The Doorway

The doorknob twisted slowly. Jessica’s grip on her 1911 tightened, her breath controlled but shallow. Every muscle in her body coiled, instincts screaming at her to move, to act, to fight. But she didn’t. She waited.

The air in the room had changed—thicker now, weighted with something unseen. Leanna had moved to her side, her weapon raised, Olivia positioned near the far wall, her fingers white-knuckled around the strap of her bag. No one spoke.

The door eased open an inch. Then another. Beyond it, nothing but darkness. Then— A single footstep. Deliberate. Slow. Just beyond the threshold.

Jessica exhaled quietly, forcing herself to focus, to push past the static rising in her head. The hum was back, curling through her skull, threading into her pulse. She knew this presence. Not by sight but by memory.

Her finger rested lightly against the trigger.

“Jessica.”

The voice was smooth. Familiar. And wrong.

It carried weight, slipping through the room like oil, like something that had been waiting for the right moment to be heard. It wasn’t mechanical, wasn’t distorted—just off, a voice she should know but didn’t, not fully.

Jessica steadied herself. “Who are you?”

Silence.

Then another step.

The door creaked wider, enough to see the outline—tall, humanoid, indistinct against the shadows. No details, no features. Just a shape that did not belong.

Leanna took a half-step forward. “Jessica asked you a question.”

A beat passed. Then— “I know you,” the voice said, softer now. “I’ve always known you.”

Jessica’s stomach twisted. Somewhere beneath recognition, something tore loose—like a thread snagging on broken glass.

A long corridor. Metal walls, smooth as glass. The overhead lights cast an unnatural glow, sterile and clinical. The air is still. Not silent—there is always a hum, always the sound of machines breathing, but still.

She is small. Not a child, but not complete.

A voice beside her, leading her forward. Male. Familiar.

"You have nothing to fear, 04. You are safe here."

She looks at him. His face is wrong, blurred at the edges, as if memory refuses to sharpen the details. But his voice—she knows it. She has always known it.

The corridor ends at a door. A biometric scanner flickers green. The man gestures for her to enter.

"Time to meet yourself."

The door slides open. She steps inside. The first thing she sees is a mirror. And behind it— Another her. Waiting.

Reality slammed back—too bright, too loud. Jessica stumbled, cold blooming behind her eyes, her grip slipping on the pistol.

The figure at the door hadn’t moved. But it hadn’t needed to.

Leanna noticed. “Jess, what is it?”

Jessica swallowed, her throat dry. “It knows me.”

Olivia’s voice was quiet. “Is it Vanguard?”

Jessica shook her head. She wasn’t sure how she knew. But she did.

The figure took another step forward, enough to breach the edge of the light. For the first time, Jessica saw the contours of a face. Her own face. A perfect match—but wrong in the details. The eyes were sharper, the expression neutral to the point of absence. A hollow version, stripped of something crucial. It regarded her with careful detachment. Not curiosity. More like Recognition.

“You were never supposed to leave,” it said.

Jessica’s stomach dropped. She had heard those words before. Somewhere in the back of her mind, locked away beneath years of forgetting. But now, here, in this place, it clawed its way back into the light.

She had been here. She had stood where this thing stood now. The hum in her skull turned into a roar.

‘“Who are you?” she asked again, voice sharp.

The reflection tilted its head.

“I am what you left behind.”

Jessica’s chest tightened. No. Not something left behind. Something she still carried. I am you.

It smiled—a patient, knowing thing. It wasn’t menace, but certainty. Jessica’s body moved before her mind caught up. She fired.

The bullet hit the center mass. The figure did not fall.The impact staggered it slightly, but there was no blood, no wound. The figure absorbed the impact like water swallowing a stone—rippling, but unchanged.

Then it straightened. And it smiled.

Jessica’s pulse spiked. “Run,” she said.

Leanna and Olivia didn’t hesitate. They turned, pushing back through the hallway, retracing their steps with precision, urgency, fear. The air behind them seemed to bend, as though something unseen shifted, something they could not outrun forever.

Jessica didn’t look back. She already knew what she would see. Not a monster. Not a ghost. Just herself. Watching. Waiting. And smiling.

—

They reached the stairwell. Jessica slammed the door shut behind them, breathing hard, her mind struggling to process, to contain what had just happened.

Leanna pressed her back against the wall, exhaling sharply. “What the hell was that?”

Jessica shook her head, wiping the sweat from her brow. “I don’t know.”

But she did. Somewhere in the fragments of memory that were beginning to resurface. She did know.

Olivia spoke, her voice quiet. “That thing—” She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “It wasn’t Vanguard.”

Jessica turned toward her, jaw tight. “No.”

Leanna’s eyes narrowed. “Then what?”

Jessica didn’t answer immediately. She reached into her pocket, fingers closing around the white wooden pawn. The hum in her head hadn’t stopped. It was louder now, not a warning, but an invitation.