Part 1: The Door

I noticed the door on a Tuesday afternoon, the kind of slow, dull day when everything feels like it is dragging its feet. I was walking home from school and cutting through the usual alley that smelled like old newspapers and rain. Halfway down, where there had always been a blank stretch of brick, stood a door that definitely had not existed the day before. It was tall and narrow, made of dark wood with swirling carvings that seemed to shift like smoke when I looked directly at them. I knew I should keep walking, but curiosity pushed me forward.

There was no handle, only a brass plaque nailed slightly crooked in the center. It read “The Library of Borrowed Dreams” in letters that shimmered like they were written on water. I stared at it, trying to tell myself I was imagining things or exhausted from too many late nights studying, but the door was solid when I touched it. The wood was cool under my fingers. Before I could decide what to do next, the door creaked open on its own, releasing a warm breath of air that smelled like old books and something faintly sweet.

The inside was impossibly large. From the outside, the space should have been tiny, but stepping through felt like walking into a massive cathedral made of shelves. Book towers stretched upward into shadows I could not see through. Ladders glided on their own along the shelves, guided by unseen hands, and soft golden lamps floated overhead like miniature suns. Instead of feeling scared, I felt strangely welcomed, as if the place had been waiting for someone to return. Maybe even waiting for me.

In the center of the room sat a desk, and behind it was the oldest person I had ever seen. Their skin looked like folded parchment and their eyes were bright and silver, yet warm. When they smiled, it felt like they had learned everything about me in a single glance. “Welcome,” they said, their voice soft and echoing through the enormous space. “You must be here to borrow a dream.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again because there was no normal response to that. I could barely understand my own dreams, let alone imagine borrowing someone else’s. “I didn’t mean to come here,” I finally said. “The door wasn’t here yesterday.”

“Most doors worth opening are not,” the librarian replied. They reached beneath the desk and pulled out a slim blue journal. “New visitors must choose with care. Dreams are powerful things. Borrow the wrong one, and you may wake up changed in ways you do not expect.”

They slid the journal toward me. The cover read: Dream Registry: Available Titles in small silver lettering. I hesitated before touching it. The air around the book felt warm and full of quiet energy, like it was waiting to spark to life. I suddenly knew that whatever dream I chose would matter. Maybe more than anything else I had done.

I swallowed hard and opened the journal. My life, I realized, was about to change.