The first time Clara noticed the door, it was just a faint shimmer in the corner of her bedroom. She had been staring at the wall for hours, trying to fall asleep after another long day at the university library. The shimmer looked like a ripple in the air, as if the wall itself were breathing. When she blinked, it was gone. She shrugged and turned off the light. But the next night, it appeared again—this time more solid, like a thin veil of smoke. She reached out with her hand, and it passed through without resistance. Curious, she stepped through. Clara found herself in a room that looked exactly like her own, but everything was slightly off. The furniture was the same, but the color of the walls was darker, the shadows longer. A clock on the wall ticked backward. She walked to the window and saw a city outside that wasn’t hers. The buildings were familiar, but their shapes seemed to shift when she wasn’t looking directly at them. She returned to her original room, only to find that the door no longer existed. Panic set in, but she forced herself to stay calm. She began to experiment. Each time she opened the door, she entered a different version of her life. One world had her working as a painter instead of a student. Another had her living in a house by the sea, surrounded by strangers who called her "sister." In one, she was older, married, and holding a baby whose face she couldn’t quite see. The more she explored, the more she realized that these parallel worlds weren’t random. They were connected by something deeper, something she couldn’t name. Each version of herself felt both familiar and foreign, like echoes of a person she might have become. She started keeping a journal, writing down every detail she could remember from each world, hoping to find a pattern. One evening, she discovered a mirror in the hallway of her original room. It wasn’t there before. When she looked into it, she saw not her reflection, but a woman standing in a different room. The woman looked up and met her eyes. Then, slowly, she raised her hand and pointed behind Clara. Clara turned around, but there was nothing there. She turned back to the mirror, and the woman was gone. But the mirror remained, its surface now cracked, like glass that had been struck by something unseen. Over time, Clara stopped returning to her original world. She moved between the others, collecting fragments of lives that weren’t hers. She learned to navigate the shifting landscapes, to recognize the subtle differences that separated one reality from another. She even began to understand that the doors didn’t just open to other versions of herself—they opened to other versions of the world, where choices had taken different paths, where history had diverged. But with each journey, something changed in her. Her voice became quieter, her memories more fragmented. She would sometimes forget what day it was, or which version of herself she was in. The line between real and imagined blurred, and she wondered if she was still the same person—or if she had become something else entirely. One night, she found a new door in the library where she used to study. It was hidden behind a bookshelf, covered in dust and cobwebs. She opened it and stepped through, expecting another version of her life. Instead, she found a dark corridor with no end. The air was thick, and the silence pressed against her ears like a weight. At the end of the corridor, there was a door. It was plain, unmarked, and it pulsed faintly, as if it were alive. She hesitated, then pushed it open. Inside was a room that looked like her childhood home, but everything was wrong. The walls were lined with mirrors, each showing a different version of her. Some were smiling, some crying, some screaming. And in the center of the room stood a figure—herself, but older, with eyes that held centuries of knowledge. "You’ve come," the figure said, her voice echoing in the empty space. "You’ve always come." Clara took a step forward, unsure whether to run or stay. The figure extended a hand, and in it was a key. "This is the last door," she said. "It leads to the beginning. To the choice that never was." Clara stared at the key, her mind racing. She had spent so long searching for answers, but now she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know what lay beyond. What if the truth was worse than the uncertainty? As she reached for the key, the room began to fade, the mirrors shattering one by one. The figure’s voice whispered, "Remember, Clara. You are not just a traveler. You are the bridge." And then, everything went dark.