The Door Beneath the Bed

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Oliver was eight when he first noticed the door.

It shouldn’t have been there. His bed was low to the floor, and he had checked many times for monsters, lost toys, or dust bunnies hiding beneath it. But that night, while he leaned down to fetch a marble that had rolled away, his fingers brushed something smooth and wooden.

A door.

It was small—no taller than a shoebox—painted the same white as the baseboard, almost invisible except for the faint outline tracing its edges. It had no knob, no lock, no handle, yet something about it looked expectant, as though it had been waiting.

Oliver pressed the wood with his palm. At first nothing happened. Then, with a sound like a sigh, the door swung inward.

He gasped.

The view inside wasn’t the dark, dusty hollow beneath his bed. It was his room. Another version of his room, stretching beyond the threshold as though space itself had been folded and refolded.

At first, everything matched perfectly—his shelves, his drawings, the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. Then he went to the window.

There was no sky.

The trees in the backyard swayed. The neighbor’s house stood in place. But above it all, instead of clouds or stars or even night, stretched a blank, endless expanse of pale gray. It wasn’t empty like fog—it was nothing, flat and crushing, as if the whole world had been painted on a canvas with no backdrop.

The sight made Oliver’s stomach turn. He slammed the little door shut, then crawled under his blanket. He told himself he had imagined it.

But the next night, he checked again.

The door opened more easily this time, as though it had grown used to being found. The room inside looked the same again. But when Oliver glanced at his dresser, something was gone.

The mirror.

Not cracked, not removed—gone, as if it had never existed. The empty wall gave no hint of its absence, yet the room seemed heavier without it. Oliver walked closer, frowning, then turned toward the window.

That was when he saw it.

His reflection.

Pressed faintly against the glass, looking back at him with eyes just a little too wide, lips curved in the faintest, wrongest of smiles.

Oliver stumbled back and slammed the door so hard his knuckles stung. He didn’t open it again that night.

But curiosity is a stubborn thing. A week later, he crawled to the door once more.

This time the room was perfect. Every detail aligned with his own—the scattered crayons, the folded pajamas, the sheets wrinkled from sleep. He held his breath and looked at the bed.

It was empty.

No Oliver slept there. The blanket was smooth, untouched. The whole room hummed with a stillness that made his chest tighten, as if someone should have been there but had stepped away just before he arrived.

“Hello?” he whispered.

No answer.

He shut the door carefully this time. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that the empty bed had been waiting.

After that, the door stopped staying closed. Some nights he woke to find it cracked open, spilling a thin strip of unnatural light onto the floorboards. He would lie awake for hours, listening to the faint creak of its hinges, too afraid to look inside.

The worlds seemed to choose themselves now. Sometimes it was the skyless one, pressing its gray blankness against the glass. Sometimes it was the mirrorless one, where the window always held something that wasn’t him, shifting just out of sync. And sometimes it was the childless one, silent and patient.

One night, Oliver woke to the soft creeeak of the door yawning open.

Light spilled across the room.

He sat up, heart hammering, and looked.

The other room was there—the childless one. Except this time, the bed wasn’t empty anymore.

A shape lay under the blanket, small shoulders rising and falling with slow, steady breaths.

Oliver froze. The figure’s face was turned toward him, dimly lit by the strange glow.

It was his own.

But the eyes were open.

And when Oliver scrambled back against his wall, he saw his double’s chest stop moving. The breathing ended. Yet the copy did not blink.

It only stared.

And very slowly, the Oliver beneath the blanket smiled.

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Some doors stay closed for a reason.

Note:
Thank you for reading “The Door Beneath the Bed”! This is a story in a series created for avid readers and English learners who want to enjoy captivating tales while practicing their language skills. Stay tuned for more stories and language tips to enhance your journey!

Explore more short stories in English and Spanish by visiting the section:
Short Stories / Cuentos Cortos

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When the world feels dull, your mind restless, or your heart heavy, let a story be your escape. Just one page, one sentence, one word—and suddenly, you’re somewhere new, where imagination breathes life into the ordinary and turns the simplest moments into magic.

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