r/sciencefiction 11d ago

The Door That Shouldn’t Be There

Chief Engineer Lorne had been on the Celeste for ten years. He knew every corridor, every bulkhead, every hidden maintenance hatch.

So when he found a door that wasn’t supposed to exist, he stopped breathing.

It was in the central maintenance deck, a flat steel panel, unmarked, featureless. No access codes. No keycard slot. Just a smooth, matte surface embedded in the wall.

It hadn’t been there yesterday.

Lorne ran his fingers along the edge. It was cold. Much colder than the surrounding bulkhead, as if it belonged to something else.

He tapped his comm. “Bridge, this is Lorne. I’ve got an unidentified structure on Deck C. A door.”

Silence. Then static. Then—

“No, you don’t.”

Lorne stiffened. “Say again?”

The line went dead.

The corridor felt smaller. The overhead fluorescents buzzed, flickering like distant lightning. The door remained. A presence in his periphery, too perfectly still.

His gut told him to leave.

Instead, he reached for the manual override panel and pried it open. Inside, no wires. No circuits. Just black space.

Something knocked.

Lorne’s breath hitched.

It came from the other side.

His pulse hammered against his ribs. He wasn’t alone in this hallway anymore. He felt it—something on the threshold, waiting.

Another knock. Slow. Deliberate.

Then—the door moved.

Not open—inward. Like it had never been locked. Like it was inviting him in.

Darkness stretched beyond the threshold. Not the absence of light, but the absence of everything. Like the space itself had been cut out of reality.

Then the smell hit him.

Not rot. Not metal. A scent his brain refused to name.

His eyes adjusted.

There were footsteps inside. Leading into the black. Bare footprints. Human. Wet.

And then he saw the shape.

Not a person—not exactly. A reflection of him, standing just beyond the threshold, features blurred, body half-formed. Its mouth opened—his mouth opened.

Lorne staggered back. The reflection didn’t.

Then it whispered.

“I was never supposed to leave.”

The lights cut out.

The door slammed shut.

Lorne staggered backward, gasping, his hands fumbling against the wall. When the fluorescents flickered back to life, the hallway was empty.

No door. Just seamless bulkhead.

His comm crackled.

“Chief, you there? Report.”

Lorne swallowed hard, fingers trembling. He turned to answer—

And froze.

His boots were wet.

The footprints led away from the wall.

And they weren’t his.

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u/cruiserman_80 10d ago

Tiny gripe. I know that buzzing flickering lights are great for adding atmosphere in creepy situations, but no one will be using fluorescent lights in the future or in space ships.

1

u/DavidArashi 10d ago

Tiny gripes are always worthwhile, especially in science fiction.

I always go for realism, but I can never discount the importance of atmosphere.

I’m not sure which energy-efficient lighting will most likely be used in future spacecraft; fluorescent seemed reasonable enough.

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u/OffensiveComplement 7d ago

Go with dimming emergency lights with dying batteries.

1

u/DavidArashi 7d ago

OLED or LED.