White Doors and Pale Teeth

A short story.

He woke up in the same room he always woke up in, but he did not know it. Not yet. The carpet was soft and the room was lit by a series of sconces that bathed everything in a warm glow. The walls were almost the color of blood. The room smelled clean, almost sterile, but underneath was an old, musty scent that could not be masked.

Next to him was a sword and the only thing he knew was that sword was his. He didn’t even know his own name. The black scabbard reflected the light. He picked it up.

He walked through the only door and into a hallway of paneled wood. He passed painting after painting of scenes he did not recognize and people he did not know. One was of a gnarled tree that looked grey and dead, but still bore some type of red fruit. Several women were picking this fruit and eating it, but all had faces twisted in revulsion.

The hallway ended in heavy, closed double doors. On the other side, something crashed, followed by a deep growl. The man looked behind him, wondering if he should go back but already knowing the answer. There was another crash. He tightened the grip on the sword and went through the doors.

It was a large room filled with round tables all draped in white. A hundred people or so would be able to sit comfortably. At the far end was a stage that held a single lecturn, fit with a microphone. Several of the tables were overturned and their padded chairs scattered. As the man watched, another table was flipped over and landed on the hard tile of the floor. 

The monster flipping the table stood at least ten feet tall, the top of its horned head almost reaching the ceiling. It looked at the man and grinned, with lips the color of cockroaches, slightly darker than the rest of its body.

“Finally.” Its voice sounded like a snake slithering over gravel, and with the word came a thick heat that buffeted the man’s face. 

But the man stood still. His hand itched to draw the sword and so he did. The scabbard clattered to the floor, echoing to the far corners of the room.

The monster tilted its head. On a dog, it would look adorable. On the monster, it was infernal and wrong, like it was wearing another creature’s skin. Part of the man’s mind screamed at him to run. It was a familiar scream, he realized, something he had heard before, a tenor and pitch his feet were used to obeying. 

But he did not run. He braced his legs and brought the sword up in a defensive stance.

The monster charged.

The man lifted the sword.

The monster dodged left at the last second.

The man’s sword, moving so much slower than the monster, sliced through air.

The monster’s claw plunged into the man’s stomach.

He dropped the sword and burning pain spread through his torso.

---

He woke up in the same room he always woke up in. This time, he did know it. He scrambled back against the wall and put his hands on his abdomen, hoping to stem the flow of blood.

But he was whole. There was no injury.

The sword in its scabbard lay on the floor.

He calmed down his breathing until his heart wasn’t trying to burst out of his chest.

What was going on?

The room was unchanged. Same carpet. Same walls. Same smell. He wore jeans and a simple black shirt. Is that what he was wearing before? He couldn’t remember.

The sword continued to lie on the floor, which seemed wrong. It belonged in his hand. After all, the sword was his. So he picked it up and walked to the only door in the room and opened it. To the left, he could see the double doors that would lead to the monster. A crash came from that direction. To the right, the hallway continued about the same distance but ended in a dead end with a small table and a potted plant.

The potted plant seemed less likely to kill him, so he walked to the right. As soon as he took a step in that direction, he knew it was wrong. But he persisted anyway. This part of the hallway was also lined with paintings. He didn’t pay attention to any of them because he was walking very fast.

Before he reached the dead end, he noticed a doorknob in the far corner. He broke into a run. More crashes came from behind.

The doorknob was attached to a white door, so white that it hurt the man’s eyes. He marveled that he couldn’t see it before. In the center of the door was a symbol he didn’t recognize. He reached out to turn the doorknob.

It was locked.

Another crash came from the other end of the hallway and now the double doors were open, one hanging off its hinges at an angle. The monster stood there, and even from a distance, it looked terrible. It almost filled the entire space of the corridor. It growled, and the rumble sounded like it came from right next to the man’s ear.

The monster charged.

The man rattled the doorknob again. He pushed the door, then he beat on the door with his free hand. He stepped back and slammed a shoulder into the door, but it had no give, as if it had only been painted onto the wall. And now his shoulder hurt.

The monster reached the halfway point.

The man’s hand itched to draw the sword and so he did. He let the scabbard fall to the carpeted floor.

The monster let its mouth hang open in a smile full of long, sharp teeth. They were as pale as a dead man and the tongue that danced over them was as red as blood.

The man braced his legs and raised the sword.

There was no room for the monster to dodge. The man brought the sword down and felt it connect with something.

The monster’s claw slid across the man’s throat. Blood splattered on the walls.

The man brought his free hand to his throat and it was wet and warm. His vision blurred. The monster let out a satisfied breath and it smelled of crawling termites, of rats feasting, of flies swarming, of every kind of pest.

---

He woke up in the same room he always woke up in. His hand went to this throat and came away dry and clean. He was whole. His sword lay next to him in the black scabbard.

The man fought the monster at least a dozen more times. Maybe more. Sometimes he ran straight to the conference room and charged. Sometimes he waited just inside the hallway to deny the monster its mobility.

But the monster was too fast and too strong. The man died again and again. The worst were the gut wounds because he could see everything. One time his vision spun around and around at an impossible speed and he realized afterward his head must have been separated from his body.

Every time, he woke up in the same room.

His greatest success came when he ran to the end of the hall with the white door and the potted plant and grabbed the small table to use as a shield. The monster still killed him, but the first strike smashed the table and shattered the bones in the man’s arm. The delay allowed him to plunge the sword into the monster’s thigh and the monster made an almost inaudible grunt.

The man still woke up in the same room he always woke up in, but now he knew the monster could feel pain.

The man decided to try the same thing again. He picked up the sword and ran toward the end of the hall with the white door and the potted plant. He stopped. There were dark and rust-colored stains on the carpet. The man recognized the color of dried blood but did not know what it meant. His own blood had been shed in copious amounts time and time again, yet this was the first time he had seen blood before his encounter with the monster. The man was certain these stains had not been there before. The carpet had always been clean. He stared at them until the familiar crashes from the conference room snapped his attention back. He had no time to think about what the blood meant.

The man knocked over the potted plant and moved to pick up the small table. Something else caught his eye.

The white door had two symbols instead of just one. Each was made up of a different arrangement of three triangles and two small circles. They meant nothing to him. He reached out and tried the doorknob.

It turned.

The double doors at the other end of the hallway crashed open. The monster stood there, familiar and menacing.

The man pushed open the white door and stepped inside.

He closed the door behind him and it took a while for his eyes to adjust to the relative dark. Candles were lit in every corner. At the edges of the light, the man saw the hints of more symbols on the walls and on the floor.

A shadow moved.

The man drew his sword.

A woman stepped into the light.

“Robert!” She ran to him, tears in her eyes, and fell upon his shoulder.

The man stood there with arms relaxed to the sides. Gradually, he laid his free hand on her back, because it seemed the right thing to do.

“How did you get here?” the woman asked.

The door shook and rattled. Something banged against it. The man heard the familiar growl. He pushed the woman off of him and turned to face the monster.

But the monster did not come in. The growls turned into roars and the banging grew louder and louder, but the door held firm.

“It can’t come in,” the woman said.

The man knew it was true and so he let himself relax and turned back around. The woman was covered in as much shadow as she was light, but he could make out blond hair that had been put up in a bun.

“You don’t recognize me?” The woman asked.

“You called me Robert. Is that my name?”

The woman lifted an eyebrow. “Of course.” The banging and roaring continued from beyond the white door.

“Do you know what I’m doing here? Do you know what that monster is?” 

“You look like you could use some rest.” She took a step forward and held out a hand. Let me take that sword and we can talk. You have no need of it in here. We are safe.”

The man tightened his grip on the handle. The sword was his. He didn’t know much, but he knew that.

The woman held up both hands. “Okay, but we’re going to be here for a while. You should rest.”

“I haven’t rested in…” The man furrowed his brow and stared at his shoes. “I don’t know how long it’s been. At least a few weeks.”

“Longer. You’ve only just become aware of the Groundhog Day effect.”

The man looked at her as if she was speaking nonsense, but her face, even in low light, showed she was serious.

“Of course,” she said. “You wouldn’t know the reference. I’ll just call it a time loop. The real name I can barely wrap my tongue around.”

The man took a step forward. “You know what’s happening to me?”

“Let’s sit down, over in the dark. You can rest your head on my lap and sleep. For as long as you need.” Another thud hit the door, but the woman was undisturbed and only held out her hand again in welcome.

Sleep. That sounded nice. While the man’s body felt strong and rested, his mind had been racing nonstop for…how long? He craved even a small moment of oblivion. Just five minutes to not think about the monster, to not be thinking about the battle, about survival, the constant anxiety over and over that flowed all the way to his fingertips. Just five minutes of escape…

As soon as he thought the word, his muscles tensed. The roaring outside the door filled his awareness again. There would be no true escape until that monster was dead. To fold his hands in slumber now would mean…what would it mean? He didn’t know. But something would be lost. Something irretrievable.

“Thank you,” the man said. “But I need to go back out there. I can’t explain it.”

The woman pursed her lips. “It cannot get in. We are safe.”

“This sword was not meant for safety.” The man turned and moved toward the door.

A pain flared in his lower back, sharp and quick. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

---

He woke up in the same room he always woke up in.

The man grabbed his sword and leaped up. He burst out into the hallway and ran to the right. There were the bloodstains he had noticed before. There was the table and the potted plant.

The white door was no longer there. It was a true dead end.

The man squeezed the handle of the sword until his fingers cramped. He let out a yell of rage and spun around and knocked the potted plant off the table. It bounced on the carpet before spilling its contents. The man yelled again. He had wanted the pot to shatter. With the sword still in its scabbard, he lifted it with both hands and prepared to bring it down with all of his strength.

Then he stopped.

No dirt had spilled out of the pot. Instead, it had poured out sand. Sand as white as snow.

The double doors burst open. The monster roared. The man turned back around to face his foe.

The monster moved quickly. But was it slower? Its bulk was not growing in size at near the alarming rate the man had come to expect, but maybe that was his own disorientation.

The man held up a hand. “Wait. Stop.”

The monster did not wait and it did not stop. 

But it had spoken before and the man hoped to get it to speak again.

“Why do you keep attacking me?” His hand itched to draw his blade.

“I crave the blood of the Champion.” It was past the halfway point now.

Champion.

The man drew his sword. He stepped under the first swing of the rippling arm and made a cut across the monster’s abdomen. But the monster’s large foot came down on his leg and his knee popped and buckled. A claw swung toward his face.

---

He woke up in the same room he always woke up in.

He sat up and flexed his leg and bent his knee. Before he had died, he had noticed something. The monster’s leg had a small scar the color of bile. It was the same place the man had stabbed the monster, the first time he had ever seriously wounded it. 

He picked up the sword and ran to the end of the hall. There were more bloodstains on the carpet and new flecks on the walls.

For the first time the man could remember, he smiled.

His eyes traveled up to the framed paintings along the wall. He had only ever paid attention to one of the paintings. That was a long time ago. Maybe.

This painting had the head of some beast with horns and a shaggy mane, resting in a pool of blood. A circle of white enclosed the scene, and arranged around the circle were three weeping women. At the top was a sword.

The man’s sword.

The monster in the picture was not the monster the man had been battling, but it was of the same kind.

He had no time to ponder this, because the double doors burst open and the monster charged. Before the man died, he made sure to notice the very thin scar running across the monster’s stomach.

In every battle, the man tried to wound the monster. But not just any wound. Something deep. Something as close to the bones as possible. Something that would never fully heal. He tried to replicate his past success, but while the body of the monster kept a memory of its wounds, the mind of the monster kept a memory of its battles. It learned and adapted. Using the table as a shield no longer gave the man much of an advantage. The monster was always ready for the man’s counterstroke, and the monster was still very fast and very strong.

The man asked more questions.

“Why do you crave my blood?”

“Because I hunger and thirst,” the monster said.

“Do you feast every time you kill me?”

“Until there is nothing left,” the monster said.

This perplexed the man so much that he became distracted and the monster killed him quickly.

The monster would never answer questions about the woman with the blonde hair.

The man’s next big success came when he remembered the white sand that filled the pot. He grabbed a handful of the sand, and as the monster drew near, he flung it in its face. The monster reared up with both claws covering its eyes and howled. The sound was the call of a wolf mixed with the scream of a dying boar, and it bounced off the walls of the narrow hallway. The man plunged the sword straight through the monster’s stomach, right below its ribcage, and twisted the blade. The man lost his head because he could not pull the sword back out in time.

The monster was more wary after that and whenever it charged it did so while protecting its eyes.

And so the man had one less claw to worry about.

After the man woke up in the room he always woke up in, he had a little more time before the monster attacked. He studied more of the paintings and most of them had at least one woman. All of the women were in a state of grief, revulsion, or anger. Some of the paintings had symbols he thought he recognized from the white door that had disappeared, but he couldn’t remember them in detail.

One painting had a woman reaching out over a vast chasm made of white rock, as white as the sand in the pot. On the other side was the man’s sword.

The next time the man woke up in the room he always woke up in, the man ran to grab the potted plant and then ran to the other end of the hallway with the double doors. He discarded the plant and poured a thick line of white sand in front of the threshold. Then he took a few steps back and waited.

After the normal chorus of chairs and tables being overturned, the double doors burst open. A few chips of wood hit the man’s face.

The monster roared, not looking surprised at how close the man was. It took a step forward.

And bounced back as if it ran into an invisible wall. 

For the first time in their many battles, a number so high that the man had lost count, the monster looked confused. It placed its claws on the barrier, pushed it, tapped it, rammed it with its horn, kicked it, and roared in fury. The man covered his ears.

The barrier remained.

The man went back to the room he always woke up in and closed the door. He walked to one of the corners and sat down with his head leaning on the wall. The sounds of struggle and rage continued to come from the hallway, irregular beats on a muted drum mixed with frustrated growls.

And the man slept.

---

The man woke up hungry and parched. He did not remember ever feeling these sensations before, but he knew what they were and what they meant. The monster still raged beyond the barrier created by the white sand.

There was no food and no water. If the man delayed long enough, he would die of thirst. Might as well make it quick. The man stood up with his sword and walked back to the end of the hallway with the double doors.

The monster doubled the fury of its pounding and bared its pale teeth and licked the invisible barrier with its long, blood-red tongue.

The man walked up and stood at ease in front of the monster. He looked past the monster into the conference room with overturned tables and chairs. In the far corner, there was a white door.

The same white door.

The man dove over the threshold of white sand and under the arms of the monster. He spun and the sword bit deep into the monster’s calf. He rolled backward and made to stand up and sprint for the door.

Something caught him. A pain flared in his shoulder and then his stomach. He looked down and saw the claw of the monster, dripping with the man’s blood.

---

He woke up in the same room he always woke up in and he grabbed his sword and charged toward the double doors. He flung them open and ran straight for the white door in the corner.

In a single jump, the monster reached him.

The man tried several times but could never reach the white door. He managed to wound the monster several more times, but the monster remained strong and fast and the man was used to fighting in the narrow hallway and not the large, open room with high ceilings.

The man knew he needed to sever a full limb from the monster, but several times the man had felt a deep thud as the sword reached bone and he knew he would never have the time or the strength to push the sword to the marrow. The man would need to target joints and sinew, but even that would take time to cut through and the monster would not sit still while being butchered.

Or would it?

After the man woke up in the room he always woke up in, he picked up his sword and ran down the hallway to grab the pot full of white sand. He poured a line of white sand several feet in front of the threshold of the double doors and then slid into the corner next to the door jamb. 

The man waited.

Chairs and tables were overturned.

The man braced himself, cradling the pot of white sand with one arm, the sheathed sword tight across his body, and balled up as small as he could make himself.

The double doors burst open.

The door slammed into the man’s shoulder and the man cried out, but the monster roared at the same time. The door, though tilted on its frame, hid the hallway and the monster from the man’s view.

The man waited.

The monster sniffed.

The door broke off its hinges and flew down the hallway.

The monster grinned, showing off its sharp, pale teeth.

---

The man tried again but hid behind the opposite door. He clenched his jaw and squeezed the handle of the sword tight, and when the door opened and slammed into his shoulder, he was able to remain quiet.

The door broke off its hinges and flew down the hallway.

The monster grinned, showing off its sharp, pale teeth.

---

The man poured a line of the white sand longways down the middle of the hallway.  He then poured one shorter line of white sand at a right angle all the way to the wall. He ran to the other end and poured another short line at the opposite right angle. This cut the hallway in half with a perfectly crooked line, leaving a thin corridor about ten feet long.

The man stood at the far end, right behind the last line of white sand, and waited.

The double doors burst open and the monster roared. It charged down the hallway. It clipped its shoulder on the invisible corner of the first right angle and bounced to the side, crashing into the wall.

The monster tried again but was too wide to step into the narrower corridor created by the white sand. Its claws caressed the edges of the invisible barrier it could not see, and after a few moments, the monster turned sideways and began shuffling down the hallway, looking awkward and uncomfortable.

The man almost laughed. If the monster had been trying to squeeze into a shirt three sizes too small, it would not have looked more absurd.

The monster arrived at the end of the corridor and banged its horn against the barrier. It growled and let its red tongue hang out. It battered at the invisible barrier but it was cramped and did not have room to bring its full strength to bear.

The man watched for just a few more moments as the monster struggled to reach him. He gripped the pot of white sand tight under one arm, then sprinted toward the other end of the narrow corridor of white sand. In a few seconds, he completed the line on the side the monster had entered.

And the monster was trapped.

The monster shuffled back toward the man and reached the other end of its new cage.

For the second time he could remember, the man smiled.

He turned his back on the monster and strolled into the conference room and walked up to the white door in the far corner. He set the pot of white sand down, which was now mostly empty. The man’s hand itched to draw the sword and so he did and the scabbard clattered on the floor.

He opened the door and stepped in.

---

The room was the same as before. Candles lit the room and much was hidden in shadow. Symbols covered the walls and floor.

The woman stood in the middle, wearing a black robe, her hands folded in front of her. Her blonde hair was still in a bun, but it looked frayed and there were streaks of steel-grey.

And those eyes glared at him with annoyance.

“How you managed to be even more insufferable without your memories than with them, I’ll never know.” She sneered. “I guess that’s my fault.”

The man held the sword in front of him with both hands. “This is your doing?” He knew the answer, but he still needed to ask it.

“Just give me the sword, Robert, and this can all be over.” She held out a hand.

The man squeezed the handle tighter. “Why?”

“Because that’s why we’re all here. You’ll understand once you give me the sword.”

The man knew that the sword was his. It was the only real truth he ever knew. If he gave it up, everything would change and there was a scratching at the back of his mind telling him that the change would not be for the better.

“I’ve figured it out,” the man said. “The monster is trapped. I’ll be able to cut its head off.”

The woman sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose with a thumb and forefinger. “So another one will be summoned. And another one after that.”

The man took a step forward. “Release me. Stop whatever you are doing.”

“That’s not how this works. Honestly, Robert, you were never the sharpest tool, but I can’t believe you’d be this obtuse.”

“Then I will end it.” The man lunged forward, brought the sword up, and swung.

The blade passed through the woman as if she were mist.

The woman had not moved but there was a hint of shock in her eyes. “That blade cannot touch mortal flesh. It is one of the first things we discussed.”

“And yet I remember nothing.” The man swung again, knowing it wouldn’t work but desiring to do it anyway. His blood had turned to ice water and something in his chest wanted to explode. “You took my memories.”

“And you can have them back if you give me the sword.” She still sounded like a teacher giving a lecture to an unruly student.

It stoked the man’s anger. “You put me in this hell.” All of his wounds and pain and torment flashed through his mind and he relived them all again in a moment. Every part of his body had felt the monster's claws or teeth.

The woman sighed again. “And it can end right now. You can go back to your mundane, boring life.”

The man held out an open palm and studied it for a few moments. “The sword might not cut you. But certainly, my hand could squeeze your throat.”

The woman took a step back. Her eyes were wide and the man was pleased to see fear dancing behind them. She pulled a long dagger from beneath the folds of her robe and brandished it before her.

With a quick thrust and flourish of his sword, the man knocked the dagger from the woman’s hand and it slid across the floor. He closed the distance and wrapped his fingers around her throat. Her scream came out as a bare whisper.

It felt so, so good to silence this woman, to make her pay, to see fear in her eyes, to flip the script he had been acting out for as long as he could remember. 

But it was wrong. Up close, he noticed more wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. Strands of grey hair escaped the bun on the woman’s head and flowed around her face. She had grown older since he had last seen her. Much older. He moved his gaze to his own hand and noticed the contrast of skin.

He had not aged a day.

He released the woman’s throat and stepped back.

The woman collapsed to her knees and sucked in big, gulping breaths.

“I am the Champion of the sword,” the man said and then he turned around and walked toward the white door.

“Where are you going?” Her voice was raspy and shrill.

“To kill the monster.”

“They will never stop coming until you give me the sword. The Champion must lay down his sword willingly!”

 The man put his hand on the doorknob. “I think there’s another way.”

“There is not. Robert, this is madness.” The woman crawled toward him. “Please. Please you must give me the sword.”

“No. I don’t think I will.” The man offered the woman a blank expression. “But I will fight until you die of old age. Then, I think, this will be over.” And the man knew it was true in the same way that he knew the sword was his.

The woman moved her mouth, but no sound came out. Tears glistened at the bottom of her eyes.

The man stepped into the large conference room and shut the white door.

From the hallway, the monster roared.

And the man smiled.