I was breathing hard, my lungs almost burning out. I felt the damp cement walls closing in around me. My knees began to buckle while my ankles seemed to swivel, attempting to balance my legs as if they were weak table legs. My shoelaces began to become untied. Taking a second, I slipped off my shoes in the hallway, as if I would be returning to them. I turned my head to look down the staircase. I came to an immediate stop. There was a recognizable glisten to the cement stairs. The shine came from a thin layer of sticky liquid, almost thick gasoline, that was encasing my exit. I slowly humbled over the railing at the stop of the stairs. Leaning over, my stomach tightened, I wouldn't, but it was my only way out. Out, out, out, I thought to himself as I propped my left bare foot onto the metal chain railing harshly nailed into the ground. I could see his breath, forming cloud above my head. My throat became raw and my head started to swim. My shaking posture was too risky. Taking a slow breath, possibly my last, I propped his upper body against the almost 6 feet tall fence. As I pushed myself up onto the thin bar surrounding the rails, my crackling knuckles turning white, my fingers clenched the bar. Slowly, I bent my knees, preparing to jump. The bar was ice, looking down at my bare feet, the blue veins almost pulsing out of my skin, I closed my eyes. As I straightened my knees, my feet slowly lifting off the ground, everything seemed to move in slow motion. My body seemed to be frozen in time, frozen in the air around me. I couldn't move, my neck aching. The black, deeply dented cement floor seemed welcoming. Suddenly, the feeling in my body returned, but... I was still in the midst of falling, yet I wasn't moving. It was as if someone pasted me in a cloud, only able to view what was below me. Carefully, I craned my neck to see someone, something, a black silhouette no taller than me, standing on the surface right before the soaked stairs. Their hands were gripping their clothes, deep concentration. I held my breath. The figure began to gain clarity, its head tilted forward with their eyes pointing towards me. I soon felt a sudden contact with the ground. Did this someone fly me over here? My head flooded with questions. My jaw dropped hard enough, I could've sworn it touched my chest. "Ele-" my sentence was cut as if someone muted me. Changing my glance towards my feet, I realized that they began to disappear. As I held my hands up, they seemed to be a light pigmented mist. I could no longer feel my bones, my muscles. Suddenly, there was a bright blue light flashing my vision.
"I'll see you next time Mike," a voice behind me whispered, close enough I could almost feel their breath against my neck. Just as I turned my view behind him, the voice was gone. Letting my eyes sink into their sockets, my body being carried, almost lured by the light, still wondering, wondering, who saved me from escape, but mostly.... if they'd ever cross paths again.
