I didn’t even know we had a basement.
I mean, I knew we had one. It was just a place I didn’t get to go. One of the number one rules in the house was not to go into the basement. Father would disappear down there from time to time, but it was off limits for me. It wasn’t like I wanted to go down there anyways. Looking down those stairs I saw a growing darkness that shrouded the door, threatening to push out and around into the kitchen and living room if it wasn’t for the piercing lights on the first floor. When father disappeared into the darkness, I could only imagine he was fighting off a great evil that kept our house safe.
That illusion was broken once I had grown up more, and fears of ghosts and ghouls lurking in the shadows began to become just a twinkle in my memories. By then I had a good grasp on flying, and one day my father took me downstairs for the first time in my life. Each step down the stairs made a unique creak that made me pause. There were so many theories and speculations that were about to be put to rest, and despite it all my father trotted down like it was a well worn path. After what felt like an hour, I stepped off the last creaky step and my father opened the door to the dark, dusty basement.
But that’s not the door that matters.
In the basement, buried in dusty trinkets from the past and old bookshelves holding stories I’d never read, was a wooden door I’d never seen before. It didn’t look as dilapidated as the other furniture in the basement, but chipped paint and scratches made it look well worn. There was a dark, ominous light coming from under the door, and it was hard to take my eyes off of as my father led me into the basement. Lucky for my curiosity, he ignored the rest of the clutter and led me right up to that door.
Without hesitation, he opened it up and strolled into an expansive room that stretched farther than my eyes could see. In fact, I realized that it was larger than could have even existed below our house. The roof stretched up till it was almost as high as a sky, and it felt as though the walls ran farther than the rolling hills outside. It was one of the first instances that day where I saw something I felt was worthy of the word “supernatural.”
Spanning from the center was a massive computerized system, something I didn’t quite recognize at the time. Concepts like the “internet” and such were also supernatural in my eyes then. After all, I lived in a tiny cottage with the same family. In the moment, the case of the bigger-on-the-inside room and the magical cable tower were on the same level. The large futuristic system was covered in metallic plating and blinking lights that seemed impossibly random, and screens covered the surrounding walls with beautiful landscapes and scenes from places I never saw.
My father could tell I was overwhelmed, and he took my hand and led me into the room. I remember him explaining everything in depth, something about all the different screens. But in my head, everything was still spinning. I lived a life watching shadows for so long that processing how much was out there was impossible at the rate I was seeing it. Shaking, I clutched my father’s hand tighter and followed.
He led me to a wall and gestured to the surplus of screens. “Pick one,” he told me. I stood still for a moment, silent. I didn’t really process what he meant. Pick? Pick what? I wanted to speak up and ask for clarity, but my voice was lost as my anxiety and fear kept growing. After what felt like a minute of silence, I slowly walked towards a screen with a valley of beautiful pink trees, raining petals down on the grass under the peaceful sun. I looked back towards my father for any sort of confirmation, and he simply gestured for me to keep going. I moved closer, coming face to face with it before reaching out a timid hand to tap the screen.
Suddenly, every screen around it went dark. The gentle light of the room faded as the lights from the screens disappeared and all that was left was the screen in front of me. I squealed, jumping back into my father who pointed me back towards the door we came into. Back the way we came was no longer a dimly lit and musty basement, but instead was open to a brightly lit valley with the same pink and green colors on screen. Finally, everything clicked. I had spent so long processing what he was showing me until I finally realized just what was happening.
All of these were worlds. Places with different people, different landscapes, different cultures. And we were able to visit them.
With a hesitant step, I walked through the door.