Dream: Behind the Wooden Door.

I  had a little nightmare last night that freaked me pretty badly in the middle of the night.

I dreamed that I lived in an old chateau. It was an extremely large estate and there were many rooms that I did not use.
I dreamed that one day I was looking for an antique mirror that I knew I had somewhere in one of the unused rooms. I was looking around when I noticed a staircase at the other end of the room that I couldn't remember having been there before. I walked over the the staircase and saw that it led downwards to somewhere I had never been. I walked slowly down the stairs, curious. The walls went from being white plaster, to being brown stone. I was in some sort of cavern.

I could hear a rattling sound coming from straight ahead of me. As I made my way down this cavernous hallway, the rattling got louder, and I thought I could make out a small voice humming.

The hallway widened, and I came upon a thick wooded door, with a bolt and a doorknocker on the outside. The door was shaking slightly, causing the doorknocker to make the rattling sound. There was a voice coming from behind the door. It was humming very softly.  Beneath the sound of the humming was a very quiet growling sound.

I said, "Hello?" There was no response.
I went up to the door, and took the heavy doorknocker in both hands. The knock wasn't loud exactly, but the sound echoed for much longer than it should have around the cavern.
The humming stopped, but the growling did not.  I heard a giggle from behind the door. Then the voice started to laugh. It wasn't a loud laugh, but there was something utterly disturbing about it, and it echoed around the cavern like the knock on the door had. 

I became very frightened and ran away from the door. I ran back down the cavern hallway, up the steps, through the unused room, and all the way to the kitchen where I stayed with a cup of brandy coffee until I felt more like myself.

That night while I tried to sleep, I could hear the the quiet sound of the laughter that came behind the door. It echoed very quietly around my bedroom. I heard the soft humming all the next day. I could not escape it. In the late afternoon, I went back to the unused room, but the stairway was gone.

For one week I tried to live my normal life, while the sound of the humming followed me everywhere. I could hardly sleep. All I could think about was that heavy wooden door and what might be behind it.

Early on the next Sunday morning. I went again to the unused room. This time, the stairs were there across the room. I was frightened, but I felt extremely compelled to go back to look at the heavy wooden door. I descended the staircase. White plaster turned to brown stone. I followed the sound of quiet laughter down the cavernous hallway. I could hear the rattling of the doorknocker.

When I reached the door, and I stopped moving forward, all went suddenly silent. It was the sharp silence of anticipation. I knew I needed to open that door. I had never been more compelled to do anything in my entire life. I stared at it for a long time, trying to overcome my fear, trying fruitlessly to make myself turn around and leave.

I sprang at the door, opened the bolt, and pulled it heavily open. I stepped back a few steps and stared. Inside was an unnatural darkness. Pitch blackness was clinging to the inside of that room, and I could not see inside.
Another giggle. Out from the darkness stepped a very young boy, maybe four years old. He had unnaturally large, beautiful green eyes. He was carrying something in his arms covered by a large cloth.
He was the most intense looking person I had ever seen. Even though he walked slowly in a relaxed way, something about him reminded me of a predatory animal. The sound of laughter was still there, and I knew it came from him even though he didn't look like he was making a sound.

"Thank you." He said. "I have been in there a very long time."
"Who are you?" I asked.
"My name is Pocalypse. I'm very happy to meet you. And I am very happy to be out of the dark room."

I stood there, paralyzed with uncertainty and growing fear. Finally I asked "What are you holding?"
The laughter stopped.
He looked down at the cloth-covered bundle in his arms with a strange expression on his face.
"A long time ago," he said. "I was very angry about being in the dark room. I thought if I could not see, what use were my eyes?" He looked up at me with his enormous green eyes.
"So I gouged them out," he said.
"My sister, Hope, was in the dark room with me," he continued when I didn't respond. "And she had eyes that could still see in the blackness."

He dropped the bundle in his arms. The cloth fell off the body of a very young girl. Her face was terribly smashed in, and her eyes were missing.

I tried to turn around and I couldn't. I was frozen to where I stood. The laughter started again, and the little boy smiled.
"My name is Pocalypse. I am very happy to meet you. I will not be going back behind the wooden door."