The Last Door
In the oldest quarter of Old Delhi, there exists a narrow alley called Galliyan Mohalla — dusty, forgotten, and rarely walked upon. At the very end of this alley stands a wooden door. Not attached to any house, not connected to any wall — just standing there on its own. Worn out, colorless, and quietly imposing.
Locals whisper stories about it. Some say the door is ancient, older than the city itself. Others claim it’s cursed — that whoever tries to open it disappears. But most people just ignore it, dismissing it as a relic of imagination or history.
But 17-year-old Ayaan wasn’t like most people.
He wasn’t afraid of stories. In fact, he loved them — the stranger, the better. But life hadn’t been kind to Ayaan. His father had left when he was a child, his mother worked two jobs, and his own voice felt invisible in the noise of the world. No one listened. No one cared. He often wrote stories in his notebook, but never shared them — what was the point?
One evening, after losing internet connection during a mobile game, Ayaan found himself wandering through unfamiliar streets. He was chasing a signal, but what he found instead was the Door.
It stood there, silent and motionless — yet something about it called to him. The air grew still. He felt like time itself had paused. On a whim, he reached out and touched it.
The door creaked open.
Beyond it lay no alley, no wall, no Delhi. Instead, a glowing path floated in the air, stretching into darkness and light at the same time. Trees grew upside down, words floated mid-air, and the stars whispered names. It was a world stitched together from imagination — but more real than anything he had known.
“Where am I?” he murmured.
A voice answered, not aloud, but inside his mind:
“You are in the Realm of Untold Stories.”
He walked forward. As he did, he saw people — hundreds of them — each surrounded by floating pages. A girl with wings but no sky, a man holding a broken clock, a child drawing doors that led nowhere. They all had one thing in common: stories that were never heard. Stories silenced, forgotten, or ignored.
Ayaan asked, “Why am I here?”
The voice replied, “Because your story was never read. You belong here — where every untold voice is sacred.”
For the first time, he felt seen.
But then came a choice: stay in this realm and become a Keeper of Forgotten Stories, or return to his world — where he would forget everything he saw, but carry a burning desire to tell real stories, the kind no one dared to write.
The glowing path behind him was fading. The door back was closing.
Ayaan stood frozen. His heart wanted to stay. But he remembered his mother’s tired smile, his empty notebooks, the kids at school who never spoke up, the people around him whose pain went unseen.
He turned.
And ran back through the door — just before it sealed shut behind him forever.
Today, Ayaan is not just a writer. He is a listener of unheard hearts. He writes stories about real people, hidden lives, silent suffering, unspoken dreams. No publisher knows where his words come from, but readers say his stories “feel like they were living inside them all along.”
And in the corner of a forgotten alley, the door remains closed.
But sometimes, on quiet nights, if you listen closely, you might hear pages turning behind it.
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