"Don't open the cellar door" Those familiar words haunt my ears once more as my parents leave for work. They said that to me every day they left me home alone, nearly every day for the past 19 years. And in those 19 years, I've never opened it, for fear of what lie behind it, for surely it had to be something terrible for them to stress how much they wanted me to stay away.
Now don't get me wrong, I love my parents, and I believe they're only doing what's best for me. But sometimes, I get this incredible urge to open the cellar door. I just need to know what's on the other side, so I can put to rest all the terrible theories I've had bouncing in my head over the years.
But no matter how much that curiosity grows inside the back of my mind, a fear deepens in the pit of my stomach, this overwhelming fear that my parents are not who they say they are, not the loving parents they've pretended to be these 19 years. What if they're horrible people? I couldn't live with myself knowing they're these horrible people, so I'd rather keep the truth as far away as possible than know it.
But today, everything was different. Why? Tomorrow was my birthday. 20 years old. 2 decades I've been living in constant fear, 2 decades I've been the perfect angel my parents say I have to be, 2 decades hearing the faint echo of my mother's voice saying "Don't open the cellar door" rattle around in my head.
Today, I was going to open the door. I was done with fear, I was ready to finally prove that I was brave. I needed to prove it to myself, nobody else. I needed to know.
I looked at that basement door for hours. Sometimes I sat, others I paced, sometimes I just stood there, face to face with this sinister door. As I looked, I couldn't see anything wrong with it. It was just a plain wooden door. It had an old paint job that looked as if the faded red paint had been peeling for the past 40 years to reveal the brown wood underneath, with a little black knob on either side.
It was just an ordinary wooden door. It wasn't evil, it couldn't hurt me. It was just old wood.
And so I reached for the knob, with every fiber of my being screaming at me to stop, to go back and just leave it, that I'd be better off not knowing. But I needed to know what was so terrible, so evil that I couldn't ever open the cellar door.
I put my hand on the cold iron knob, and I slowly turned it. Before I pushed it open, I closed my eyes and thought one last time of just putting it down, going back to bed, and never touching the door again.
"I need to know!" I screamed at the door, as I rammed into it, exposing me to the great horror that lie behind it.
Except, there was no horror.

Just beauty.

At first, I didn't want to open my eyes. But even with my eyes closed, the light was blinding, and the heat on my skin was intense yet refreshing.
I had to open my eyes. I had to see.
Slowly I opened my eyes, and the wave of light and color hit me like a brick wall.
There was green everywhere, the floor was covered with this thick green carpet, and there were these tall brown poles everywhere with green all over them. Then I looked up, and I saw the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. There was no ceiling, just this endless blue, with white patches everywere. And then off to the side, there was a bright yellow light, the brightest thing I'd ever seen in my life.
Everything was so beautiful, I don't understand why they were keeping it from me, or how they fit all this behind one old, worn out, wooden door.
But now I knew the truth. They weren't hiding any of the things I feared, they were still the same loving parents I've had my entire life, and I still love them with all my heart. And I'll still obey everything they say.

And I'll never open the cellar door again.