I sat on the bed, watching the small drops of water dripping from the exposed light bulb. The light making little rainbow teardrops as it plummeted to the floor. Somewhere in my mind a long obsolete neural pathway told me that water dripping from lit electric light bulbs was not safe. I smiled at that and looked at the bare floor where the small pool was slowly forming, washing away the dust and grime that was growing like apathetic lichen on the wood panels. I could see the bulb's reflection and wondered if it was real or not.

Once again, I looked up at the closet door in front of me. The paint was a washed out lime green, almost faded to white and chipping to reveal the wood underneath. I expected it to be covered in mold, but it wasn't Behind that door...

I got up off the bed and walked under the bulb, no water touched me as I passed beneath, as if asking for a final blessing from the god that had opened the way. The true master of the gate, the one who had slain Yog-Sothoth and declared itself god. As the song once said, "A schizophrenic child is ending time." None of that was true to me anymore. Time had ended long ago, before the universe was even aware of it.

I reached out to the door knob and I felt the presence of the dragon. The last line of defense in a world that had surrendered. It told me in no spoken word that it no longer cared if I opened the door. It told me that it was laying down the sword and releasing the stars to the righteous. It would no longer stand in my way, would no longer restrain my destiny, whatever it was that I thought it could be. It had murdered Nyarlathotep in cold blood to stop me once, but now it no longer cared. I had won, whatever that entailed. I smiled to myself and turned the doorknob. The last remaining matter that was now the gateway, the relinquished lock that the Fadara Kang, Samael, the keeper of the end and the real guardian of the watchtowers, slid loudly from it's rest inside the notch in the wall. I could now pull the door wide.

"Surrender."

I paused. It was a single word shot through my brain, almost disrupting my reverie. It was a feminine voice, very strong, yet it sounded amused, as it always did. Samael, the great dragon Fadara Kang, may have loosed control, but it became cruelly obvious that it had not been released to me.

I yanked the door.

It did not open.

I screamed in rage and beat my hands against the wood, the cursed structure that stood between me and the last great hope I could ever feel. All because in a last ploy to stop me, the great beast of chaos had given his soul to the one force that could mock me and never release me from this lie of a universe.

I turned quickly, eyes wide.

She was sitting there, on the bed.

"Release me," was all I could manage to say. I felt as if I was solidifying, becoming a stone lost on the surface of a great ocean, about to sink to impossible depths and be lost from hope forever, always aware, always alone, as I surely was now, yet with not even Goddess to keep me company in my own torment.

She smiled even wider, showing perfect white teeth with canines that I would swear were vampiric in length. She didn't stand, but laid back on the bed, hands behind her head, watching the light bulb drip it's water and completely ignoring me.

I threw myself into the closed door. The door to my salvation. The one forever closed because of...

"ERIS!" I screamed and fell to the floor, tears streamed from my eyes. The pain was intolerable. I looked up at the blurred image before me. I saw the starburst haze of the light bulb, and there, on the bed, was Eris, Discord, Satan for all I cared. She was holding an apple, I knew it was made of gold, I knew it had my name written on it. That was the running joke, you see, somewhere, there was a golden apple with my name on it.

Her voice was burning silk. "Yes," she said, rather than asked.

"Please," I cried. I had no other alternative, I was kneeling, doubled over, on the floor, a foot or so from salvation, at the total whims of Goddess and I desperately wanted to die, but I knew that was impossible. I shut my eyes tight and prayed to Jesus, whoever that was.

I heard her voice, closer to me this time, inside my head, as well as my ears. "Locked doors," she said, "pose no threats for the unlocked soul." She then laughed and it was not only her laugh, but it was the laugh of the gate keeper, the relinquished Kang, the dead Great Old Ones, and , worst of all, it was the laugh of the last remaining bit of sanity I had left. I was laughing at myself and I screamed at that. Screamed like the primordial birthcries of all Creation. I screamed at Eris with a voice that was beyond my own. I was afraid that no one heard it.

"The door will never open," she said, not unsympathetically, "because you do not want it to."

The words were lost on me. I heard, but did not comprehend, for I could feel the pulsing chaos behind that faded, paint chipped wall of the universe. I could taste it in my mouth, it was like a salty candy, I wanted to vomit, I wanted to touch it, I wanted to open the door. Somewhere in an alien region of my brain, a synapse fired off a message. It told me that I did not want to open the door.

My eyes popped open. I was lying on the bed. The light was on, the water still dripping from the exposed bulb. That was not safe, I should have turned it off and complained to the motel manager. I looked over at the closet door. It was shut. Somewhere it was raining, which would explain the leak in the ceiling.

I stood up and walked to the closet, as I passed beneath the bulb, a drop of water hit me on the head. I swore briefly and reached for the doorknob on the closet. It turned gently and I swung the door open.

The universe exploded.

I woke up at last, the sun warming my face. I could hear the surf pounding the rocks off to my left, a short distance down the coast. In front of me was a nice bit of beach. The waves cast lovely sparks of light from the sun. All very pleasant.

I stood up out of the beach chair and looked around. There was no one else on the beach. That was odd, to say the least, but it would give me the opportunity to stop screaming.

"Stop screaming."

I looked up from my vantage point on the floor. Eris was sitting up on the bed before me, apple nonchalantly clutched and held casually. She was staring straight at me. I was suddenly very cold. "Why can't I open the door," I asked in what must have sounded a pathetic whine of a voice.

"Why do you want to open the door," she asked innocently, smile never leaving her face.

"So I can be free," I said, certainly voicing the desperation I was feeling.

"You are free."

I screamed and opened my eyes again. The sunset was lovely, I must admit. It bathed the beach in a nice golden light, the ocean was breathtaking as well. I loved the Pacific. Quickly reclaiming my train of thought, I knelt down and drew a chaosphere in the sand. Around it I drew a large rectangle, big enough for me to stand in. I even drew a little door knob. I laughed at my cleverness. It was all very cute.

I looked up and saw a shooting star, very bright, as the sun was still partially up. Everything was falling in place. I reached out and gripped the doorknob...

It still wouldn't open. I slammed my forehead into the door, the world protesting with every strike, paint chips falling, the noise very silent compared to the screaming in my head. I yanked the door knob again, it didn't budge. It was turning freely, but wouldn't budge.

"Maybe you could try not standing on the door while opening it."

I looked up at Eris. She was kneeling in the sand outside the door I had drawn. She had on a beautiful flowered dress and a white hat. She removed her sunglasses and smiled.

I smiled back. "Good to see you," I said cheerfully.

"It's good you see me," she replied, just as cheerful.

"I fuckin' hate you!" I was now leaning against the door, paint chips on my shoulders, screaming at Eris. I felt sick to my stomach, I wasn't sane and I new it. I was angry, ripped, torn, most importantly, if you grant importance to such, I was sick. Sick of being me, sick of existing, sick of oblivion haunting my fantasies. I wanted to be anywhere but inside my own mind.

"I can live with that," she responded, still smiling. Now she was tossing the apple from hand to hand. I could swear I could see my reflection in it's golden surface. Occasionally, I'd catch a glimpse of my name as it spun and rotated in the air, lost in it's own holy gymnastics at the hands of Goddess.

"Me, open the door to Chaos?" I laughed a bit and looked down at the door in the sand.

"Well," said Eris, "It would beat what passes for daytime television."

"Bad joke, babe," I said, looking at the chaostar on the door.

"Maybe," she said sweetly, "you could have, let's say, a small look-see?" With that, she reached out and drew a "peep-hole" in the center of the chaostar. She then sat back and smiled brightly, as if to say, well, what are you waiting for?

"Well, what are you waiting for," she asked me, still tossing the apple about, always looking at me, never it, sitting on the bed, smiling a smile that I wished I could wipe from the face of everything.

I looked up at the door and saw it, there was a hole in the door. I must have accidentally rammed my fist through it while in a less than controlled state. Not that I was now. I screamed in desperate joy and lunged upwards, grabbing the whole with my hand and hauled myself up to it. There was a light shining through it, it flickered vaguely. I didn’t even look, I rammed my arm through the hole, trying to grasp what was beyond it. Trying to reach out and touch my salvation, the salvation taken from me. I backed up from the door and removed my arm. I looked through the hole and saw it. I saw the Chaos. It was dark and stormy and spoke volumes in a single glance. It saw me, looked at me and, like Eris, it smiled at me, as if to tell me that I had already lost. It made me sick to look at. I threw up on the floor, doubled over and fell, lying in the contents of my stomach, my mind reeling.

I saw the golden apple with my name on it. It had a bite out of it and was lying next to my face. I couldn't move much, my mind was swimming in waves. I managed to look up to see Eris walk past me, never looking down. She walked to the closet door and swung it wide open. I screamed inside my own head, unable to speak.

I watched in pain and creeping terror as she reached inside the closet and pulled out the nightmare I had just seen.

Under Eris's smiling gaze I looked down into the sandy spot that was the "peep-hole" and looked inside. The first thing I saw was not describable. I was looking at pure Chaos and it was colorful, but not. I laughed because it was funny. I couldn't take my eyes off of it. It made no sense at all and it didn't care, oh, but it could smile, yes and that's not all it was doing, it was juggling golden apples, but they weren't apples, they were pretzels. I laughed harder, overcome with joy. It was the most amazing thing, even if my mind couldn't comprehend it, it was funny seeing what my primitive brain was coming up with to explain what was on the other side.

Finally, the image faded and I sat back, still laughing. Eris was looking at me with a pleasant smile.

"So that's what Chaos looks like," I said, shaking my head and chuckling.

"Nah," replied Eris, "that's what Chaos sees when it looks at you." She laughed.

It was a mirror. Eris had reached into the closet and brought forth a mirror. She held it in her hands and looked down on me, as I lay there in my vomit, and smiled. "It's not about what Chaos sees in you, it's what you see in Chaos when it looks at you." She laughed and dropped the mirror. It fell before my face and shattered into a million sparks of light.

I sat on the beach with Eris and we laughed as the sun went down. Me, sitting on my little door that Chaos could look through and see me. It was a hilarious notion. I couldn't imagine a more fun experience.

Eris agreed in that wonderful way she had.

-Anonymous (at least until we can find out who did write the story)
[Sent to us by Chairman Chao who found it gathering dust on his hardrive]