The Unwritten

The Unwritten Part X Redux - Tom

In the stairwell Tom leaned back against the closed door. The room was pitch black. On the other side of the door the kitchen torture table lay bloody on its side. A dead man was stretched out upon the living room floor. There were those bastards out beyond the front door and God knows what had been floating around the ceiling.

Tom shivered just thinking about it which only made him feel the emptiness before him even more and the possibilities of what it might hold, what it all might mean, even more still. He closed his eyes tightly, trying to put down the fear, trying to understand what was happening. But he had nothing. None of this made any sense. He had to hold onto the fact that there was only here and now.

There was only, survival. He would just have to deal with things as they came up and hope that he could pull himself out of this nightmare one step at a time! He listened carefully to the room, trying to feel its...what? Essence? There was only a mute darkness, lingering there in the stairwell with him. He bowed his head, waiting, giving his eyes the shortest time possible to adjust.

Finally, opening his eyes he glanced up toward the staircase. He still couldn't figure out where the light in the room was coming from but his eyes had adjusted. He could see through the dark to the banister now, the deep, rectangular center of the stairwell.

Pulling himself together, standing upright he straightened his back. It cracked in a few places and made his side ache; but it was endurable. He was getting used to the pain. Or, was he going into shock?

Tom took the few steps forward it would take to reach the old wooden railing. His fingers touched it and it felt worn and ancient. Grasping it with both hands, it felt solid, well built. He shook it gently, then solidly to test its strength. It seemed firm but then he got a feeling of anxiety, realizing there was a great distance to how far the stairs went down.

As if his body recognized how far down the stairs went, even if his mind didn't. As if, wait....

It hit him like a bolt of lightning. He actually jumped sideways and looked at the spot he had been standing in. He looked around, quickly, as if expecting to see someone, or something, there. But there was nothing. What just happened? What WAS happening?

It was like...deja vu.

Like he'd done this before. He closed his eyes, thinking, trying to "remember" what was going to happen next. He looked to his left, toward the top of the stairs at the opposite end of the room from him. Ten. What was it about, ten? Ten, what? But nothing else came to him. He shook his head, trying to shake the dizzy out with the cobwebs. Maybe he actually was going into shock?

Tentatively, he walked along the railing and got to where the short flight of stairs headed down. He took a deep breath and stepped down onto the first step. Nothing happened. No monsters ran up at him. He almost chuckled to himself. He wasn't quite sure what he was expecting, but there was no doubt that he was in danger.

Tom looked back at the door he had just come through, realizing (again?), it was indeed a treacherous place. So he took another step. And another. Seven more and he was at the first level below the main floor of the cabin. Nothing much was there but silence.

He turned right and walked along the long walkway and banister, then turned right again and walked the short distance across the end bannister and turned right at the top of another flight going down. This was a longer set of stairs going down. He descended it, twenty steps this time.

He turned right, and right again and there was another long walkway heading back toward the door end of the staircase. Walking along the long walkway he got to the end where there was a short flight going down. He looked back up at the first flight of stairs he had come down. A mere ten steps down and...there it was. Ten! He smiled. Then, he frowned.

Oh come on, stop this, you're going nuts.

He walked forward, then another right, one more, and he was at the top step of the second, longer flight. He stepped down onto the first step. From what he could tell, the stairs repeated the first pattern. Probably flight, after flight, after flight going down into the darkness. But how far down did it go?

He looked over the edge. Tom could again make out about six or seven flights down and then it became too dim to clearly see. It made the hackles on the back of his neck stand on end.

"Damn."

He breathed the word listening to how the surrounding room dealt with it. There were no echoes; the walls seemed to absorb all sound. Or, was it the depths.

"Okay, then..."

Holding the banister he stepped down onto the first step of the new flight. Then just walked down the rest. It was an odd way to build flights of stairs, not congruent at all and that lent a surreal feel to it. All of this had a surreal feel to it. His life in fact was…he stopped short of finishing that thought, and shook his head. Here and now, here and now he kept telling himself. Figuring he had no more to lose in continuing, he headed down the walkway. 

Looking around, he saw no doors, certainly no windows. He put his hand on the wall as he walked around to the next flight of stairs. It felt tacky with age. That brought him along the long side to the short end nearest to the door above, where there was yet another flight. So he headed down what he figured would be another ten steps.

The air seemed to be getting heavier as he descended. It was more silent, if that was possible. Before he got to the bottom of that flight, he realized, looking back up, then down, this wasn’t ten steps.

It was eleven.

“What the hell?” His whispered words spooked him, as if someone else had spoken them. He looked around, but there was nothing there. Starting to feel more confident, he continued on wondering just how far this would go on.

Not far, he figured. Tom looked around, as if he’d had that thought, before….