The first thing I noticed was the grass. It was blue.
Not a shadowed green or the bluish cast of early morning dew—**truly** blue. Deep, lustrous, rippling like a velvet ocean under invisible wind. It swayed, but not from a breeze. The motion was too precise, too synchronized. It was breathing. *Alive.*
I blinked slowly, once, twice, as my brain caught up to what my eyes were reporting. My mouth tasted of ozone and rain. The air smelled like it had just stormed, though the sky was still—an immense ceiling of pale, cloudless gray, so flat it seemed painted. It hummed faintly, not with wind or thunder, but with something deeper. A tone felt in the bones rather than heard.
I sat up. There was no pain. My limbs obeyed. I was barefoot, still in the clothes I’d been wearing back at home—soft flannel shirt, jeans worn at the knees, a comfort-weight jacket for the spring chill. But this wasn’t spring. Or earth. Or anything I could name.
I scanned my surroundings: hills rolled out like waves frozen mid-motion. Trees dotted the horizon, but their leaves glittered silver, almost metallic. Birds floated above them—not flying, just *suspended*, wings outstretched, unmoving. Observing.
Then I remembered the knock.
Three slow raps on the door.
*“A keeper of doors. And a walker…”* The stranger’s unfinished sentence came back to me like a whisper echoing through a canyon.
And now I was here.
I stood, and the grass curled slightly around my feet like the fronds of some curious animal. Beneath it, the ground was warm. Alive. There were no sounds of insects, no wind in the trees. Just that hush—holy, reverent, heavy with meaning I didn’t understand.
Ahead, a path shimmered into view. It hadn’t been there a moment ago. It was narrow and winding, made not of stone or dirt but of light—soft, golden-white, like moonlight trapped under glass. It pulsed, faintly, rhythmically. Like a heartbeat.
I felt a tug. Not physical. Not exactly. But undeniable. That path wanted me. Needed me.
I began to walk.
Each step was weightless, as though gravity was a suggestion here, not a law. The further I moved along the glowing path, the more the world seemed to respond. Trees straightened. The sky brightened. The air buzzed more clearly, as if the place had been holding its breath and was now exhaling with relief.
I had no idea how long I walked. Time didn’t feel linear here. More like a loop with echoes.
Eventually, I came upon a tree taller than any I’d ever seen—its bark bone-white, its branches twisted upward like reaching arms. The leaves shimmered gold and fell in slow spirals that never touched the ground. Underneath it, in the quiet shade, stood a man.
The same man.
Silver-haired. Black coat just brushing the tops of his boots. Calm, unreadable, as though he’d been standing there for years—or moments.
“You’re early,” he said, with the faintest curve of a smile.
“I don’t remember choosing to come here,” I said, voice rough in my throat.
“Few do. But choices make themselves sometimes. Especially for those who hear the knock.”
I stepped closer. “Where am I?”
“You’re between,” he said. “This place is called *The Sky Below*. It's where some come when doors are left open—accidentally or not.”
I looked up. The sky, that strange stretched parchment, flickered faintly, as though it had heard its name.
“You’re saying this is... a mistake?”
“No.” He reached into his coat and pulled something out. “This is a crossing.”
He held a hat in both hands. His hat. The one he’d clutched at my doorstep.
I stared at it. “I didn’t die.”
“Not in the way you mean. Some doors require death. Others require a decision. You stepped toward the unknown. That’s enough.”
I looked behind me. The path still shimmered but now seemed dimmer. Fading. No door, no threshold. Just the blue fields and quiet sky. My world, my home, was gone as if it had never been.
“You said you were a walker.”
He nodded. “And a keeper. I find the doors. Make sure the right ones stay shut.”
“Why me?” I asked.
“Because you heard me. Most people don’t. They ignore the knocks. Or they open them with the wrong heart.”
I hesitated. “What if I don’t want this?”
He didn’t answer. Just extended the hat again.
I took it.
It was heavier than it looked. Soft leather. Warm. Stitched with a thread that shimmered between silver and violet. As soon as my fingers touched it, I felt something crackle down my spine—like thunder wrapped in memory.
“You can leave,” he said quietly. “There are ways back. But once you wear it—truly wear it—you become part of this place. A bridge. A knocker.”
“A knocker?”
“Someone who opens the right doors. And closes the wrong ones.”
He looked past me, toward the fields. “There are things waking. Old things. And not every door was meant to be opened.”
“And I’m supposed to stop them?”
“You’re supposed to listen,” he said, smiling faintly. “The rest comes with time.”
I looked at the hat. Then the tree. Then him.
He was fading. Not disappearing exactly—more like sinking into the space around him, becoming part of the tree, the air, the hum.
“One more thing,” he said, voice now echoing like wind in a cavern. “Knock first. Always knock. Not every world wants company.”
And then he was gone.
The tree shimmered once and fell still. The sky dimmed. The light-path behind me vanished. I stood in a silence so pure it rang.
I put the hat on.
It fit like it had been waiting.
And then the world cracked open.
Not violently. Not with sound. Just—a fold. A wrinkle in the fabric of what was. And from that fold, a door emerged. Simple. Weathered. Wooden. Brass knob. Just like mine back home.
But the air around it was thick. Buzzing. And it *watched me.*
I stepped forward. Raised my hand.
And knocked.
From the other side, something shifted.
Not a threat.
An invitation.
The door opened.
And I walked through.
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React
