Katie Marie Robinson-Sherlock

I had seen doctored photographs of stairs and freestanding doorways in the woods. I never believed them. You can do so much with a computer and a modicum of skill. But the concept of something so intrigued me, ordinary things appearing somewhere they should not be. It grabbed my imagination, and I often daydreamed about what I would do if I ever found something so familiar and alien at the same time on one of my hikes.

The window was not like that.

The window was exactly where you’d expect it to be, in a wall, in a dilapidated old building in the forest. I thought it had been a hunting lodge or a storage unit, but I could not be sure. The building was mostly just foundations now, with only part of one wall remaining upright. Building debris littered the ground, and the overgrown surroundings added to its charm. This was a picture of nature reclaiming its space.

As I approached, the dank smell of a forest in autumn vanished, and out of nowhere, the smell of crisp, cold salt water took its place. Despite standing in the middle of the forest, I could smell the ocean on a winter morning. I could feel the sea air on my face and taste the salt.

I went closer to the ruin, and the smell grew stronger. The world around me grew quiet. The birds fell silent. Even the leaf litter and debris muffled my footsteps as I walked closer to the ruin. I popped my ears, but it made no difference. The chill in the air increased as the breeze picked up. The wind wrapped around me, firm but gentle, pulling me deeper into the ruin. 

The window did not belong. The longer I looked, the less sense it made. It wasn’t part of the ruined wall, it hovered, slightly detached, slightly wrong. The blackness inside it was not just empty space. It rippled, pulsed, breathed. The edges of the windowframe writhed like something alive, like rotting wood curling inward, forming a hungry mouth.

I stepped closer, and a buzzing started in my ears. It grew louder the closer I went. My vision grew misty at the edges, but again, I moved closer. It knew me. The thought came unbidden, curling in my mind like a whisper. The window knew me. A familiar voice, my own voice, but softer, more intimate murmured from the edges of the blackness.

“Come closer.” I shivered. The words weren’t a command. They were an invitation. I wanted to resist. But it spoke again. “I know what you lost.” My breath hitched. I didn’t know why, but something deep inside me twisted. A grief I didn’t remember having, something I had forgotten, ached at the edges of my thoughts. I took another step. I stumbled over the ramshackle floor, falling to the ground, but the pain and bleeding from my hands and knees were secondary to the unspeakable urge I felt to get closer.

The buzzing in my ears was so loud I had no hope of hearing anything else. The wind whipped my hair, propelling me forward. An overpowering smell of rotten seaweed filled the air. I gagged under the pressure of it all. My body was heavy and slow to move, yet I moved on.

I realised too late that I had no control. As I watched myself, it felt like I was in a dream, unable to prevent my actions. I reached the window and put my hand out, expecting to touch the tarp or cloth. But I watched through my blurring vision as my hand vanished. As if I had placed it in ink black water.

The cold was agony, the pain sharp enough that it went shooting up my arm and into my head. The throbbing cold felt like a stone fist hitting me. It was enough to shock me back into control of my body. I yanked my hand back.

It was clean, dry and unharmed. Ice had crystallised on my palm. As the ice melted, I turned my hand this way and that, watching closely. I felt the world blur at the edges again. Without the pain to anchor me, the disassociation was coming back. I was moving away from myself. Something was pushing me out, gently but insistently. It was a subtle thing, and by the time the ice had melted, it was already too late.

A feeling of grief rose in me, but at a distance, as if I had once again stepped outside myself and was looking down on a heartbroken woman. So lonely and broken by her isolation. She needed to touch the darkness. I watched through my eyes as my hand, unbidden by me, lifted again and sank into the darkness.

Again, the cold was agony, but this time, it was an immediate relief from the soul, shattering grief that not being connected to the darkness had caused. My other hand lifted to join its twin, again without my conscious effort. The cold was indescribable but faded rapidly until I felt nothing in my hands.

A flash of concern. I should be able to feel my hands. I pulled back, fighting my desire to remain in the darkness, to put more of myself inside. My hands stuck, but I could not feel what was on. I pulled harder and came free.

Only my hands were not there.

They were gone. There was no blood. My wrists turned into solid ice. I opened my mouth to scream but could not hear my cry over the buzzing in my ears. The wind pushed hard against me, and I stumbled forward. I fell. And for a moment, I saw. Inside the blackness, inside the void, I saw myself but not as I was. A reflection, a shadow, a woman standing in a vast, frozen sea, staring at me with wide, horrified eyes. She reached for me. I tried to scream. It was me. It was always me. The buzzing swallowed me whole.