The Skin Door
July 20, 2025
In the middle of Rook’s Wood stood a door.
No walls, no frame—just a decaying wooden door standing upright, like it had been dropped there by mistake.
Everyone in Larch Hollow knew about it. Everyone avoided it.
Except for Jessa.
At seventeen, Jessa had grown tired of the town’s stories. Ghosts in the trees, witches in the fog, and always the door—the so-called “Skin Door,” named after its legend: that it opened only for those who offered it something living.
“Fairy tale garbage,” she muttered, pushing past the brambles.
The door stood ahead, leaning ever so slightly, cracked in the middle like it had once been struck with lightning. Its iron handle was wrapped in something brownish-red. Dried leather. It looked like skin.
Jessa approached it carefully.
Just wood. Just iron. Just rot.
She reached out, touched the handle.
Nothing happened.
But when she turned to go, she heard a low creak.
The door opened—just a sliver.
And behind it was nothing.
Not trees. Not sky. Just a black, rippling void.
That night, Jessa couldn’t sleep.
The door appeared in her dreams, slightly ajar, whispering her name in voices that weren’t quite human.
She woke to find dirt on her feet.
“I didn’t go back,” she said aloud, but something in her heart doubted it.
The next morning, she returned.
This time she brought her dog, Kip. Just in case.
The door stood just as she left it—open slightly.
She pulled it all the way open.
Kip barked and whined, backing away.
Behind the door: nothing. A moving dark, like ink dropped in water.
She grabbed a rock and tossed it through.
No sound.
Then the door closed on its own.
When she opened it again, the void was gone. Just trees on the other side.
“I must’ve imagined it.”
But Kip wouldn’t stop barking for the rest of the day.
That evening, her brother Caleb found her sitting on the back porch, quiet.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he said.
“I saw something,” she muttered. “The door—it’s not normal.”
He frowned. “Jessa. You didn’t go through it, did you?”
“No. But it wanted me to.”
He looked pale.
“Mom used to talk about that door,” he said. “She called it a hunger.”
“A what?”
“She said it didn’t open to anywhere. It opened from something.”
Jessa swallowed. “Why didn’t she tell me that?”
“She tried. But you were always too stubborn to listen.”
Jessa looked away.
Behind them, Kip barked again. Then stopped. Too suddenly.
They turned.
The dog was gone.
That night, she returned to the woods alone.
Her flashlight barely pierced the fog.
She found the door standing wide open.
Behind it: darkness.
“Kip!” she called. “Come on, boy!”
A sound came back.
Not barking.
Something else. Wet. Slithering. Mimicking her voice.
“Kiiip…”
Then something stepped through.
It looked like Kip—but its legs were wrong. Too long. Its eyes glowed red for a second, then dimmed. It opened its mouth.
And said: “Jessa.”
Her legs failed her. She fell backward, scrambling, flashlight shaking.
“Stay away!” she shouted.
The thing blinked slowly, like it didn’t understand.
Then turned around.
And stepped back through the door.
Gone.
The door slammed shut behind it.
The next day, Jessa begged Caleb to come with her.
They packed rope, knives, even an old revolver from their grandfather’s shed.
“You really believe me now?” she asked as they reached the clearing.
“I never didn’t,” he said. “I just hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”
The door stood still. Closed. Silent.
Jessa stepped forward.
“I think it feeds,” she said.
“On what?”
“Living things. Blood. Identity. Memory.”
“How do you know?”
She touched her head. “Because I keep forgetting things since I touched it. I forgot what Mom looked like. What Dad’s voice sounded like.”
They both looked at the door.
Then opened it.
Inside, the void shimmered again. This time, stars blinked in the black.
Jessa stepped through.
Caleb followed.
The darkness was warm and wet, like the inside of a mouth.
Voices whispered from every direction.
“Jessa… Caleb… Jessa…”
Shapes moved in the dark. Hands. Eyes. Teeth.
Then they saw a figure ahead—tall, humanoid, twitching.
It turned around.
It was Jessa.
Or rather, something wearing Jessa’s face.
Her eyes were hollow sockets. Her smile too wide.
Caleb raised the gun.
“Don’t shoot!” the real Jessa shouted from somewhere behind him.
Two Jessas.
Then a third stepped from the shadows. Then a fourth.
“Which one is you?” Caleb screamed.
Jessa didn’t answer.
Instead, she took the knife and slashed her arm open.
The others flinched.
“I bleed,” she said. “They don’t.”
He ran to her, grabbed her wrist. “We have to go.”
The copies hissed, rushing forward.
They ran.
They dove through the door.
The real forest greeted them.
But the door began to creak behind them. Something was coming.
Jessa pulled a matchbook from her pocket and lit it.
“Help me,” she said.
Together, they poured gasoline from their bottle and torched the door.
It screamed. The door screamed.
The fire spread fast. The wood split open like a mouth, teeth cracking, dark ichor pouring out.
Then it collapsed into ash.
The whispering stopped.
A week passed.
The woods were silent. No more dreams. No more sirens.
Jessa returned once—just once—to the spot.
The door was gone. But something had scratched words into a nearby tree:
DOORS OPEN BOTH WAYS
She left and never returned.