This door only opens once. Are you sure you wish to open this door?
The message made no sense. How could a door only open once? Would it lock behind her forever, or lock her out if she didn’t walk through? Who would build such a thing, and why? How could it even work? Any mechanism could be broken. With enough force she could break down the door no matter what. As she stood before the small message engraved into the strange door’s surface, these things ran through her mind.
Her questions were attempts to rationalize the irrational. To make the strange door seem normal. Because otherwise it made no sense. Who would build a door, in a frame, standing in the middle of a field? Nothing around for miles. It was in a large open space, in the the middle of what was otherwise a dense forest. Maybe a hundred meters wide, a sunny meadow set against the gloom of the dark trees.
This is a joke, she decided. This is some prank from one of those insufferable artist types. They probably felt so clever making this. They probably want me to open it, and then some buzzer will sound, or maybe nothing at all will happen - they expect me to feel foolish for buying into their premise, for accepting their frame.
She walked around the door and pushed against the other side but it didn’t budge. The surface wasn’t wood, or metal, or plastic. It felt like stone, but the pattern on its surface was much too regular. I’m not going to open it, she decided, and walked fifteen steps away, then stopped, and turned back to check if anything had changed. It hadn’t. The door still stood there, mercilessly.
This is stupid, she muttered to herself, and paced again around the thing. For a moment she worried that maybe it was dangerous - maybe it was put here by a sociopath who had cameras set up somewhere and the door would crush or electrocute her or maybe a hidden blade would come down like a guillotine when she tried to walk through - but this was only a moment’s thought, a passing fear, and she felt silly for thinking it.
She stood there for several more minutes, not thinking at all. Then, she ran her hands over the letters and shook her head. Fuck it, she muttered, and turned the knob. It was locked.