Here is a 500 word short story I wrote in the spring, toying with short forms and what they can accomplish in few words. I hope it stirs something for you.

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The Opening

Miranda had lived in the dark room for so long that when the door suddenly opened, the light flooding in dazzled her eyes, and she thought maybe she'd died. As her eyes slowly adjusted, the scene before her did nothing to dispel the illusion. Is this heaven, she thought as a sweeping green flowering field came into focus. In the distance appeared a wooded lake with snowcapped mountains beneath a brilliant blue sky. 

A single flower petal floated across the threshold on a light breeze and landed in her palm as she held it open.

This can't be real, she thought, and just like that, the doorway and the vision outside were gone. She awoke in her bed in the dark room as usual and assumed that she'd been dreaming, but when she opened her palm, resting there was a single pink petal.

Months, maybe years went by. It was hard to tell in that small, dark place. But she never forgot the open, heavenly landscape that she'd seen, and she looked for the doorway many times. The pink petal had long since turned to dust in the little bowl she'd placed it in to remind herself that it had been more than a dream, that there was more to life than maintaining these four small walls. She'd decorated them with drawn images from her memories of the beauty outside, but they were still cold and grey as the stone they were made of. 

Before an outside appeared, she could see rainbows in the stone: myriad shades and hues in the dim light to her acutely honed eyes. But the light outside, the brilliance and variation, made it all grey now. Her stone walls were no longer alive for her now. They were just that, stone walls. She felt the weight of them pressing on her somehow.

Finally, an insight came to her. She drew the door itself as she began to hear birdsong, faint at first, but growing stronger as the door took shape. As the bird sang and the door became ever more real, the colours came alive in her mind again, at first fluttering like weak muscles, but then glowing strong and illuminating in the dark. 

Finally, there was a loud crack as the door came to life in the stone, and a gap appeared just large enough for her fingers.

She'd waited so long for this moment, but she paused in fear. This cave was all she knew. It kept her safe. It had everything she ever needed, but somehow now she needed more. 

She pulled the door open and was again dazzled by light. She stumbled and fell across the threshold, still blinded and vulnerable. But rain, soft and cool, touched her face, and she knew instinctively that this new world would provide for and nurture her. 

She opened her eyes, and saw in surprise a stag sitting right beside her, peacefully among the grass and the flowers, a songbird preening in his tree-like antlers.