Pentober 2026 - Day 10: Door

Ok so, what is Pentober? Promptober? It's a writing tradition that's been around the web for a while where you write up a short story every day in October based on prompts. Some go for pen and paper, some digital; everyone has their own style. I'll be posting here, and I'll be using the prompts from https://www.topinfiction.com/p/pentober-2026 

House rules are that I vomit-write the story; no planning, just taka taka taka on the keys. I get ONE edit at the end of the draft (if I even have time, lol), then we post it. House rules also say that I get to play catch up and do multiple days separately on one day or combined if work gets wild and I can't write. Get it? Got it? Good! Here we go.

---

"Look, there's a door."

"A what?"

"A door. Don't you remember doors? Handles. Hinges. Wood. A moveable barrier between rooms?"

Tyler thought for a moment, "A door...yes. I do remember doors, Les."

"We haven't seen a door in how long?"

"Four thousand, seven hundred, and seventy-five stage pieces. It's always been a shadow, a ladder, or a chute."

"I wonder how much time that's been?"

"I don't remember time."

"You remember clocks?"

"I remember that time with the talking clock and the bureaucracy...that was a strange one..."

"I hope those people are OK."

"Yeah..."

"...to come is easy and takes hours; to go is different and may take centuries..." There was the ambient voice again, breaking above the noise floor. They had learned to mostly ignore it, like a rambunctious cat knocking about a room at night.

"Do we open it?"

"Have we finished really exploring this place yet?" Tyler squeezed hard on the 'glow-worm' he had wrapped around his neck as a scarf and threw its ichor across more of the space. It became increasingly clear there were in some sort of coffee shop. Warm wood tones, leather-seated chairs, white stone countertops, chrome machines, and an extensive collection of vinyl paired with turntables and a sound system indicated the room was...from some point in time...Tyler couldn't be sure. 60s? 70s? 00s? 20s? 40s? Japan? Scandinavia? California? Where even was here?

Les had walked over to the door to study it, "It's locked. It needs a key. It's really thick."

"I wonder if this all works," Tyler was entranced by the machinery, "How long has it been since we saw machinery?"

"There was that re-construction site. Where we had those drills. The man's brain with the drinking problem."

"That's right, we had to drill him. He hadn't the discipline. So he had to be drilled. That was strange. The rules are strange here."

"Try putting this one on," Les pulled out a record from one of the stacks and looked it over, "I don't know what a Pizzicato is." She handed it over to Tyler, who put it on a deck and started hitting switches to see if there was any power.

There was. The record began to spin, lights began to dimly come on in the room, and music began to play. It was too slow, like the record player was still getting up to speed.

"I came back from a short trip, I took near the end of August"

Les took a second record down from the stack and put it on the other deck. It began to spin as well.

"As long as we have something to believe in, I will surely find the door. Even if I can't take you there. There's no need to cry...Only god to cry now...Now he's crying for an axe...my heart is still broken too, please, don't say goodbye...I suppose—I suppose you are in love....”

"Did you hear that?"

Tyler looked up at Les and nodded, "How could I not?"

"...in the labyrinth of sounds now issuing from that instrument there was something being hunted..."

"What's the other sound?" There was static fuzz emanating from all over the room. They felt dizzy, as if they themselves were spinning. Tyler looked into one of the record sleeves and found an answer.

"They're all spinning themselves."

The volume began to increase as more and more records began to come online.

"As long as we have something to believe in, I will surely find the door. Even if I can't take you there. There's no need to cry...Only god to cry now...Now he's crying for an axe...my heart is still broken too, please, don't say goodbye...I suppose—I suppose you are in love....”

The voice that had been following them, whispering to them in the ambient spaces between sounds, was infecting the lyrics, spreading to them. Drowning out the beautiful voices with its own drowsy, mocking, sneering voice.

The lights kept getting brighter and brighter. Warm wood tones seemed bleached to bone white. The couple had to squeeze their eyes shut and lay prostrate on the ground, crawling for each other, to get as far away from the light and sound as possible.

"...This paradise of a labyrinth. There is no exit; there is no ending. I want to be wrapped inside...Knocking on midnight's door. I beg you not to go home tonight."

"Les, the door, the lock!"

Light was flickering in and out through the lock's keyhole, as if something was flickering back and forth through it. Les was closer. She crawled forward, pulled up by the doorknob, oppressed by a wall of sound and light, and peered through the keyhole.

"Rooms and shadows! It's a roulette wheel. Still locked!"

"How do we stop it?"

"I don't know, how do you stop the music?" Les shouted back at Tyler, dropping down to the ground again to crawl over to his ear, to stop shouting and start whispering.

"How do you end a party? What ends an evening?"

Les thought for a moment, "Daylight? A long party night ends in daybreak?"

"But it's bright as shit in here," Tyler, exhausted, said back.

"Day ends at nightfall?"

"Can't we just try and open the door?"

"...to go is different and may take centuries...in this paradise of a labyrinth of sounds now...only God...cry...love...cry...believe...in something...being hunted..."

Les and Tyler stared at each other for a moment. That was different. It had never interpolated its 'sounds' before. That was an evolution. It was changing how it behaved.

"We've got to move on from this. We can't get stuck here," Tyler said.

"I have an idea," Les said, "Every room here has always been decayed, ruined," they crawled over to a standing lamp and yanked it to the floor, shattering it. The music got quieter. The lights dimmed. They stood up.

Tyler began grabbing coffee mugs and throwing them at sconces. Les bashed the turntables against the stone countertops, chipping them in the process. They ripped cabinets off hinges. Slowly, the room faded to darkness, the sound cut out, the sensation of spinning stopped. They were in shadows again. Them and the door.

"Do we try and open it," Les asked, "It's unlocked, it seems," they said, rotating the handle.

"I...I'm not sure," Tyler stuttered. "We could just go back into the shadows, find a new stage to explore, a new scene."

Les had opened the door. It let out into the room their journey had started; the door was across the room from the chute. Sunlight was streaming through the holes in the exterior wall of the asylum. It was daybreak.

"Don't you want to go home, Ty?"

"I don't really have much of a home. Wandering here has felt more like home to me then back there. Wandering here with you is home."

"But I want to go back. I want to see what's left, how much time has passed. Is my cat still OK?" Tears began to stream down Les' face.

"I'm scared to stick to one place, Les."

The shadows pulled tight to their bodies, wrapped around them, held them close.

"I need to go, Ty. I need to know. I need to rest. Please, come find me."

Les stepped through the door. Tyler lunged for the handle. The shadows clung to him, held him back, and the knob just kissed his fingertips as the door passed them on its way to closing. Shadows crept up and swallowed the door. They swallowed Tyler. The ambient voice broke the noise floor yet again.

"...As long as we have something to believe in, I will surely find the door. Even if I can't take you there. There's no need to cry...my heart is still broken too, please, don't say goodbye..."