Doors 00:BACKDOOR

**DOORS 00**

**DOOR 1: Staircase**

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Ravi didn't know how he got there.

He knew he was on a staircase. Concrete steps, cold under his sneakers. He knew the air smelled like salt and something older, something like rust. He knew his hands were shaking.

He looked up.

There were people on the stairs above him. Sitting. Standing. A short white girl with kind eyes. A Black girl with braids, quiet, watching. Twins, a boy and a girl, identical, already arguing about something. A bigger guy, hanging back, arms crossed, looking at the ground. A shy girl with dark hair, half-hidden behind the Black girl.

Six of them. Including him, seven.

Ravi didn't move.

The short girl—Diamond, though he didn't know her name yet—saw him first. She smiled. It was a small smile, careful, the kind you give a stray cat.

"Hey," she said. "You okay?"

Ravi's mouth was dry. He tried to speak. Nothing came out.

He took a step up. Then another. His legs felt like they belonged to someone else. He reached the landing where the others were gathered, and stopped. He was the youngest. He could feel it. The twins looked maybe eighteen. The bigger guy looked older. Everyone looked older.

"I'm Ravi," he said. His voice cracked. "I don't—I don't know how I got here."

"None of us do," Diamond said.

Brook looked at him. Didn't say anything. Just looked.

The twins stopped arguing.

Taylor—the girl twin, though Ravi couldn't tell them apart yet—tilted her head. "You look terrified."

"I am terrified."

"Fair."

Tyler elbowed her. "Don't be mean."

"I'm not being mean. I'm being honest."

"That's the same thing."

"It's not."

Joe shifted his weight. He was big, broad-shouldered, but he seemed to be trying to make himself smaller. He didn't look at Ravi. He didn't look at anyone.

Xaia peeked out from behind Brook. She was small, delicate, with wide eyes that seemed to take up half her face. She didn't say anything. But she smiled at Ravi. A real smile. Warm.

Ravi felt something loosen in his chest. Just a little.

"Where are we?" he asked.

No one answered.

Below them, the staircase continued down. It ended at a platform. Beyond the platform was water. Gray and endless and very, very quiet.

Above them, the stairs disappeared into fog.

"I woke up here," Tyler said. "Just... here. On the steps."

"Same," Taylor said. "I was in my dorm. Then I was here."

"I was at work," Brook said quietly. It was the first thing she'd said. Everyone looked at her. She didn't elaborate.

Diamond was still looking at Ravi. "You're the last one."

"The last one?"

"We've been counting. Six of us. Then you."

Ravi looked at the group. Six faces. Six strangers. No one he knew. No one who knew him.

"What do we do?" he asked.

No one answered.

Diamond looked up the stairs. Then down. Then at the water.

"We wait," she said. "Maybe someone will come."

No one came.

---

They sat on the stairs for a long time.

The twins bickered. Not real arguing. Just the kind of back-and-forth that siblings do when they're bored and scared and don't know what else to do. Tyler said something about Taylor's hair. Taylor said something about Tyler's face. It went on like that.

Joe sat apart from everyone. He didn't talk. He didn't look at anyone. He just stared at his hands, folded in his lap, and breathed.

Brook sat with Xaia. They didn't talk either, but it was a different kind of quiet. Companionable. Xaia leaned her head on Brook's shoulder after a while, and Brook let her.

Diamond walked up and down the stairs, checking the fog, checking the water, checking the edges of the platform. She didn't find anything. She didn't expect to.

Ravi sat where he'd stopped, a few steps below the others. He pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He was shaking. He couldn't stop shaking.

"Hey."

He looked up. Diamond was standing over him.

"You okay?" she asked again.

He shook his head. "No."

She sat down next to him. Not too close. Just close enough.

"Me neither," she said.

They sat in silence for a while. The wind moved across the water. The fog shifted. The stairs creaked.

"I have a sister," Ravi said, after a while. "She's going to be so worried."

Diamond didn't say anything. She just nodded.

"She's older. She thinks she's my mom." He laughed. It came out broken. "She's going to kill me when I get back."

*When.* Not *if.*

Diamond noticed. She didn't say anything.

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The sky didn't change. There was no sun, no moon, no stars. Just gray, getting darker, or maybe getting lighter. It was impossible to tell.

Taylor stood up. "Okay. I'm bored. And scared. And bored of being scared."

"What do you want to do?" Tyler asked.

"Something. Anything."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Explore?"

"Explore what? There's stairs and water."

"There's fog."

"Fog isn't exploring."

"It's better than sitting here."

Joe finally spoke. His voice was quiet. Deep. "We shouldn't split up."

Everyone looked at him. He didn't look back.

"He's right," Brook said. "We stay together."

Taylor sat back down. "Fine."

The twins went back to bickering. Joe went back to staring at his hands. Brook and Xaia went back to their quiet.

Diamond stood up. She walked to the top of the stairs, where the fog was thickest. She stared into it for a long time.

Then she turned around.

"Okay," she said. "We can't stay here forever."

"We can't go anywhere else," Tyler said.

"We can go up."

"Into the fog?"

"Into something."

No one argued. No one had a better idea.

Diamond looked at each of them, one by one. Brook. Tyler. Taylor. Ravi. Joe. Xaia.

"Stay close," she said. "Don't touch anything. Don't wander off."

She turned and started up the stairs.

One by one, the others followed.

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*End of DOOR 1.*