No sooner had Sarah fallen asleep than she found herself in long dark and dank corridor. Equidistant on each side of the corridor were olden style wooden doors, with brass knobs that you turn to open them and keyholes for old style keys. As far as Sarah could remember it had been many years before her time since people had regularly used doors such as these. She tried each of the doors in turn and each of them was locked. ‘Is there no way out of there?’ She thought to herself, holding back any thoughts of panic or fear as she knew that one of these doors must be the way out.

She hurried done the length of the corridor trying each door in turn, until she reached the end of it, about thirty feet from where she had first found herself. It then branched to the left revealing a corridor that was exactly as the one she had just come down, and tried each of the doors here too. Just as before none of the opened and now she started to feel the fear build within her. No not fear, more a sense of hopelessness that she wouldn’t ever leave here. After another thirty feet the corridor branched again, but this time to the left, and again there was door after locked door. Two, three, four times she bobbed down corridor after corridor; first to the right, then to the left, then right again.

There was nothing but corridor after corridor of locked doors, leading to rooms that contained untold treasures or, worse, untold terrors that could threaten her very existence. The labyrinth of corridors and locked doors was like her mind. Each the doors representing a memory or experience that was forever just beyond her reach. And eventually she stopped manically rushing up and down the corridors, frantically turning and twisting each of the knobs and tried to reason her away the panic that was rising in her.

“Now listen,” she said to herself trying to be reassuring, “there doesn’t seem to be anything that can hurt you and there’s nothing to fear but fear itself” she added unconvincingly. “You’re safe for the time being, so get a hold of yourself.”

When Sarah felt relatively calm she slowly approached the nearest door and tried the knob again; but still with no effect. But now she could hear something, or rather someone behind the door. Unmistakably there it was again laughter; was this unknown person laughing at her futility or were they laughing at some unknown and unseen gag? Either way she thought it was best to move on and sidestepped to position herself outside the next door. This time there she could hear crying. No not crying, more sobbing as though someone was incredibly said and Sarah had the sudden urge to comfort them.

“Are you alright in there?” she shouted through the door, banging on it to make the persons attention. “No….go away” the miserable voice sobbed back at her “Leave me alone!!” It wailed through the solid wooden door. While the voice was distorted with sorrow, it was however unmistakably Sarah’s, or at least a younger version of her. She hesitated and before Sarah could bang or shout again the sobbing was gone. Sarah couldn’t help but wonder what was behind these doors, and again this place felt like the labyrinth of her mind, memories locked away behind these old oak doors. But memories of what? Had that represented some terrible experience she had as a child or was it just her mind playing tricks on her? Taking advantage of her need to know her past perhaps.

Before she could ponder this any further Sarah had desperate need to move on the next door and this time chose one on the other side of the corridor. As soon she got close to Sarah wished she hadn’t as the first thing that caught her attention was that the paint had started peeling away, right there in front of her; as though it were somehow decaying right before her eyes. Then it hit her; not a gentle friendly tap on the nose sort of hit, but a full blown punch in the face that sent her reeling back a couple of steps. What had hit her so suddenly and forcibly was the smell, it was like someone had just opened the door of some ancient tomb and several millennia of decomposition had been released all at once, and along with the smell was a palpable and solid flying brick of air that she had been in the way of.

The stench doubled Sarah up as she coughed frantically as though this would exorcise the alarmingly dire pungent odour that seemed to pour forth from the very timbers of the door in front of her and it took her several minutes to clear foulness from her nostrils. Or perhaps it was more a case of Sarah getting used to odour, then it had actually dissipated from around her, but she was then able to move back up close to oak door.

This time, instead of sobbing or laughter, or some other humanlike sound, there was a low rumble like a jet engine warming up to full thrust, except it wasn’t a jet engine, it sure couldn’t be. It sounded more organic than anything. Then, almost immediately after this, there was scratching. Which didn’t sound like some small kitten patting the door to be let in, it was more like some foul beast straight out of Hades sharpening its talons against the wood on the other side; or worse still trying to break through the door and get out.

The panic that Sarah had fought so successfully a few moments before was now back with a vengeance, and she back heeled for the safety of the far wall. And as soon as she reached it the noise, and stench were gone, and all was quiet. She felt behind and the cold solid stone she found there was almost as reassuring as being able to pull a warm, familiar, blanket around tightly herself.

When the panic and fear had subsided within her to a more bearable level, Sarah realised that there was now a new sound that faintly reached her ears over the loud pumping of her heart. It was at first unrecognisable, but familiar and sounded like a low, quite thumping. But it was less so and more like a beating than a thumping sound and it seemed to be coming from one of the far doors on this side of the corridor. Sarah moved cautiously towards, not knowing what she be faced with next and it only took her a few steps to reach it.

When Sarah reached this door, she placed her hands so that they would be either side of her head, turned her head sideways and lowered her ear to the door so she could hear more clearly the slow patter of that lay beyond it. It was definitely a slow regular beat, almost like her own heart beat, yes ‘that was it’ she exclaimed in her mind ‘it’s a heartbeat’. She listened to it intently for the next four or five minutes, taking in the relaxing rhythm that it sent through her own, shaking, body and found it extremely relaxing. Her own heartbeat, and breathing, then relaxed almost to point you would expect of someone at rest, sleeping even.

The heartbeat slowed almost to a standstill and with it so did Sarah’s; right to the point where her own heart all but stopped and all she could was the slow, barely audible thump…thump behind the door. Sarah could feel the life draining from her body as the rhythm behind her faded away to nothing and she was left with nothing but her own heart slowing in her chest, which in turn seemed to rise and fall as she imperceptibly inhaled and exhaled. She could feel herself becoming more light headed due to lack of oxygen as the seconds ticked by and her thought processes shut down. ‘So this is it’ Sarah thought to herself ‘suffocated in a dream.’

Then she found herself standing up looking down at herself, the life draining out of the frail deathly pale carcass just lying there, drifting out existence. Sarah then noticed that she could through the body she was looking down at that, before her eyes, become no more than outline against the pitch black of the door. As the body became translucent she could see the door behind but could also just make out the shades of her outfit, and the pale red hair as though it was a bottle and she was looking at herself through it. It then disappeared complete before her eyes and Sarah couldn’t help but wonder what it meant and whether she too would wither and fade way to nothing.

‘Come on’ she said to herself trying to gee herself in to action. ‘Time to leave.’

With that Sarah strode on purposefully around the next corner only to be faced this time by a corridor with blank walls. as she strode down the corridor a chill started to run down her spine, and Sarah felt compelled to look back the she had came in order to see if there were anyone following her or any clue to what had caused the chilling sensation. But nothing, that us Sarah literally saw nothing as the corridor behind had now become engulfed in pitch blackness as if the torches that had seemed to illuminate this place had all gone out in her wake. Sarah then felt herself shiver again, and quickened her pace as she moved forward almost at a run in order escape some unknown and unseen terror. Looking behind her as she did so, Sarah could see the nothing engulfing the walls, floor and even the light as it seemed to chase after her, seemingly matching her now frantic pace.

Heart beating faster now as the adrenaline kicked, and keeping an almost continuous watch behind her as though the nothing could engulf her too or that some foul beast would swoop out of it to catch her, and in doing so Sarah didn’t see the wall until she had collided with it. Her heart was still beating at the same ferocious rate as before and her lungs sucking air in at a comparable rate, so much so that it seemed to burn her throat as inhaled each lungful of air as though the air itself was on fire. She then looked at the nothing with a steely gaze that told of her determination that she would face came next with the frenzied courage that comes of knowing one’s very survival is at stake whatever, even though she felt petrified of whatever was behind the chilling sensation that made her look back moments ago. The memory of that foul beast clawing that she had heard at the door was at the forefront of her mind.

When nothing happed Sarah almost felt as though it was something of a letdown, a real anticlimax as she crouched there ready for flight or to fight with adrenaline pumping through her. After several minutes, could even have been hours for all the sense of time that Sarah had, still nothing had happened and Sarah wondered whether anything would. Then, feeling a little braver and a lot calmer than she had done, Sarah stood up and looked right into the heart of the blackness that she saw before her. ‘Well?’ Sarah asked of it as though the blackness itself could answer, ‘Is there anybody there?’ This she demanded of it waving her arms at it as though she were issuing a challenge to whatever there was in the could dark before her.

Nothing answered. Sarah then decided to take another tack and walked straight into the centre of the void that had come to rest no more than five feet from the wall she had ran into. After a few seconds she found herself standing in an almost identical corner that she had just left, in fact it looked to her as though it were identical. This she repeated three times with the exact same result and just before she tried for a fourth Sarah took off her left boot and placed it in the centre of the back wall. She then walked into the void again and reappeared facing the boot she had just taken off; or at least a very similar one. For good measure this she repeated twice more, with the same result and before she could try for fifth time she reached down and picked up the boot.

Sarah then crumpled in the corner and wailed ‘IS THERE NO WAY OUT OF HERE?” at no one in particular nor in any particular direction. Just as she felt the dark despair of hopelessness drift over her mind, felt a tired tear trickle down her check, Sarah noticed to her left a door. It looked just like all the others, and Sarah would have sworn it hadn’t been there a few minutes before. She then stood up, and after replacing her boot, she turned to face the door. Unsurprisingly it, too, was seemed to be made of oak, had an old style keyhole and a metallic handle.

After a couple of minutes of thought Sarah rapped her knuckles three times on the old wood and waited. Nothing, just as she had expected, except there came what seemed like an echo from the other side of the door that seemed to mimic her knocking. Sarah then tried again and again there was the echo as though there was something on the other side of the door knocking back. This unexpected, almost eerie, sound made her take a couple of steps backward and when she had regained her composure, what there was of it left that is, she strode back to within inches of the door.

This time Sarah reached out with her right hand and wrapped her fingers around the cold metal loop, gripping it tightly. As she gripped the handle, Sarah considered that she should perhaps call out to whoever had returned her knocking and find out who it was, but at that moment she was desperate to open at least one of these unmoving doors. She then turned the handled towards the wall that was now to her left and it moved, imperceptibly at first but it had moved. The handle then began to shift in the direction Sarah had turned her hand and she could feel the catch lifting off from whatever it had rested on for all these centuries.

Once the handle had turned all the way and would turn no more, Sarah pushed the door inwards, but it would not move as either it was too heavy for her to shift or the hinges had rusted solid with the passing of time. She then took a couple of steps back, and forced all of her weight and strength against the immoveable obstacle in her path. The door then creaked open a bit and, encouraged buy her efforts, Sarah took another lunge at the door and it opened fully. Nothing could have prepared her for what she saw on the other side, and Sarah could feel herself take a noticeable and heavy intake of breath at what she saw.

There, about twenty feet inside the doorway, was what looked like a bubble and at first Sarah was not able to make out the figure inside the bubble. She moved, cautiously, about ten feet into the room and could now fully see the contents of the bubble. Inside there was an olive skinned woman with dark hair cut squarely at shoulder length and she seemed to be wearing a white tunic that came down to just above her knees. If she had seen Sarah then did not acknowledge her or move noticeably.

After the initial shock, Sarah walked up to the bubble and ran her hand gently down it as if caressing the smooth, glass like, material. She then held her hand in one place on the bubbles surface and, feeling as though she were being compelled by some unknown force, looked directly at the woman. The woman then acknowledged Sarah for the first time and raised her hand to touch the bubble at the same point, on the opposite side of the bubble, as Sarah’s. For a few seconds Sarah felt nothing by joy and wonderment.

Then, suddenly and violently Sarah felt herself flung back to where the other side of the doorway and felt as the door had slammed shut in her face. She sat there for several minutes crumpled on the floor, bemused at what had just happened. Sarah then felt saturated by the most malodorous odour there could possibly be and as she breathed in this foul stench looked up to see what could be causing it. There, standing over her, was a tall human like figure whose entire body was covered in a cowled robe that was so black it seemed to suck the light out of the room.

“Not time yet!” it stated as it raise a covered finger and pointed toward to an incandescent light that now replaced the wall that had been opposite the door Sarah had just passed through. Sarah forced her legs under her, even though they now felt useless and as heavy as lead. Daring to look at the figure next to her, and shivering under the stare if its unseen eyes, Sarah forced her legs to propel her stumbling through the light that bared her way.

Almost improbably somewhere in the distance Sarah could hear a bell ringing; a very familiar bell but one that despite its familiarity she couldn’t quite place. Then it started to get louder and closer; closer and louder until it filled the entire room, then it filled the whole of her hearing and then, finally, the whole of her consciousness; until there was only her and the bell ringing the distance. There was nothing but soul enveloping darkness. But somewhere in the not so far distance Sarah thought she a glint in the distance.