Bubbles and Wind Chimes Part 1
A Short Story in two sections.
Introduction
Hello everyone! I have another short story for you this week. I wrote this one while I was an RA in college. It’s a very unique experience to have to look after a bunch of eighteen to twenty-two-year-olds while still feeling like a kid yourself.
I hope this story with its twists of magic gives you a sense for what it was like!
The Story
The door was wooden and narrow. Black, but shoddy, as if someone had tried to stain the wood to a dark brown and was overzealous in their attempt. There were six little windows of opaque glass towards the top, but they were smooshed together in an uncomfortable looking way, as if none of them had the space to breathe.
The sound itself came through those windows. Like far off wind chimes, there was a tinge of the unnatural and unfamiliar to it. It was like someone had taken the time to make the individual chimes clink together in such a way that only sung minor keys.
Other than the noise, though, the hallway was barren. No boys sneaking away from an unnamed girl’s dorm clad in socks and sweats, with the hope of evading the piercing gazes of their ex-girlfriends; no girls milling about in tube tops and six inch heels; not even a quiet introvert attempting to sneak off to the bathroom before their acquaintances could drag them out to the bars.
This was how she liked it. If not for the door, she would have called it a perfect night.
She didn’t have access, not even with her staff key. But the sound was tempting, Siren-like. No matter how close she got to the musty wood, the music was distant, like hearing it through water, like it moved further away from her with every step she took to chase it down. The glass was just see through enough that small shifting shadows could be seen through the little windows when the moonlight shown through just right.
She was almost done completing her nightly rounds, and as she reached the end of the hall and placed her hand on the doorknob, it sent an electric shock up her arm and into her neck. She yelped.
Her hand tingled and as the creaky bell tower at the top of Bentley Hall rang twice, but even through the shock, she thrust the door open wide. She stumbled backwards, the gaping maw of the doorway paralyzed her, and a wispy breeze wafted through suggesting an unnatural amount of space for what she had always hoped—but never assumed—was a broom closet.
It was open?
The cold air tickled as it wrapped around her bare legs, tendrils attempting to suck her into the black hole like a riptide.
She pulled the Duty Phone out of the small, neon green, fanny pack her bosses had ordered her to wear and checked the time. 2:02 AM. She shone the flashlight into the room, but the darkness never faded. It was as if the light hit a wall two feet in front of her.
Should she need to report this?
The door squeaked and time slowed down as she was faced with a deeply primal internal question: do I need to know?
Could she live with never knowing what was through the darkness? Could she put it to rest in her mind or would she always be wondering, always curious, and never satiated with the answer. Something told her the door was meant to be locked, something told her it was open for a reason and she wouldn’t ever see it this way again.
She rushed through and launched herself in sideways before the door shut with a slam, just barely missing the tips of her fingers.
She found herself in a cavernous dark room that went on for eternity. There was a wet misty breeze on her cheeks which was the only inclination of the room’s real size, and when she turned around, the door was gone. There was nothing to see, nothing to touch, no wall where the door was. The only sensory stimulation was the ringing of the strange chimes, still frustratingly quiet, but loud enough.
She hated the dark.
She picked her feet up one after another and made a few hesitant steps forward while testing the ground with little taps; travelling further into the darkness that enveloped her. Eventually she started trying to follow the sound, but it appeared to be coming from all around her, ringing like heeled shoes in a stairwell.
She turned to the left. A guess at best but, after what felt like hours, the darkness around her began to fade. It dripped down off white walls and faded below her feet. She looked up to a narrow black door with six opaque windows in the top.
Her head whipped around to find the same empty hall and the same oppressive florescent lighting as before. Her Duty phone read 2:02AM.
She definitely didn’t need to report that.
She walked along the college dorm hallway and came to a stop in front of her meticulously designed bulletin board. Thinking over with a frown how her bosses didn’t like it. A sigh drifted through her lips as she made her way into her own room a few doors down. Just as she was about to climb into bed the phone in her fanny pack rang with its bell tower alarm.
“Bentley Duty Phone,” she said mechanically. Just like her bosses trained her to.
“Yeah, hi,” a high pitched voice came through with just a hint of a valley girl lilt, “The attic door got open somehow…” The voice died off as if expecting her to know what that would require of her.
Luckily, she did.
She hung up the phone and grabbed the butterfly net in her closet. Normally it was public safety’s job to catch the little mongrels whenever they got out of the attic, but recently they stopped coming over for such “trivial” matters, so it was up to her and the six other people on staff to catch the sky mice. At least she wasn’t afraid like Tara.
At first she’d been excited her university would have so much history, so much story to tell in it’s over two-hundred years of existence, but after a while she realized it meant the admin could market the place as “historic” as an excuse not to update anything.
She made her way up the front stairwell until she finally came to an ID swipe checkpoint and a large door. Releasing a held breath, she moved forward deeper into the hallway keeping her eyes glued to the ceiling in hopes of spotting the couple bats that had somehow escaped the attic.
She had just made her way around the corner at the end of the hall when a blast of fire careened down through the hallway. She cursed loudly and ducked before searching for the assailant. Her eyes widened.
Flying rambunctiously around the ceiling lights were four small dragons, hardly the size of her arm. Her mouth hung open as she dropped the net.
The dragons turned her way and dive bombed. She ran around the corner and slammed back against the wall as four fire blasts streaked past her.
She took the end of her braid in hand. The tips were charred.
Conclusion
Thanks so much for reading. I hope to see you back in a few days for part two!
As always, happy writing!