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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/HerScreams on 2024-10-09 20:15:37+00:00.

It took me almost three years of therapy to process what happened to me in that village and to finally be able to talk about it with others. For a long time, I believed what I experienced was tied to the trauma of losing my mother. My therapist thought it might be PTSD… grief playing tricks on my mind, making me see and feel things that weren’t real. And for a while, I accepted that explanation.

But deep down…I know it was more than that. It wasn’t just my grief. What happened in that village was real…

It all started in late 2021, when a friend recommended I watch the Chernobyl miniseries. I was hooked from the first episode, like an addict to cocaine. After watching it, I became obsessed. I spent weeks reading everything I could find about Chernobyl. Not just the facts, but the personal stories, the ones that spoke of a world frozen in time and abandoned overnight. The thought of visiting those places, left to decay in eerie silence, consumed me.

That’s how I found the website offering tours near the exclusion zone. The moment I booked the trip, it felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest. I told myself it was just curiosity, but the pull was stronger than that. It was as if something was drawing me in, beyond just fascination. I arrived in Ukraine a few weeks later, ready to finally see this forgotten world for myself.

I ended up on a small bus with a guide and a group of people, strangers bound together by the same curiosity that had brought us all there. The bus rumbled along the uneven road, its windows fogged from the cold, damp air outside. Mist hung heavy around us, swallowing everything beyond a few feet and turning the landscape into a blur of shadowy shapes. Broken buildings and twisted trees flashed by, fading into the white fog before I could fully make them out.

As the bus crept deeper into the fog, I felt the weight of the place pressing down on me. The excitement I had felt before started to fade, replaced by a growing sense of unease. The air was cold, sharper than I expected, and the mist clung to everything around us. The guide was explaining our next stop: Yaniv . A village only a few kilometers from the reactor, abandoned like so many others. His words barely registered. My mind was focused on what was waiting outside, on the crumbling remains of a place that had been left behind.

We slowed to a stop. The doors hissed open, letting in a cold, biting air that clawed at my skin. My boots hit the ground, and the cold earth seemed to absorb the sound, muffling everything. The others murmured behind me, their voices low, blending into the dense fog that swallowed the village of Yaniv whole.

The guide pointed to the crumbling buildings, his words drifting through the mist. I wasn’t listening. I stood apart, eyes tracing the jagged lines of rooftops and shattered windows. The village looked frozen, untouched for decades. No movement. No sound. Only the mist, curling through the streets like something alive, weaving around the broken structures.

My fingers tightened around the strap of my bag. The hum of the Geiger counter clipped to my jacket was a steady reminder of where I was. I didn’t need it to remind me of the unseen threat in the air. But that wasn’t what held me still. There was something else. A weight hung over the village, thick and heavy, like the air itself was watching.

I stepped away from the group, moving toward one of the houses. The door hung loosely, barely attached to its frame, and the windows were broken, dark openings that gave no hint of what lay inside. The fog thickened, wrapping itself around my legs as I moved closer, making it hard to see beyond a few feet. The others faded behind me, their voices disappearing into the white silence.

There was nothing left of Yaniv. Just bones of what had been, crumbling into the earth. But as I stood there, staring into the shadows of the abandoned house, I felt it. A shiver crawled up my spine, slow and deliberate, like a hand brushing against the back of my neck.

The silence deepened as I moved closer to the house. My breath hung in the cold air, curling into thin wisps that disappeared into the fog. The ground beneath my feet was uneven, cracked by time and abandonment, and each step seemed to echo in the stillness around me.

I paused at the threshold, my hand hovering just inches from the rough wooden door. The wood was warped, weathered by years of exposure, and the faint creak of the door moving slightly in the wind made my pulse quicken. Inside, there was nothing but darkness, a heavy kind that seemed to press against the broken walls, swallowing everything.

The air was colder here, sharper, biting at my skin. My eyes flicked back to the others in the group, now distant figures, barely visible through the fog. Their voices were faint murmurs, like whispers carried on the wind. I was alone, standing in front of a place that had been forgotten by the world.

Suddenly , a voice behind me broke through the stillness, low and hoarse. “You don’t want to go in there…”

I spun around. A man stood a few feet away, his face pale, gaunt, his clothes worn and dirt-stained.

His eyes were fixed on mine… wide and unblinking, the fog between us swirling with each shallow breath he took. His skin was too pale, stretched thin over hollow cheeks and dark, sunken eyes. He looked worn, as if whatever had once made him human had been slowly pulled away, leaving only a shadow of the person he might have been.

He didn’t seem to notice my stare, his own eyes flicking nervously around the fog as if expecting something to materialize out of it. His chest rose and fell rapidly, each breath creating small clouds of vapor that dissolved almost instantly in the cold air.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said , his voice barely above a whisper. His gaze flicked to the house, then back to me. His body was tense, like he was ready to bolt at the slightest movement.

“I’m with a tour group,” I said, trying to sound confident, but my voice faltered. “We have a guide… we were exploring the village.”

His gaze snapped back to mine, sharp and filled with something close to desperation. “What group?” he asked, his voice suddenly tight, eyes narrowing.

I swallowed, glancing around at the thick fog that had swallowed the village. The others were gone, and the silence was suffocating. “The fog…it must have separated us.”

He didn’t seem convinced. His expression darkened, his fingers twitching at his sides. “There are rules here,” he muttered, almost to himself. “You need to follow them if you want to leave.”

“What rules?” I asked, my throat tightening with the weight of his words.

He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Don’t stay out after dark. Don’t let them see you’ve noticed them. Never follow the lights and never enter a house that has a red door.”

I frowned. “A red door? Why so specific?” The rule felt oddly precise, and for a moment, it almost seemed ridiculous.

The man’s face turned serious, his voice low but sharp. “It’s not just the color. It’s what’s behind it. You can’t ever open a red door in this village…”

I shook my head, still not understanding. “But why? What’s behind it?”

He leaned in closer, his voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t know exactly. Nobody does. But the ones who’ve opened a red door… they never come back. It’s like they vanish, swallowed by whatever’s in there. The house, the door…it’s not part of this world. Once you cross through, there’s no coming back.”

I felt a chill run down my spine, his words carrying an eerie weight. “But what’s inside?” I asked, my voice quieter now.

He shook his head, his expression grim. “No one knows for sure. Some say it’s a trap, that it leads to something that isn’t part of this village. Others say there’s something inside … something waiting. And it feeds off people’s fear…”

“Whatever it is, the moment you touch that door, it knows you’re there. And it won’t let you go.”

My pulse quickened. “What happens if I break the other rules?”

His eyes darted back to me, and his voice dropped even lower. “They’ll find you.”

Before I could speak again, a flicker of light appeared in the distance, cutting through the fog like a small beacon. It was faint, but steady, and seemed to hover just beyond the crumbling rooftops.

The man’s face drained of color, his body stiffening as he stared at the glow. “Don’t follow it,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. “No matter how close it seems.”

My chest tightened, and I couldn’t pull my eyes away from it. The air felt heavier, pressing against my skin, cold and thick. It wasn’t just the light that unsettled me…it was the way it seemed to move, slowly drifting like it was searching for something.

“We need to leave, before they come.” he muttered. His eyes darted toward the village, scanning the buildings around us.

Without another word, the man tugged at my sleeve, pulling me along. My feet felt sluggish, but I followed him, each step echoing in the stillness of the village. The ground shifted beneath me, uneven and cold, the air heavy with the weight of silence.

The houses rose around us, dark shapes against the mist. Each building seemed to sag under the weight of years, some barely standing, others collapsed into rubble. But as we moved, one house stood out. It was mostly intact, its windows dark and lifeless, but the door…a sharp, vivid red…stood out like a wound in the fog.

I froze.

…

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