The Gate
* Written in response to the Word Challenge Poll in the Writers Unite! Facebook group. This weeks word is, quite obviously, "Gate".
There was only one purpose for any gate. Safety. Security. A sense of ease just knowing it was there.
That one purpose could be achieved in one of two ways. By keeping those outside of the gate from getting inside. Or by keeping those inside the gate from getting out.
Sometimes Lydia wasn't sure which she'd prefer.
She stared up at the closed gate of the infamous Eichen House.
It had been nicknamed by the Beacon Hills natives as Echo House long before Lydia had come along. As a child it had been the center of many a spooky slumber party story. She knew for sure that in middle school running up to touch the imposing gate after dark had been a rite of passage or a fearsome dare for most of the boys.
The fact that it was still inhabited and in use seemed to make it that much more daunting than any abandoned mental hospital could be. After all, everyone knew for sure that there were crazy people on the other side, right?
Lydia knew now that 'crazy' was the least of concerns on the other side of that gate. None of her childhood stories or nightmare fears could have prepared her for what was really on the inside of those walls.
Echo house had been aptly nick-named by long-ago children of the town. There were echoes there, alright. Some of them only she could hear.
Lydia thought she'd avoid that iron gate forever once she got out. She certainly wanted to. But something kept drawing her. She never ventured beyond, thank God. She hoped she never would again. The gate was always closed to her and she hoped that it would remain so.
She didn't want to visit. She'd tried to resist it but that hadn't worked out well. She'd gone to bed safely in her own bedroom on more than a few occasions only to awaken in sleep-attire and bloody feet, standing on the dirt drive, opening her eyes to the gate as if rousing from a nightmare that didn't fade away.
She finally quit resisting.
It was calling to her. She didn't know why. She never knew why anything drew her until it was time to find out.
It scared her, though.
There were monsters in there. Some of them in the form of memories, some given life by her power, others much more real.
It wasn't really the monsters that scared her, though. No. Lydia was used to monsters.
What scared her was what put the monsters there in the first place.
What scared her was why the gate kept calling to her.
What scared Lydia to her very bones was that she didn't know if it was telling her that something in there needed be out – or if she needed to be in.