50 Shades of Us. The Lady Keeper.

 Shade One.

I wasn't supposed to be there. At least that's what I keep telling myself. 

It felt like waking, but it wasn't. I opened my eyes into a place that didn't exist, or maybe it does, somewhere beyond here. 

The air was thick, like the world was holding its breath. And then I saw her.... The lady keeper. 

She didn't walk toward me, she was just there, dressed in green that blended her well with the forest. 

I couldn't see her face, but I felt her eyes, looking through me. 

"you've been here before," she said. 

"And you'll keep coming back until you remember why." 

Behind her were doors, so many doors, lined up endlessly, each one humming like it was alive. 

I reached for the closest, but she stopped me, with nothing but a glance. 

"you're not ready," she whispered. And just like that, memories I didn't know I carried cracked open inside me. 

Faces I didn't know but somehow loved.

 Promises I don't remember making but still feel bound to. 

Then she pressed something cold and heavy into my hand, a key shaped like a teardrop. 

"when the time comes, you'll know which door is yours." 

The light swallowed her before I could ask what any of it meant. 

I woke up shaking. My palm was... Empty, but it still burned. 

I haven't stopped thinking about those doors since. 

I don't know what's behind them. I don't know what happens when I do choose. 

All I know is... Something's waiting for me. 

But what if I choose the wrong door?