He was half way through standing up, his knees shaking so
bad that gaining his feet was near impossible, when suddenly the door slammed
shut behind him. It sent him sprawling
again, scrambling for the stairs as fast as he could. He could swear that there were heavy,
dragging footsteps following him, and the sound of nails scraping against the
painted walls. He would have looked back
if fear wasn't driving him forward.
It took seconds for him to reach the top step, though it
felt more like hours. However, he
stopped cold in his tracks as soon as he looked down the flight. The shadows were thick and heavy, swirling
like the smoke from dry ice. They seemed
to coalesce into a form, slowly fading in and out from existence at the bottom
of the stairs. At times it looked like a
small girl, her head shrouded in a dark hood.
Then it would shift again, all semblance of humanity gone, and a
grotesque hulk would be there instead. Both
girl and beast seemed to be swaying; the haunting lullaby of a thousand voices
that was floating through the air seemed to be keeping them captivated.
He stayed there at the top of the stairs on his hands and
knees, not wanting to go further but not able to tear his eyes away from the
sight below him. He realized that he was
shivering, his body shuddering uncontrollably from fear. His hot breath puffed white in front of his
face, the air suddenly very cold. It
felt as if some kind of pressure was building again, and soon he could sense
someone or something behind him, waiting impatiently. He swallowed hard but was unable to rip his
gaze from the mesmerizing shadows below him.
Suddenly there was a crack.
He couldn't tell if it was real or all in his head, but the pressure
released all in one beat of a heart. In
that moment the smoke stopped swaying and shifting, the beast taking the place
of the girl, and a grotesque face of the darkest black snapped up to look at
him. Deep into him. Its purple eyes, nothing more than specks in
its skull, bored into him and tore at his soul.
In the next heartbeat it was grinning at him. Something screamed from the hallway behind
him and a hard shove sent him tumbling down the stairs, right into the misty
arms of the beast.
The roar of the moment was deafening, his ears left ringing
and his eyes blinded as his head hit something very, very hard. It took him a second to regain his
senses. He had passed through the
thing. A look up the stairs revealed
nothing but the swirling, inky shadows that had been there before, but no
beast. No purple eyes. His stomach still curdled from the
sight. He just wanted to close his eyes
and forget it was all happening. Better
yet, he just wanted to wake up because this all had to be a dream. Nothing but a horrible, horrible dream.
The blare of a car horn brought him out of his stupor. It came again and again, sounding as urgent
as a horn could. His friends were trying
to get his attention, or just trying to get him to hurry up. Something must have happened. Without opening his eyes, he took a deep
breath and rushed to the door, fumbling once on the small welcome rug just inside
it. He flung the door wide and opened
his eyes.
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