The First Door appeared three years ago and it brought famine. Suddenly, crops were depleted. Cows, chickens, and any other livestock started dying. Water became scarce. Like the world stopped, like it stopped spinning to reproduce, like it forgot there are people relying on it. Everyone was baffled, unsure, and more than that, afraid. Scientists tried to find out what happened but they can’t find any explanation especially since the time of its discovery, the Second Door appeared.
Sickness is what the Second Door brought. Due to severe non-existence of food and water, humans are easy targets of any disease. You wouldn’t cross a hallway without someone coughing, without someone retching, and without someone having seizure on the floor. And to make it worse, medicine mysteriously dried out and doctors and nurses started contracting diseases too.
The first two Doors took a great toll to humanity. More than a quarter of the world’s population died out...or just disappeared.
What’s left of the survivors are nothing but people who are barely breathing. We began turning to each other. Cities were ransacked. War escalated. Innocents were killed. No human trust another human.
And this was only three years ago since the first two Doors appeared.
It’s all because of people opening what they do not understand. Those Doors floating in the midair, just a simple turn of the knob and desolation was unleashed.
I was fifteen years when I first heard of the chilling news of the First Door. There was the bony lady on the screen, talking about sudden death of livestock in different places in all of the continents. Her voice was sickly, that’s what I remember. She’s on the verge of breakdown and it’s evident by her soupy voice.
I remember just being inside the house, for weeks. My parents would go out and me and my two siblings are sometimes left for the entire day without knowing what’s happening outside. Bloodcurdling screams from my neighbors became a common occurrence, large trail of smokes from distant towns also became a customary sight. Our parents would return from almost a day of a trip with bloodshot eyes. They wouldn’t speak to us, like the horrors they witnessed were unspeakable and I expected it to be. However, my father said something to me one time after their trip, “There is hope.”
But this didn’t stop the Second Door. Soon, the disease caught up to our family. The youngest of us, my sister, just four, suddenly fell ill and without warning she died two days after catching the disease. A disease we don’t even know what. My parents decided we should leave the house as from their last trek, they’ve seen men on trucks patrolling, looting, maiming, and killing people.
It was dusk when we left. Father and mother deduced that it’s better to venture out at night as the patrolling men might be resting. Without even shining our torches, we walked in the darkness, our feet trying to grope the paths that we’re taking.
Fortunately, we didn’t encounter any of the patrolling men, and in a day we finally reached the city.
And we were quickly relieved.
There are people here, decent people. The city has been barricaded, tall gates made out of metal with barbed wires at the top of the perimeters. Armed men point their lights on us and asked who we are, if we are sick or if we are bad people. If we’re bad people, they’ll shoot us where we’re standing.
“Not bad people!” My father croaked, his hands in the air, shivering. “Just hungry.”
Two armed men at the top of the fences nodded at each other and soon the gates were opened. There are bright lights everywhere. And more grilled fences. People are huddled in corners, draped with blankets. There are tens and people in white accommodating people lined up. Might be giving shots? Or handing out food? I didn’t bother to know because the sirens rang. Everyone screamed. Everyone at the street that was made as an outpost started moving. The Siren.
The Siren, it only means one thing.
After The Siren, followed the voice of a lady.
“The Third Door has been opened. Found in Vanuatu. I repeat, the Third Door has been opened.”
Men gasped. Mothers tightened their embrace on their children. The armed men started communing. No one knows what the Third Door will bring but everyone’s sure it’s worse than the two first Doors.
My parents, my brother, and I glued our backs on a wall, hugging each other, looking at the sky, waiting for whatever the Third Door will bring.
As if on cue, the noise died down. I turned and saw a man in the middle of the clearing. He’s balding with a gut but he’s imposing and he’s wearing a fine suit.
“We shouldn’t panic, everyone! Haven’t you heard or read about Pandora’s box -- pithos, rather? There will always be hope. But I think before that, annihilation will come but it won’t be long until we will be saved. And I believe one of the Doors in the future will bring it. These are only trials. Let us persevere! Hope will come!”
People started hooting then throwing stuff at him but he didn’t flinch. He only stood there, looking at the desperate people.
People coming together, in pairs, in groups. They started attacking the armed men, screaming “Let us out here!”, “Do something!”, “Save us!”, “You didn’t even give us enough food!”
My family and I didn’t join them, we only held hands. My father whispering, “There is hope. You are hope.”
Riot. Bodies hitting each other. Gunshots, people on the ground. The man in the suit now on the pavement, blood oozing from his head. Molotovs were thrown. People who looks like they belong to the same group fighting each other. Knives out. Raging strikes.
Disaster is what the Third Door’s storing.
And it came, hard. It came, excruciatingly.
White cracks shot from the sky. There were explosions, blinding light, fire, charred remains of the rioters. And then followed the rain, hard, blistering rain, like bullets on our skins. Everything was a blur, my father held my hand and tugged me. We ran, we ran, and we ran. I heard him say it again, “There is hope.” But the water and the wind is stronger. A giant wave consumed us, I remember being underwater, the water choking me, my insides being turned inside out.
The place is white. Reeling, I stood up and found myself at the same place. Only the buildings were gone, there were only bodies, buried in snow. Yes, snow. It is trickling from the clouds, fast burying my face. I struggled, my head snapping everywhere, screaming my parents and my brother’s name. But it looks like everything was wiped out in mere seconds and quickly replaced by white snow. I didn’t how long I walked but I know I fell a lot of times and every time l fall, I lose unconsciousness and every time I wake it is the same thing.
The next time I opened my eyes, I saw it.
A rectangular oak floating in the air.
I never thought I could see it up close.
Against the snowfall, it is a sight to behold. I inched closer. Should I open it? There is the knob, unaffected by the freezing state.
The man in suit said annihilation will come. It means death, right? But what do I have left? Everyone’s dead already. But this could also mean hope. But what does hope mean?
With shaking hands -- not just from cold, I grasped the door knob. I had to tiptoe as the door is in midair.
They felt like the same thing.
I turned and the door swung open, almost hitting me. I stepped backwards, my shoes sinking in the deep snow.
Inside the door I saw a young girl standing in the middle of whiteout. Behind her are piled up bodies in the pallid field.
I moved away, my whole body trembling and the girl inside the door did the same.
And that’s when I realized.
We had opened the doors a long time ago and it showed us that we’re both hope and annihilation.
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