The Door Beyond Time

The desolate planet stretched for miles under a sky tinged with faint green light. The air was thin but breathable, a dry chill running through it like the last whispers of a long-dead civilization. Three figures trudged across the dusty expanse, each scanning their surroundings for anything to break the monotony of rock and shadow.

Ellis, the team leader, was an experienced explorer, skeptical of legends but always curious. Beside him walked Kai, younger, with an adventurous spirit and an easy laugh even in the direst situations. Dr. Leona Brandt brought up the rear, her mind sharper than any tool she carried, her gaze constantly observing, recording, analysing.

They were nearly ready to give up on this barren world when Ellis’s voice crackled over their comms.

“Hold up,” he said, his tone shifting from mild boredom to alert interest. He crouched down, brushing away layers of dust and sand. “I think I’ve found something.”

Kai and Leona hurried over, crouching beside him. The sand-covered stone protruded just slightly from the earth, curved and unblemished by the elements. Symbols covered its surface—intricate, alien, with faint traces of light radiating from each carved line.

“What is it?” Kai whispered, as if speaking too loudly might disturb something ancient and powerful.

Leona leaned closer, her gloved fingers hovering over the carvings. “It’s not just a rock. These symbols…they look like language. A very old one.”

Ellis looked around, his instincts suddenly alert. “We’re in uncharted territory here. Let’s take a sample of the script and get it back to the lab.”

Kai’s hand had already reached toward the artefact when Leona held up a cautionary finger. “Wait. Look at the way the symbols are arranged. It might be a sequence—a code. This could be a kind of door.”

A door. That one word changed the mood instantly. Ellis straightened, his eyes narrowing as he considered the possibility. There were stories in the deep space circles, tales of hidden relics and portals left behind by civilizations long gone. Most explorers laughed them off. But here, on a forgotten world in the middle of nowhere, he began to feel that chill of possibility.

“Let’s try to decode it,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

They worked in silence, each symbol on the stone revealing a pattern. Kai was the first to notice that the symbols responded to touch, glowing faintly as he brushed his fingers over them.

“Look,” he said, excitement edging into his voice. “They’re reacting.”

Leona frowned, her mind racing. “If these symbols are a code, activating them in the right sequence might open it.” She looked up at Ellis. “But we need to be cautious. We don’t know what’s on the other side.”

Ellis nodded, but his curiosity had already tipped the scales. “Kai, start recording,” he said. “We’re going to solve this puzzle.”

They went to work, fingers tracing over the symbols in various patterns. With each touch, the symbols grew brighter, casting an eerie glow across their faces. The air grew thick, and the faint hum of energy surrounded them.

After a long stretch of trial and error, Leona stepped back. “I think I’ve got it,” she said, her voice strained with tension. “If we press these three symbols in succession, it should…do something.”

Ellis and Kai exchanged a glance, the anticipation in their eyes mixed with a trace of fear.

“Let’s do it,” Ellis said.

One by one, Leona activated the symbols. The stone glowed brighter until the entire surface shimmered with light. Slowly, it began to shift, the sand and dust falling away as it rotated in place. The door opened, revealing a passageway lined with shifting lights and shadows, as if reality itself was folding and unfolding within.

Kai took a step back. “What…what is this?”

“It’s not just a door,” Leona whispered, her voice filled with awe and dread. “It’s a portal.”

As they gazed into the doorway, strange sensations washed over them. Ellis heard faint whispers, words in a language he didn’t understand but somehow felt he should know. Kai saw flickering visions of a different world layered over their own, cities and landscapes blinking in and out of sight. Leona felt a strange pull, as if she were falling forward and backward at once, slipping between time and place.

“We have to go in,” Ellis said, the whisper growing louder in his mind, urging him onward.

Leona hesitated, fear flickering in her eyes. “What if we’re not meant to enter? What if it’s a one-way journey?”

Ellis’s face was set in determination. “We came here to uncover the unknown. Whatever’s in there, we’re seeing this through.”

With a nod of reluctant agreement, the three stepped through the doorway, crossing into the unknown.

Inside, the world was strange and wondrous. They floated through what felt like a vast, swirling cosmos, but there was no gravity, no ground beneath their feet. Stars and planets blinked past them in quick succession, like memories flickering in and out of existence. At times, they felt themselves shifting between ages, witnessing the entire timeline of an alien civilization as it unfolded around them.

They saw towering cities rise and fall, beings like ghosts moving through streets of light. They saw moments of great beauty and moments of terror—visions of war, extinction, and rebirth. It was as if they were witnessing the entire life cycle of an alien race, their past, present, and future condensed into a single, eternal moment.

And then they saw something else—a glimpse of Earth, of human history folding into this alien vision. Their own faces appeared in the flow of time, flashing in moments they couldn’t remember but somehow felt they had lived.

“We’re…part of it,” Kai said, his voice a barely audible echo. “We’re in their timeline.”

Leona’s eyes widened as the realization hit her. “This isn’t just their history—it’s ours. We’re connected to them, to their fate. Whatever happened to them, it’s coming for us.”

The final revelation struck like a thunderbolt. This portal wasn’t just showing them the past or the future. It was showing them a cycle, a loop that they were already trapped within. Every moment they had witnessed was part of a repeating pattern, an eternal cycle that they had no power to break.

The whispers grew louder, merging into a single, undeniable truth: They had been here before. They had opened this door, seen this vision, and forgotten…only to find it again.

As they tried to step back, the door closed, sealing them within the loop they had unwittingly re-entered.