THE MAP INSIDE THE KEY

CHAPTER 8

306 days before my life was caught short

There are bruises on my knees from where I landed.

There’s dirt in my hair, in my mouth, under my nails.

But I don’t feel any of it. Not really.

When I got back into the house—silent, untouched—I went straight to the bathroom and stood beneath the cold shower for twenty minutes. Clothes still on. Water seeping into the hoodie, the jeans, clinging like a second skin. I thought maybe if I stood still long enough, the heat inside me would leach out into the drain. The panic. The questions.

It didn’t.

The marks on my palm stayed.

Door #2.

Soon.

I stared at those words until the water ran cold. Until the steam cleared and I saw myself in the mirror.

Not the same Jasmine who went to sleep at midnight.

Not the girl who used to laugh too loud or forget her charger or eat cereal at 2 a.m.

This Jasmine looked… hollow. Like she was waiting for something that might not ever come back.

—

By morning, my skin still buzzed. A low frequency, like I was vibrating on a different channel from the rest of the world. Gloria knocked once, asked if I wanted breakfast, and I answered with a voice that didn’t sound like mine. She was getting good at pretending things were normal.

At 10:43 a.m., I opened my window and saw a white envelope stuck to the outer frame. No postage. No name. Just a wax seal—pressed into the center like some ancient invitation. A symbol I didn’t recognize. It looked like a sideways eye, curved open.

I didn’t remember hearing anyone near my window that morning.

Didn’t matter. I opened it anyway.

Inside: a single strip of paper.

Typed. All caps.

“YOU OPENED THE WRONG DOOR.”

That was it.

No signature. No instructions. Just that.

I stared at the message so long I didn’t notice the blood seeping from my palm.

Not fresh.

Not painful.

But the words—Door #2—were changing. Not fading. Not smearing. Shifting. Like the ink had a mind of its own. A second later, my skin read something new:

“Make it right.”

—

I told myself I wouldn’t go back to the shelter.

But I also told myself Eli would call me back.

All of those were lies.

So at 11:55 p.m., I got dressed.

Dark clothes. Hair up. Phone charged.

I didn’t bring the photo. I didn’t need it anymore.

I brought a flashlight, a pen, and a box of matches I found buried in the back of the junk drawer.

I also brought the envelope. Because even if it didn’t make sense yet, it felt like a key. And I was already trapped in something bigger than logic.

—

At 12:32 a.m., I was at the shelter entrance.

But it didn’t look the same.

The metal door had changed again—sleeker, cleaner, as if it had been polished by invisible hands. The latch was gone. In its place: a keypad.

Black. Blank.

No numbers. No symbols.

Just waiting.

I reached out and pressed it, expecting nothing.

Instead, the screen lit up.

ENTER.

That’s all it said.

Enter what?

I tried my name.

J-A-S-M-I-N-E.

Denied.

I tried “Return.”

Denied.

Then, without thinking, I typed: DOOR 2.

The door clicked.

A breath. A mechanical sigh.

And it opened for me.

I should’ve turned around.

But I didn’t.

I stepped inside.

—

This time, the corridor was longer.

The air wasn’t stale. It was alive—humid, electric, charged like the seconds before a thunderstorm. The hallway lights pulsed in rhythm with my steps.

Left. Right. Left. Right.

I passed doors now. Actual numbered doors. Steel and wood and one that looked like velvet, even though that shouldn’t have been possible.

Door #1: Closed. No handle. Just humming.

Door #2: A brass knob. The number carved into the wood like a wound.

Door #3: Cracked open.

I stopped in front of Door #2.

My hand trembled. The mark on my palm burned, faintly.

This was it. The place Eli meant. The place they didn’t want me to find—or maybe the one they built just for me.

I turned the knob.

The door didn’t swing open.

It inhaled.

That’s the only way I can explain it. It pulled inward, slowly, the edges stretching like breath.

And beyond it?

Nothing.

Just white.

Blinding.

Endless.

I stepped through.

—

At first, I felt like I was floating.

Like there was no floor. No ceiling. No gravity.

Just this unbroken expanse of light and sound and whispering.

Then I landed.

Hard.

On something soft. Grass?

I blinked until my vision returned.

I was standing in the middle of a field. The sky above was the wrong color—an iridescent grey-violet shimmer that moved even when the wind didn’t.

I turned around.

The door was gone.

In its place stood a girl.

Not Lana.

Not me.

Someone I didn’t know.

She looked maybe ten. Braided hair. Barefoot. Wearing a nightgown that didn’t belong to this century.

“Hi, Jasmine,” she said.

I froze. “Who are you?”

She tilted her head. “I’m the reason they watch you.”

“What does that mean?”

She smiled. “They made you a map. You keep ripping it up.”

“I don’t want their map.”

“I know. That’s why you’re still you.”

“What’s behind Door #3?”

Her eyes darkened. “That’s not yours. Not yet.”

“And Door #1?”

She stepped closer. “You’ll go there last.”

A chill ran up my spine.

“What are you?”

She didn’t answer.

Instead, she pointed behind me.

I turned.

And saw Eli.

But this time, he wasn’t alone.

There were dozens of them.

People I’d never met—but recognized from the edges of memory. The missing. The lost. The ones in the newspaper clippings I used to ignore. Their faces were calm. Some held hands. Others just stood, watching.

Eli stepped forward.

“She’s showing you the in-between,” he said. “This is where the doors take you if you’re not careful.”

“Is this where you are?”

He nodded. “Halfway. Not gone. Not home.”

“I want to help you.”

“You already are.”

The little girl tugged my sleeve.

“When you leave, you won’t remember all of this,” she said gently. “But the part that matters will stay.”

“What part is that?”

“The key.”

“Key to what?”

“To the next version of yourself.”

I blinked—and the field dissolved.

—

I woke up on the floor of the shelter.

Breathing hard.

Scraped hands. Dirt under my nails again.

But something was in my hoodie pocket.

I reached in and pulled it out.

A key.

Small. Black. With the symbol of the eye carved into the handle.

And a slip of paper.

“You are not the first. But you might be the last.”

I stared at the key in my hand for a long time.

It was warm.

Not just from being in my pocket—but alive, almost. As though it had a pulse. A rhythm. As though it recognized me.

The eye symbol carved into the handle looked different now—less like an eye, more like something unfinished. A door half open. A path that forked.

And the paper.

“You are not the first. But you might be the last.”

I read it over and over. Let the words imprint themselves in my bones.

Somewhere deep in the shelter, I heard a sound—like air shifting. A breath being held and then released. No footsteps. No creaking. Just that eerie silence breaking itself.

I didn’t stay.

I walked out into the cold night, heart thudding, key clenched in my fist. And even though I had just crossed into something I couldn’t fully explain, I knew one thing:

There was no going back to normal.

When I got home, it was nearly 3:00 a.m.

I peeled off my clothes, folded them like evidence, and hid the key inside my pillowcase. I didn’t want to sleep, but exhaustion dragged me down like chains around my ankles. My eyes closed without permission.

This time, there were no dreams.

Just a sound.

Dripping.

I woke up with the image of Lana again—her face pale, her lips moving in slow, silent words.

And a new whisper in my mind:

“You only think you’re still alive.”

The next morning, I looked worse than I felt.

Dark circles. Sallow skin. Blood still crusted under my nails.

My mother didn’t comment. She just pushed a mug of coffee toward me, then left the room.

I saw the worry in her eyes.

I should’ve said something.

Should’ve asked if she knew about the shelter, about Eli, about the old newspaper clippings she used to keep in that locked drawer I wasn’t supposed to find.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I sat with the coffee growing cold in my hands and thought about the girl in the field.

Who was she?

What did she mean by “they watch you”?

What kind of map had I been tearing apart?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized something terrifying:

I was starting to remember things I hadn’t lived.

Glimpses. Feelings. Moments from places I’ve never been.

A hallway with peeling blue wallpaper.

A silver ring with an amber stone.

A name whispered against glass: “Maribel.”

That wasn’t mine.

But it felt like it had been. Like I’d borrowed someone else’s memory without asking.

—

At school, everything felt louder.

People moving too fast. Words overlapping.

I saw Steph and Rina at their usual table near the library. Their laughter sounded strange to me—like it was coming from the wrong end of a tunnel.

Steph waved me over. I almost didn’t go.

“Hey,” she said. “You look like hell. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“You okay?”

I nodded, too quickly.

Rina squinted. “You didn’t come to Lit class. Again.”

“Didn’t feel well,” I lied.

They exchanged a glance, the kind that says she’s spiraling again, but we won’t say it out loud.

“Maybe you should talk to someone,” Steph said gently.

“I am,” I said.

She tilted her head. “Like… a counselor?”

I shook my head. “Not exactly.”

The silence stretched.

“You know we’re here for you, right?” Rina said.

I looked at both of them—these girls who knew versions of me that I no longer recognized. Who saw a Jasmine who laughed too much and tried too hard and always acted like she had a plan.

That Jasmine wasn’t gone.

But she was… adrift.

“I know,” I whispered. “Thanks.”

—

I didn’t go to my next class.

Instead, I ducked into the school’s unused storage room behind the old gym. No one ever checked it. The door was broken, and the lights flickered. Perfect place to fall apart without anyone noticing.

I pulled the key from my jacket.

Looked at it.

Then I did something I hadn’t expected.

I turned it in my hand and held it against my chest, over where my heart beat too fast. And I whispered, “If someone’s listening… show me the rest.”

For a second, nothing happened.

Then the overhead lights popped—one by one.

Glass rained onto the dusty floor.

And in the dark, I heard a voice. Not mine. Not human.

“You were never meant to find Door #2.”