The Wrong Step
It was an ordinary evening.
I was walking home from my friend’s house with my headphones on. The air was cold, and I regretted wearing a tank top. The music kept me distracted, but the sky had turned dark and the streetlight ahead was blinking.
“It’s just a kilometer,” I told myself. “Don’t be scared.”
But I was tired, and there was a shortcut through the woods. Without thinking much, I took it.
Soon, I noticed a tree with an old wooden sign nailed to its trunk.
The words were faint but chilling:
ROOM 999 – DO NOT ENTER!
I should have turned back. But something pulled me forward.
In the middle of the woods stood a strange building I had never seen before. Its walls were cracked, its windows covered in fog. The door had no handle or lock, only a silver plate with these words:
“Knock three times. Enter at your own risk.”
I knocked. One. Two. Three.
The door creaked open.
Inside, there was complete silence. Not even my breath or footsteps made a sound. On the wall, written in blood-red letters, were the words:
“ONE MAY ENTER. ONE MAY LEAVE. SILENCE KEEPS YOU SAFE.”
Then I saw it — a tall, pale creature crawling on the wall, sniffing the air. My heart told me it couldn’t see me, but it could hear me. I froze.
Two doors appeared ahead. One read: “Speak to Survive.” The other: “Silence is Life.”
I chose the first door.
Inside was a hall of mirrors. But these were no ordinary mirrors.
Each one showed a different version of me: one crying, one screaming, one smiling too wide, and one staring with blank white eyes.
A voice whispered inside my head:
“Say my name and you go free. Say a lie and stay with me FOREVER.”
On the floor, there was a name plate: A _ H _ A.
My hands shook. I panicked and said a fake name: “Ananya.”
Suddenly, the ground opened. A force pulled me in like a vacuum.
The next thing I remember — I was in my bed, still in my tank top. Morning sunlight filled the room. Had it all been a dream?
But on my laptop was a glowing message:
“Well played, Ananya 2017. Adhya, you are a very brave girl and the only one who escaped. You are free.”
I never found the app again. I never found the path in the woods again.
But… sometimes at midnight, I still hear the mirrors calling my name.
And maybe the scariest shortcuts are not in the woods at all… but in the everyday choices we make.
