"You mustn't go in there, Simon. Ppp-" the faintest of coughs shook her frame, rattling in her frail throat. Blood oozed from the corner of her desperate smile with a wet, slick sound. A shallow breath wheezed. "Promisssss." Her voice trailed off in time to a bloodshot tear that crawled down her temple into the hair tangled on the dank ground like a discarded mop.

"I don't understand," I whispered. "What's in there? What did it do to you?"

She gazed into my eyes. "You look red, my love," she whispered. "Everything looks red. Is there blood in my eyes?"

My furious breaths burned my throat. It was a wonder she could see at all. Blood wasn't so much in her eyes as everywhere; her bed, blanket and make-up. If only I'd got here sooner! I squeezed my eyes shut so hard it hurt my brain, willing away this horrid reality, but I knew it was a hopeless wish.

"A little," I answered. "I have to get you out of here. I'll carry you to hospital, I don't care how far. I don't want to lose you!"

Her hand brushed weakly at mine. "If wants had power we'd all be angels, Simon, strumming our harps till kingdom come. This is my fault; I did this. Now let me be. It's almost time, I can feel the life draining out of me."

I knelt on the grimy stone, my hands shaking as frustration riddled my system. "Let me try. I have to try."

She smiled again, a watercolour dream of her usual beaming grin. "I think the back of my head's missing. If you lift me ..." Her voice trailed off but I got the picture. A shadow of fear crossed her face then. "Simon. SIMON?" She coughed a fine crimson mist across my face but I refused to close my eyes.

"I'm here, my love." Even through the blood I could see the glaze in her eyes and something repulsively heavy settled in my gut.

"I can't see you," she mumbled, the last word sputtering, her mouth the only animated part of her face. Then she was still.

I watched as my tears fell away in my vision and collected in the dead wells of her face. My knees were soaked with her blood and the mess her head rested on lent weight to her earlier assessment. Her hair spread like crimson snakes from her head. Medusa, realised in gore.

I stood and gazed through blurry vision at the door she'd gone through, now closed without explanation after her escape. It shimmered slightly, even in the gloom of the tunnel, as though I was viewing it through a heat haze. It seemed hewn from a single slab of ancient timber, knotted and creased. Scrawled across it were runes of some kind, spidery and sinister.

I looked down at the love of my life, her ravaged form a sickening rictus on the ground. I let the image soak into my mind, scribed forever into the tablet of my memory by horror and anger.

"I will return," I whispered, my hands clenching until my fingernails pierced my palms, "and I will avenge you, my Sophie."

*****

Dear Brenda and John,

I am so sorry. Your daughter, my beloved Sophie, is dead. I was too late, you see. She had foolishly plunged into the darkness and returned before I got to her. The damage to her head was too great, and I was helpless to save her.

If I have disappeared when you read this, please do not look for me. I must follow where she went. I must understand what killed my Sophie. If that means descending to the depths she sought, then so be it.

I hope you do not bear me any ill will.

See you sometime, soon I hope.

Simon

*****

The pain stabbed into me as I prepared to follow Sophie, spreading through my system with its poisonous promises. It was assuaged by my certainty that this had to be done. I needed to know what had happened to her. I had to face her demons. The world swam before my eyes but my grief and anger kept me buoyant.

Before long I stood before that door. I realised then why it seemed familiar. I'd read the description before, in a newspaper article. Some mad ex-policeman called Mike Radshaw had been posting adverts for 'warriors' to help him solve the mystery of strange doors that he'd been encountering. He'd caught the attention of the press and they'd written a tongue-in-cheek article, but Mike hadn't been tongue-in-cheek at all when he described these doors. He'd been outright scary, and deadly serious.

I grasped the handle, pulled the portal open, and stepped into an existence of utter black. A chill wind wafted against my face, carrying an odour like dead animals in a dustbin. I staggered forward, hands outstretched, determined to continue. I heard a low groan off to one side and almost jumped out of my skin. I had thought I was in a tunnel of some kind, but apparently that wasn't so. A moan slipped through the darkness from the other direction and suddenly I wanted to be able to see very much. Beads of sweat were tickling my forehead and driving lines of ants down behind my ears. Then a whisper floated to me in the breeze.

"Come to us," it called in a multi-layered susurrus. My bladder almost gave way on the spot and I could feel the fear pushing through my insides like greasy hands, grasping at my organs with merciless pressure. I staggered a little and put an arm out for balance, but there was nothing to shore me up and I crashed to my knees.

A deep, primal mumbling was coming from somewhere nearby, the voice tinged with hopelessness and drenched in loss. I couldn't make out the words, but the monotonous grumbling grated against my senses and wrenched at my heart.

"I'm sorry," I said, tears tracking my face. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you, my Sophie, but I can avenge you."

A sibilant hissing issued from just in front of me and I whimpered. A rattlesnake's laugh rolled across my consciousness.

"Vengeaaaaannnnnnnccccccccce," whispered the hiss, laughter gifting it a sense of blackest dread. "No vengeancccce, only feeeeaaaaar."

The sight of Sophie came to me then, dead in repose, crimson snakes spreading from her mind. My resolve hardened once more and I clenched my jaw. "I would face you," I said with as much conviction as I could muster. I pushed myself to my feet once again, fighting the shakes that stammered through my frame. "Show yourself."

The soft laughter came again, filling my senses with malice, and I was very aware that I was way out of my depth. I was the impostor here, invading enemy territory with only grief and hate to back me up. They would have to be enough.

Light blossomed as a fire sprang to life before me, as red as Satan's eyes and as hot as Hell's passion. It seemed to emanate from the floor itself. As it grew, before my eyes a deeply feminine silhouette was revealed. Her curves were perfect dreams, her body clearly naked even in outline. Atop her head were dancing snakes, the mark of the mythical Gorgon. The difference was that the flailing ends were tails, the snakes' heads buried deep inside her head. As the fey light brightened further, I took a step back in shock. The Gorgon was Sophie.

"No!" I shouted. "You are not her!"

The laughter issued again between sharpened fangs and peeled back lips as she danced, swaying sensuously to a rhythm all her own, a motion perfectly judged to accentuate her nudity.

"Oh, but I am her. The other her, the better her, the her who deserves to be the only one."

I stepped forward, my anger giving me courage. "You are a sick likeness, a demon, a nether creature! You are not her, and you do not deserve her image."

Slitted eyes met mine, sharp with malevolent fervour. "She does not need the form any more. It is mine now, torn from her in fairness, ripped from her uncaring grasp."

I stepped closer. "I should kill you." I pulled my flick knife from my pocket and sprang the blade. "You left her damaged and alone, her life spilling from her form."

She began to circle and I turned with her, keeping her grotesque image in front of me. Her laughter had ceased and those evil eyes looked deadly serious. "She did it to herself, little boy. Do not replicate her mistake," she hissed.

I leapt forward and plunged my knife into her neck. Instead of trying to stop me, she let me come, and my stomach turned at the sensation running up my hand as my blade parted flesh, sinew and muscle. There was no blood, only an increasing limpness in her form. She looked into my face, our noses touching as the dancing light outlined her features in orange. Those beautiful, familiar features, made alien by this terrible place. Then she kissed me, just the once, and laughed mockingly through her death rattle.

A tear escaped my eye as I held her upright form. "What have I done?" I whispered.

Then pain speared into me from behind, stinging me sharply and repeatedly. It felt like a succession of bites... snake bites! There was another figure behind me, and the hissing of serpents filled my ears. My knees buckled as pain tore through my joints. I felt like my bones had turned to acid and melted my muscles. I collapsed to the floor and writhed, catching a glimpse of a naked male shape with snakes instead of hair. This time, the snakes faced outward and I wondered why.

I looked up into the grinning face and knew a sensation of total betrayal. My killer, my victor, my vanquisher, laughed an insane cackle. As darkness pulsed at the edges of my vision and the fire's heat was lost to me, I roared with anguish and sobbed like the baby I wished to be.

My betrayer, my defeat, was me.

*****

"He's just up here, through this door," said Officer Harris. "Are you sure you want to see this?"

Brenda and John both nodded. "His parents died when he was young," said John, pulling his jacket tight against the cold. "We feel kind of responsible for the lad. He would have been our son-in-law soon enough."

Harris nodded as they walked along the filthy alleyway. "You know he was into this shit?"

Brenda whimpered slightly, tears staining her face. "Our daughter bit the apple some time ago, we hoped Simon wouldn't follow her."

They followed Officer Harris through a flimsy metal door into a scene from a dark nightmare. Stained blankets littered the concrete floor of a hollowed-out building. In the centre of the room, a hole had been dug in the concrete, apparently for use as a fire pit. The police had set up flood lights around the place and small, bearded people huddled in the shadows, guarded by more police. One of the homeless guys was mumbling incessantly in a droll, monotonous voice, and several others moaned softly. Next to the fire pit was a body, spread in an arrangement of pain.

"Oh, Simon," whispered Brenda as they approached.

John nodded. "Poor, stupid bastard."

Simon lay twisted on the ground, as though he'd died writhing. Foam flecked his lips and dribbled down one cheek onto his neck. Blood had dried in streaks across his face and stained deep blotches in his trousers. One arm was bound tight with a length of rubber tubing. The inner elbow sported a half-pressed syringe, pulling a tent of skin where it hung from his vein. The whole lower arm had turned a dark grey colour.

Officer Harris sighed. "It was a heart attack that killed him, caused by a huge drug-fuelled increase in his blood pressure. The attack was so big and sudden it ruptured his system, and he bled out from every orifice on his body."

"He said he was going after her," John mumbled, "that he wanted to face what killed her. I wonder what he saw, what twisted visions led him on?"

Brenda sniffed. "I hope he found peace. Do you think he found peace? John, do you?"

John gazed down at the dead young man at his feet.

"No," he said. "I don't."