Chapter Twenty-Eight
Declan
Athick blanket of mucousy clouds hastily descends from the sky, making it impossible to see more than a few feet down the path I’m walking.
The coarse ground is cold and hard beneath my inexplicably bare feet.
Whether I forgot footwear or made a conscious decision to traverse the streets of my small world, I don’t know.
But I am not going to be stopped. Possessed by a need to find my way to the end of, well, whatever, I continue forward through the cold and eerie nothingness created by walls of robust trees with wilted limbs that shroud the road with a dark and mysterious tunnel of gloom.
I spin in circles as I progress. The echoing crunch of red, orange, and brown leaves beneath me is all I hear between breaths.
Where am I?
Everything looks and feels like a childhood memory, only more demented.
Something leaves me with an uncanny sense that I have been here before.
Yet, I don’t know where I could be. My spine shivers in the absence of security or understanding.
There is one thing about which I am certain.
If there is a forest filled with these same trees, it’s a forest in which evil dwells.
Nothing good could exist beyond these monstrous plants.
Still, I move on until, eventually, an ingress appears.
Do I stay or do I go? It’s a rhetorical question for a child lost in darkness. I know I have to see what hides beyond the burrowed avenue.
A cliché castle on top of a mountainous hill at the end of a long obscure driveway awaits my arrival.
The hike further into the shadows takes the better part of thirty minutes.
With unprotected feet, I am forced to climb over large granite rocks and dodge gargantuan fallen branches, each trying harder than the last to obstruct me, seemingly intentionally. Yet, I can’t convince myself to stop.
When I finally arrive at a Victorian palace of a structure, I am puzzled to find there are no doors or windows—at least none I can see.
I march hundreds of yards around the building’s perimeter.
Twice. Nevertheless, nothing but darkness and solid stone.
A palace with no way in. Or worse. If one were stuck inside, no way out.
The outer walls remind me of ancient Egyptian tombs, where hieroglyphs map a family’s history.
The fog and the thick clouds overhead are obstacles, preventing me from making sense of what I see.
I shut my eyes tight, focusing on what I can hear, smell, and feel.
My right arm stretches forward, and I run my fingertips along the base of the citadel’s wall.
Despite the sophisticated appearance of the structure’s design, the touch of the stone is quite porous and bland, like that of a city sidewalk.
Further along the outer barrier, I am startled by clashing thunder.
The earth begins to rumble beneath me. Unable to hold my balance for long, I open my eyes, and there IT is.
A void appears in the wall before me, from which a rush of cold air hisses in my face. Now, my curiosity is piqued.
I haven't come this far just to run away.
I take two steps through the newfound entrance, and I am immediately at a loss for words.
What appears to be a massive stone house from the outside is much more than I ever could have imagined.
The ceiling arches high above the ground, much higher than I can see.
Blackish-blue walls shoot straight up on all sides, covered with silver dots, leaving me feeling like I'm walking through the vacuum of space.
My feet stumble forward as I, enamored by the beauty of such a great hall, fail to pay any attention to where I'm going. I rely solely on the feeling of my filthy scuffed bare feet on the smooth stone floor to prevent me from tripping and falling flat on my face. Just as the massive structure appears from the outside, I see no doors or windows. It’s a stunning fortress of nothingness.
In the dimly lit hallway, a small boy stands, appearing no older than eight, with tousled hair and wide, curious eyes.
I take a step forward, and he mimics my movement, stepping toward me with an identical bounce.
I slowly lift my right hand, watching as he simultaneously raises his left, creating a perfect symmetry.
Suddenly, clarity strikes like a flash of lightning.
It's not another child, but a mirror reflecting my image.
Yet, instead of my familiar thirty-year-old face, I see the face of my younger self staring back.
Something doesn't seem right. I lean in close, squinting my eyes—the universal method of bringing objects into focus.
Finally, I see it beside me in the reflection.
A tall spiral staircase to the left, just behind me.
If not for the reflective wall panel, I may never have noticed it.
Naturally, I waste no time. On the way up, my mind considers the possibilities of where I could be going.
“Who lives here?” I ask aloud. “And how has it been kept secret?”
I feel both amazement and fright at the same time.
But, for some reason, maybe ignorance, I continue on.
Left foot. Right foot. Left again. Up, and up, and up.
Further and further. I climb forever. It’s only when I contemplate giving up that my journey to the top concludes.
Hunched over and winded, I take deep breaths in and slowly release them back out.
When I finally lift my head back up, I find myself in front of a moldy oaken sign on a random wall that reads:
Welcome to Floor 13
I'm positive that I've conquered more than just thirteen floors, yet I find myself mildly aghast. I must have been climbing for twenty solid minutes. Even if I've slowed down for moments to catch my breath, I should have ascended at least fifty, if not a hundred stories. I glance back down the spiral stairs and, just as when looking up from the bottom floor, I see no end. No matter how many floors I have conquered, once I reach the top there are only two choices: left or right. Neither option appears any different from the other. But that isn’t my main worry. After having ignored constant obstacles and barriers that should have ended this endless quest, I suddenly realize something is terribly wrong. I have made a terrible mistake, though I can’t exactly pinpoint why, and I am filled with an unrelenting fear—as if I have stared death squarely in the face.
To the left.
I stretch out my arm when I move away from the stairs, discovering a new wall in a new hallway. Or perhaps it’s a dark tunnel mysteriously suspended in the air some thirteen floors above the ground—I can’t quite tell which. Given everything else, nothing would surprise me at this point.
I continue down the funnel of the hallway, my fingers trailing along the remarkably smooth wall behind me, slowed by the friction of my oily hand against polished porcelain.
However, not every aspect of the floating hallway is fascinating.
About twenty feet down the grim corridor, my hand slides onto an indented slab—a coarse wooden door on my right.
Then, as I move further along, I encounter another door.
And then another. They are very basic, most likely made of particle board, which is rather disappointing given the enigmatic nature of this refuge.
My nosiness gets the better of me, and I open a couple of the doors to explore the randomly arranged rooms high above the ground.
But there is nothing to be found—just emptiness, void after void.
A burst of freezing air lashes me from head to toe as I step back into the hallway, sending goosebumps down my neck and arms and causing my body to convulse uncontrollably. In the distance behind me, I hear the clashing of steel elevator doors closing.
“Hrrrrbbbb!” I gasp aloud, clutching my chest.
I whip around to locate the source of the unexpected commotion, and my eyes fall upon the impossible—a figure standing at the far end of the hall.
Cloaked in musty black, it has a pair of fiery, bright flame-colored eyes that are bloodshot and brimming with hatred.
With each long and wheezy exhale, the foul creature sends another gust of that frigid air my way.
“Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.” It chuckles under its breath.
At opposing ends of nothingness and equidistant from the staircase, I find myself staring at the very definition of evil.
I have no idea what, if anything, awaits me at the end of this dark tunnel.
Yet there are only two known ways out: the elevator or the stairs.
I have never seen the elevator before, so there is no telling where it might lead.
Any fate is preferrable to death by stagnancy, so, I decide to make a run for it.
“Left, right, left, right—I can do it,” I cheer to myself, desperate to reach the spiral staircase before the cloaked demon can catch up.
A few steps into my sprint, I notice that the dark figure isn’t running at all.
Instead, it moves forward in a slow, nonchalant glide, floating across the floor toward me.
I pray that I have caught this strange being by surprise.
I can make it.
I press on, one foot after the other, breathing heavily as I try to ignore the cold gusts of air coming from the would-be assailant. I begin panting harder than an eighty-year-old asthmatic failing to blow out his birthday candles.
I keep going.
I reach the banister of the stairs about thirty feet ahead of the daunting creature and immediately turn right onto the stairway, hoping gravity will be an ally in my descent.
“AAAAH!” I scream at the sudden onslaught of sharp pains—like razorblades slicing into the filthy soles of my feet.
I slow down to figure out the source of the agony and discover that each stair’s plank is wrapped in thick, thorn-covered ropes.
Even worse, the devilish figure is quickly gaining ground.
“What is going on?” I cry out, desperate for an explanation that never comes.
I battle with the stabbing agony and resume my descent down the stairs.
Step after step, floor after floor, mystifyingly vanish behind me.
When I look back over my shoulder to gauge my pursuer’s progress, I am stunned to find that the dark figure has vanished.
Baffled by my circumstances, I lose track of time until I suddenly realize I have once again traveled well beyond thirteen floors.
But there is no end in sight. With each step deeper into the never-ending shadow, the cold air settles into my bones and aches at every joint.
Finally, I reach the floor at the end of the staircase—but it’s not the floor where I began.
I turn around and around, unable to see much beyond the reach of my arms. I don’t know where I am—though I hadn’t really known before either.
With no other choice, I choose an entirely arbitrary direction and start running.
The dirt and dust from the floor creep into the open wounds under my feet, making me wince in more pain.
Tears well in my eyes; I long to curl up on the floor and let this endless disaster end, but I can’t quit. Not now.
I wipe my tears and shake my head, and then, almost coincidentally, a small ray of light appears around a corner ahead.
A way out, I think.
I pick up the pace, still whimpering, my eyes flooded, leaving behind a clumpy trail of dirt-soaked blood with every step.
As I arrive at the corner, I find a bright doorway with sunlight streaming through from the other side.
I can see a plain concrete floor with wooden beams supporting a low ceiling—it’s nothing more than an empty basement.
THHHUNK!
Just as I reach for the door to what I hope is my salvation, I am struck by a hot, penetrating pain that expels the remaining air from my lungs. Those bloodshot, fiery eyes full of hatred lock onto mine, and I freeze.
There he stands—a foot taller than any doorway I’ve seen, with the girth of a heavyweight fighter.
He is wearing a tattered graduation gown with a long, flowing hood that shrouds his demented face in black from chin to floor.
His skin is the faint recycled-paper white, and bulging, dark veins protrude from his neck.
Oily, long hair cascades past his shoulders, and a large-brimmed hat casts a shadow over his eyes and nose, halting just shy of a grotesque smile filled with razor-sharp, decaying teeth.
As I subtly glance down, the white-hot pain begins to make sense.
The dark figure has taken a step back, retracting a pristine blade from my chest. A stream of blood pours from a gaping wound, and I can’t help but quiver under his gaze.
Even in the shadow, his eyes shine brightly, peering right into my fading blue irises as the menacing demon flares his icy nostrils.
“Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.” It lets out an evil laugh, and I find another shadow in the light, just beyond the creature’s shoulders. “You fail me.”