond the doorway always crept back, shaking me free of my curiosity. If I never returned what would happen to me in this world? 

Would it be even worse to never know?

…

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-Clever & WTF