Stairs

It’s 11.25 PM. You’ve just finished your work for the day. The deadlines are piling up and you’re feeling tired. The dishes are also piling up. You’ve spent your entire day in the attic, your room, and haven’t taken your dishes to the kitchen in two days. There’s a strange stench in your room so you decide it’s time to get rid of them. You gather cutlery, four plates and one bowl and head out of the room. You open the door with your leg.

The stairs are dark. Your hands are full. You’re too lazy to go back to your room, turn on the light, then take the dishes again, so you try to turn on the switch with your elbow. The bowl almost falls. You try again with your head. *Click*. You expect the light to turn on, but it doesn’t. You’ll have to go down the stairs in complete darkness.

You walk down the very short corridor from your room to the stairs. You think you reached the beginning of the staircase. You tap it with your right leg and decide where it ends, then you carefully find the next stair and get both your feet on it. That wasn’t that hard. You do that again for the next two stairs. You’re becoming confident. You try to find the fifth stair, but you rush and trip. You regain your balance on the sixth stair. Your heart is beating faster. You almost dropped your dishes and you almost fell. You got to be more careful. You keep looking at your legs as you continue. Seven. Eight. Nine.

The moonlight, or maybe just a street lamp, makes the last three stairs dimly lit. You look up to the window between the two flights of stairs. Ghostly atoms are dancing in the light. It’s a white, translucid ballerina without a face or a body, continually spinning at the sound of a long-buried musical box. Pirouette. Plié. Pirouette.

You rush down the stairs and through the little light. You’re now in complete darkness again with your heart beating faster than ever. From now on, it’s just you and the stairs. You hesitate to make the first step. Just leave the dishes here and get back to them in the morning. No. Someone might trip and that would be your fault. You must take them to the kitchen. You find the stair and get both your feet on it. You’ve come halfway and you can do this. You test the ground and reach the third stair. The house is covered in an eerie silence. You can hear your heartbeat and your respiration. You take small, agitated breaths. You can’t breathe. You gather your strength and continue to the fourth stair. You stare at the darkness beneath you and keep your elbow on the bannister. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a flash of light. You turn around, but there’s no one there. As you moved too fast you’re now dizzy and feel as if you are going to lose your balance. You get yourself together and continue. Five. Six. Seven. You freeze as you hear a strange static noise coming from the kitchen. Your eyes are slowly adapting to the pitch black of your surroundings when you distinguish a white silhouette in the same direction as the static. Your heartbeat and breathing are now erratic. You are very close to a panic attack. Still, you convince yourself to go down the next stair. And the next. And the next. Slow, insecure steps. Your legs are shaking. The cutlery is shaking too. If only you could keep one hand on the railing. As you try to go further, your foot slips. Your heartbeat increases even more as you almost fall. You don’t. Maybe that would have been better - you would have been in the kitchen already and this nightmare would have been over. But you must continue. You’re not sure how many stairs are there left so you stop for a moment. *tick - tock* *tick - tock* . Is there a clock in the kitchen? You’ve never seen it. Is it your heartbeat? No. Where is that coming from? You look around. You’re so scared. You hear the stairs creaking as if someone is coming from behind. There was no one else upstairs. You heard no doors. You’re so scared. You close your eyes, but you see the ballerina and the white silhouette. You try to close your ears too, but you’re flooded by the static, the mysterious clock and the footsteps coming from behind. You’re too scared to look behind, but you do it anyway. No one. You are alone in the darkness.

You find the next stair then you feel something else under your feet. It’s cold. Floor tiles. You reached the kitchen. You hardly distinguish the fridge, the stove, the table and the sink. You put the dishes down. With your hands free, you finally manage to turn on the lights.