Three friends uncover a hidden portal in an abandoned villa and open it by accident. Beyond the door waits a strange blue-lit passage and a voice from the dark.
Ola, Bartek and Zośka had grown up on the same street, in the same old tenement on Klonowa Street. At the far end of the road stood the abandoned villa everyone avoided: its garden was wild with nettles and brambles, and its windows were so coated with dirt that they looked blind.
The adults called it a ruin and told the children not to go near it. The children, of course, did the opposite in their heads. They made up stories about the villa whenever it rained or the wind rattled the shutters at night. Ghosts. Wizards. Things with sharp eyes hiding in the dark.
One grey afternoon, when the rain tapped hard against the windows, Ola arrived at Bartek's flat clutching her backpack like it might burst open. Zośka was already there, sitting cross-legged on the floor and eating apple slices from a napkin.
Ola did not sit down. She reached into her bag and pulled out a small brass doorknob, dull with age but still heavy in her palm.
"I found it at the villa gate," she whispered. "And I think I found what it belongs to."
Bartek leaned closer. Zośka stopped chewing.
"There is a tiny door under the stairs," Ola said. "At the back of the villa. I only saw it for a second, but it was there. No handle. Just a round hole where one should be."
For a moment, none of them spoke. Rain ticked against the glass. Somewhere below, a radiator knocked inside the walls.
Then Zośka stood up. "So we go and see it."
The three of them waited until the rain eased, then slipped out through the back stairs and crossed the street with their jackets pulled tight. The villa loomed ahead, dark and shut-up, with its garden crouched around it like a warning. The rusty gate gave a long, complaining squeal when Bartek pushed it open, and all three froze until the sound died away.
They moved slowly through the weeds. Blackberry thorns caught at their sleeves. Wet leaves clung to their shoes. Near the cellar steps, Ola stopped so suddenly that Zośka bumped into her.
There it was.
A small door, almost hidden beneath the stairs, the wood pale under a film of grime. Ola's breath caught. She stepped closer and held up the brass knob. The shape matched perfectly.
Bartek kept watch on the garden path. Zośka lifted her torch with both hands. Ola twisted the knob into place, and for a second nothing happened.
Then the metal clicked.
The door opened with a groan that seemed to rise from deep inside the villa. Beyond it was not the cellar they expected, but a narrow staircase sinking down into a blue glow that shimmered on the stone walls like moonlight underwater.
The three friends stared at one another.
No one moved.
Then the door slammed shut behind them with a crack that echoed through the stairwell, and from somewhere below, in the strange blue dark, a calm voice said, "You are here at last. I have been waiting for you for a very long time."
The torch in Zośka's hand began to shake.