The old man had always said that the city was built on bones. No one ever took him seriously, not even his own family. He lived in a crumbling apartment on the edge of town, where the streetlights flickered and the wind carried whispers through the cracks in the walls. He would sit by the window for hours, watching the shadows stretch and twist in the alleyways below. When he died, no one mourned. His funeral was small, attended only by a few neighbors who didn’t know what to say. But the stories started after that. People began to talk about the “Red Door” at the end of 12th Street. No one knew exactly where it was, but those who claimed to have seen it described a rusted, unmarked door nestled between two abandoned buildings. It was always closed, but sometimes, if you stood very still and listened closely, you could hear a low, rhythmic tapping from inside—like someone knocking, or maybe something else entirely. A group of teenagers, curious and bored, decided to investigate. They found the door late one night, hidden behind a tangle of ivy and broken concrete. The air around it felt colder, as if the temperature had dropped ten degrees. One of them, a girl named Lila, reached out to touch it. The moment her fingers brushed the metal, a sound like a distant scream echoed from within. The others ran, but Lila stayed, frozen, her breath visible in the air. The next morning, she was found sitting in front of the door, eyes wide, muttering something about "the ones who remember." She never spoke again, only stared at the door with a strange smile on her face. The police dismissed it as a breakdown, but the people in the neighborhood knew better. That night, the tapping stopped. Not long after, a new legend spread through the city: the Red Door opened once every seven years, and those who entered were never seen again. Some claimed it led to another world, others to a place beyond time. A local historian, intrigued by the story, spent months researching old maps and records. He discovered that the area where the door was located had once been a burial ground for a forgotten religious sect. Their symbols were carved into the stones beneath the city, invisible to the naked eye. One evening, a young artist named Marco heard the story and felt compelled to visit. He had always been drawn to the strange, the forgotten, the places where history seemed to breathe. He arrived at the door just as the moon rose, its light casting long shadows across the pavement. He knocked three times, then waited. Nothing happened. But as he turned to leave, the door creaked open slightly, revealing a narrow passage lit by an eerie blue glow. Marco stepped inside, his heart pounding. The corridor was lined with faded murals depicting figures with hollow eyes and elongated limbs. The air smelled of damp earth and old paper. At the end of the tunnel, a room opened up, filled with mirrors that reflected not the present, but glimpses of different times—people from centuries ago, children playing in the streets, and the same red door, standing alone in the distance. He reached out to touch one of the mirrors, and suddenly, the world shifted. He was no longer in the tunnel. He stood in a city that looked familiar yet wrong, as if it had been altered by some unseen force. The people moved without sound, their faces blank. He turned and saw the red door again, now open, and inside, a figure beckoned him forward. Before he could move, a voice whispered in his ear, "You are not the first, and you will not be the last." Marco woke up on the pavement, the door now closed, the city unchanged. He never spoke of what he saw, but from that day on, he painted only dark, dreamlike scenes of forgotten places and shadowed corridors. Some said he had gone mad. Others believed he had seen something no one else ever would. And so, the legend grew. The Red Door remained, silent and waiting, a secret buried beneath the city's surface. Some say it is still there, hidden in plain sight, just a step away from anyone brave enough to look. And when the time comes, it will open again, calling out to those who are ready to listen.