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Center your story around a character discovering a hidden door or path.

Posted in Short Story on Sep 12, 2025

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✍️ 54 stories

The Promise

Submitted to Contest #320

Distance and time—that’s how adults measure journeys. But because we were just boys, distance didn’t matter and time didn’t exist. Now, as I retraced the familiar path of my youth—the path that led to our tree—I realized that the distance hadn’t changed, but the journey that used to take 30 minutes had taken me twelve years. The turn off to the trail was still hidden. I was glad about that, it's what made our place secret. There were also short stretches where the route had been covered by overgrowth and the canopy of trees that surrounded m...

23 likes 7 comments 7
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She Was Waiting in the Hollywood Sign

Submitted to Contest #320

I didn’t mean to hike to the Hollywood sign. I’d meant to take a nap. Or maybe cry in the Rite Aid parking lot. But I missed the turn on Franklin and just kept driving—windows down, radio off, the city grinding like a slow migraine in the distance. My body was on autopilot, but something deeper was steering. And when I hit the last legal parking spot at the edge of Beachwood Canyon, I cut the engine and sat still. The sun leaned low and swollen behind me. It was late enough that the light had gone that dusty gold LA is famous for—too beautif...

18 likes 3 comments 3
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Round About

Submitted to Contest #320

“Are you buying or shopping?” Molly, the store owner stared.“Delivering. I’m Patrick, with Delivery Boyz, here with a load of furniture from that estate sale.”“Then deliver. Why are you touching that picture?”“It’s skewed. I was fixing it.”“This is a store, not a museum. The pictures stay as I hung them. Buyers will want to take them to a good home.”Patrick looked around the store, jammed with old and older furniture. Not a dust mote in sight. He noticed every picture in the store was tilted one way or another.After a pause, he said, “Okay. ...

16 likes 6 comments 6
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Missy’s Garden

Submitted to Contest #320

The mammogram image stared back at us like a fortune teller eager to share the future. “Is it just me?” Missy said. “Or does that look like a dog smiling?” Dr. Liu frowned and ignored the question. He waved his pen at the computer screen. “That mass is not a joke, Mrs. Robinson. We’re going to need more tests and set up a treatment plan.” “Nah.” Missy shook her head. “It’s just scar tissue shaped like a smiling dog. Lowell here,” she patted my hand, “was born in ‘46. Year of the Dog. You’re familiar with the Chinese zodiac, right, Doc?” But ...

14 likes 5 comments 5
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Nameless

Submitted to Contest #320

She hated running. No matter the playlist, weather, or new outfit, going for a run was something she woke up every day dreading. Yet here she was, running through the woods at sunrise, wondering why she put herself through this. Then she’d reminded herself that it was for her mental health to keep the anxiety and depression at bay. She'd spent most of her adult life battling the darkness in her mind and the swarm of anxious thoughts that proved to be a debilitating combination. At her worst moments, she’s gone days without a shower, and the ...

14 likes 3 comments 3
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Where the Forest Remembers

Submitted to Contest #320

The whispers began as a rumor—a thin, persistent thread woven among cedar and birch. Mara first dismissed them as wind, the same way she had once dismissed small frets in her life as nothing more than passing weather. But the sound was too deliberate: syllables tucked beneath birdcall, a breath between branches that shaped itself into her name.It happened that spring when the town still smelled of thaw and detergent. Mara had been walking because the house made her feel too small: bills that sat like paperweights on the kitchen table, a radi...

13 likes 4 comments 4
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The Door in the Roots

Submitted to Contest #320

My first mistake was tripping on a root of a tree, on a trail I have walked 500 times. Something shiny caught the day's last few rays of light. I brushed the dirt and years of decomposing leaves off and saw a brass handle sticking up from a heavy door.I used my foot to clear the complete outline of the door. On all sides it sat perfectly flush with the hard packed dirt around it. Other than the handle, only three hinges of similar looking material rose above the ground, not even a millimeter. It almost looked like the door was being swallowe...

13 likes 1 comment 1
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The Cartography of Wishes

Submitted to Contest #320

The Cartography of WishesThea found the spool on Tuesday morning, tucked between a crack in the floorboards of her grandmother's attic. Red thread, impossibly bright against the dust-gray wood. The house had been empty for eleven months since Gran's passing, but something about early autumn had finally pulled Thea back to clear it out.She almost missed it while sorting through boxes of old photographs and Christmas ornaments. But as sunlight angled through the single round window, it caught the thread like a signal fire.When she picked it up...

12 likes 0 comments 0
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The Path Beneath the Pines

Submitted to Contest #320

The forest still smelled of smoke even though the fire had passed nearly a year ago. Mara tugged her bandana higher over her mouth as she stepped carefully between the blackened trunks. Every footfall sent up a soft puff of ash that clung to her boots and found its way into her lungs no matter how tightly she pulled the cloth across her face. The sky above was too bright, a hard blue that made the charred land seem even harsher, and the silence pressed in until her ears rang. She told herself she was imagining it, that the wildlife would ret...

12 likes 2 comments 2
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The Hidden Path

Submitted to Contest #320

The Hidden Path The sun dipped low behind the ridge, painting the trees in honeyed light, and the group finally sprawled into their mismatched campsites like an unruly family reunion. There were six of them, all in their thirties, a mix of old college friends and their partners, each with their own quirks: Emily pouring sangria into a plastic jug and insisting it “tasted better outdoors,” Todd retelling—for the fourth time—the story of his half-marathon, and Claire fiddling endlessly with the Bluetooth speaker that sputtered against the stea...

12 likes 2 comments 2
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The Eater of Paths

Submitted to Contest #320

The branch whipped across Sage’s face, leaving a stinging, bloody welt on her cheek. She ignored it, sucking in a ragged breath that tasted of pine needles and panic. Behind her, the baying of hounds grew closer, a sound of slobbering, inevitable doom. Captain Varus’s voice cut through the noise, a drill sergeant’s bark that promised a slow, inventive death.Her satchel, containing the damning ledger, bounced against her hip, a constant, bruising reminder of why she was running. Two days. For two days she’d been crashing through the Mawwood, ...

12 likes 1 comment 1
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The Glow

Submitted to Contest #320

The words still rang in Alex’s ears as the front door slammed shut behind them. “You never listen. You never think.” The voice — their father’s, sharp with disappointment burned like a fire, even out here in the cool night air.Alex didn’t answer. Not anymore. The fight had burned through every reply, every justification. They were trembling, not from fear but from fury — the kind that made your chest feel too tight, like your ribs can’t hold the heart.The car sat waiting in the driveway, an old sedan that had seen better days. Alex yanked th...

12 likes 2 comments 2
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Pathogenic

Submitted to Contest #320

PathogenicBy: Andrew Fruchtman Henry wasn’t an art collector. He wasn’t even the sort of person who went to art fairs. He’d only gone because the weekend felt too bright to waste and because the park where the fair was being held was near a bakery that made excellent cinnamon rolls. He told himself he’d just look, that he didn’t really need anything. He walked between the rows of tents, coffee in hand, squinting at paintings of crashing waves, city skylines, landscapes and portraits of children he didn’t know. The air was sharp with autumn, ...

12 likes 1 comment 1
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The Hidden Path

Submitted to Contest #320

Joyce’s retirement had not gone at all as she expected. In truth, it had gone better. Those first weeks in the log cabin had been dreadful: alone, anxious, and shadowed by the forest pressing in on every side. She barely dared step beyond the porch. Then a half-starved bobcat appeared one morning, bold as brass, demanding food. She named him Ginger, and through him found not only Robert, the vet next door, but a circle of neighbours who walked their dogs each day beneath the ponderosa pines. By the time Ginger was strong enough to return to ...

10 likes 1 comment 1
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The Door Between Worlds

Submitted to Contest #320

The Door Between WorldsThe Douglas firs know something I don't.Three years since I built my cabin in the Cascades, three years of listening to whispers older than human speech. Though sometimes I wonder if it's been longer. Memory feels slippery here, like trying to hold water. My grandfather would've called this foolishness - trees talking, mushrooms drawing circles like ancient compasses pointing toward secrets. But Grandpa never lived alone with forty acres of old growth, never felt how the forest breathes differently at 3 AM when the wor...

9 likes 0 comments 0
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