stairs.

her eyes snap open. she had been dreaming. she has had this dream before, but it is already fading. next to her, glaring orange shapes mold and take form on a screen. 6:28. she lays motionless under her blankets, taking in the still. she enjoys the quiet, the nothing. today is an important day. she fixes her eyes toward the neon shapes, unblinking as they turn to shadow. she blinks and the numbers remain, ghosts lingering in her eyelids.

the silence was viciously torn apart by even, measured screams. the timepiece has no misgivings of its purpose. she sighs and slaps the clock on the head, cutting short its morning revelry. no more stillness. no more time for nothing. today is an important day.

the bathroom slowly fills with steam. the shower whispers as she stands stone in the mirror. she looks at a face which she struggles to identify as her. features beginning to show trickles of age like streams in a mountainside. eyes giving away the sleep she deprives herself for success. she splashes water on her face, letting the shock of the cold wake her. today is an important day. she can feel something bubbling within her. the relief of not struggling to pay off debts every month. the excitement of change, and all its children, but also something else. nagging at her. a weight settling in her abdomen.

she opens the fridge and pulls out milk. she finds it out of place to be eating cereal on today of days. she thumbs through news articles on her phone. she tries to shake the darkness inside her, a creature lying dormant. an update on stocks. more reports of bombings and warfare. she sets her phone carefully on the tabletop. not today.

she gathers her tokens of status: briefcase, purse, phone, and overcoat. she takes another look in the mirror, and with a soft sniff she is on her way. this is a ritual she has grown accustomed to, and found comfort in. yet, something is not right about today. she tries not to notice the thing that found roost in her insides, and orients her thoughts toward the day ahead. she pulls out her device. 8:27. apps. transit. nearest bus arrival, 6 minutes. her elbow jams against the stairwell door, and it reluctantly concedes. she begins the spiraling descent from her 14th floor, as she does every day. she finds comfort in the steps that resound within her, as she walks down and down.

the circular downward motion of her stride puts her in a trance. each floor the same as the next. faded, cement walls a dingy yellow from the old fluorescent lamps that buzz as she walks past. door handles slick from hundreds of hands clasping them since the building’s construction, the paint around them worn. simple, plain signs show the respective floor in bold white type. all things familiar to her as it is so.

she stops. senses forego tangible surroundings. she can’t discern the cause, but something is not right. as if all of the lights seem to have changed composure. as if their current distribution wasn’t satisfactory. shadows now streak the walls in directions that don’t make sense. the air is electric. the creature in her gut gets heavier. straining against the confines of her skin. she sensed a presence, watching her. hello? her voice rings off the concrete steps and up. a lingering shadow of her tone becomes a cloud above her. she waits several beats, listening. nothing. she continues down, this time more carefully.

her pulse quickens. she scans around her as she descends. everything looked the same. so why does it feel wrong? she looks at the walls. perfectly, unmistakably bland. it seems familiar, in a way she can’t place. how long has she been walking? the spiraling downward hike is disorienting. she should already be on the street by now. she reaches for her phone.

8:27.

she blinks, looking at it again. there it remains, the time it told her upon leaving her apartment. but how? she checks her reception. no signal. she sighs, putting it back in her coat pocket. bloody cement block i’m living in, she gripes aloud.

turning on the landing, she spots it.

there, the next floor down.

there, at the place on the door where a knob should reside.

nothing. like someone took an eraser to reality. no hole to be found, no conceivable way to open it. she increases her pace, eyes fixed on the blank door. she fingers the smooth area that shouldn’t be. had it been plastered and painted over? no signs of such. it makes no sense. who would build a door with no way to open it? she tentatively knocks, pressing her ear against the cold metal. she can hear each knock create a hollow moan on the other side, like a fallen book in a marble cathedral.

she looks at the sign beside the oddity. blank. only a blue plastic sheet on the wall, devoid of any marking. the gut monster seizes. how long had she been walking? she looks at her device again. the numbers are cycling aimlessly. 7:40, 10:58, 4:01, 84:17, 16:79. she stares blankly at the jumbled numbers for a moment. her hand clumsily escorts the phone back to her coat pocket. something is very wrong.

she continues down the cold steps quicker now. the exit has to be just a bit further. she barely rests her feet for a sliver of a moment on each step as they flurry down. another door with no handle, and no markings. a growing layer of dust and grime begins to coat her palm as it slides along the guide rail. she must have come at least halfway down already. she decides to count as she plummets further and further from her home.

one floor. same as before. she missteps, sending her foot two steps further than intended. she gasps, steadies herself on the railing, and continues. two floors. no door at all, just a blank wall. her breathing intensifies as she hurries yet faster. four floors. This time only a door frame filled with the same discolored concrete. six floors. just a bit further, and she’s sure she’ll reach the end. she just got disoriented, is all. just one more floor. she clutches the rail and uses her hand as an anchor as she rushes around the final landing.

she takes three steps down, and stops. her hand falls limply from the rail.

she sits.

stairs. more of them. just as they looked when she first entered the staircase. she could visualize the heavy grey door in front of her. she’s walked through it so many times, and yet all that lies before her is more and more of the same. how is this possible? she stares ahead, vacant. a confluence of disbelief and shock overcome her. she already went 7 floors from where she thought was halfway. how is there no exit by now?

she jumps up in a start, and starts running down the stairs. she takes two, three steps at a time, jumping down the last handful for each landing. she must not have gone far enough. nine floors. eleven floors. still no sign of a door worth using. twelve floors. she starts to panic. where am i? what is going on? as she dashes through the thirteenth of her count she can hear herself speaking. no, no, no, no, no, no. she’s sweating, her breathing labored.

fourteen floors. no, no, no, no, no, no, NO — she hurls her briefcase. it clatters against the wall, and sends its ghost of sound winding up the stairs. a piece of cement and drywall lays on the floor dejectedly from the force of the impact. she paces in circles, running her hand through her hair. what kind of a building is this? did she go down the wrong stairs? she leans over the steel bar and peers down. through the slender gap between flights she searches for a ground level. floor after floor spans downward as far as her eyes will allow. a winding rectangular spiral, turning in on itself until dimensions fail. she looks up to find the underside of the same view, ascending beyond her vision’s limit. the sight is somehow familiar.

she starts to feel dizzy. she sits back down. she’s had this dream before. she doesn’t understand it, but somehow she’s stumbled blindly into her own imagination. does that mean she’s dreaming now? she doesn’t feel asleep. she looks at her hands, turning them over slowly. deep creases line her palms, turning white as she flexes them. veins snake through her skin like a series of underground rivers. she wonders if hands look this real in dreams. she recalls an article she read once on lucid dreaming. something about pushing her fingers through her palms. she nervously places two fingers in the recessed center of her hand. she presses until her fingers protest. not what she wanted. she slowly puts her head between the bars next to her and looks down again. the impossible sight remained. vertigo consumes her, the endless spiral writhing below.

her insides rearrange themselves, and her breakfast finds a new trajectory. she watches what was cereal shrink and fall away. she wonders if it will ever find a resting place, or if it might be caught in the throes of gravity unending. a chuckle turns to a delirious giggle, head still suspended above eternity. her stomach lurches again. she withdraws herself.

her vision is still swimming. she presses her fingers against her temples, tracing circles. she doesn’t know why she does this. she’s not even sure it does anything. it won’t help her get out of here. how can she escape a never-ending building with no functioning doors? the thought made her shrink. a building can’t not end. sooner or later physics come into play, and usually sooner. her apartment is only so many feet above the ground. is she underground by now? is there even earth beyond the thick cement walls? she looks up at the cold gray facades. she can imagine void beyond them, dropping off into nothingness.

she shakes her head. no more nonsense. nothing is infinite. even the universe ends, she tells herself. beyond the scope of human exploration, maybe, but it has an end. it’s just a trick. everything must end. this staircase must have a limit, and she will find it. she inhales deeply. she stands, grabs her briefcase, and again begins her descent.

she keeps at a brisk pace. she’s not sure how far these go, but there’s no sense in taking her time. sixteen floors. faceless doors taunt her. she hops down three stairs, shoes slapping against the hard floor. eighteen floors. she pictures her boss sitting at her desk, looking at the clock. today is an important day for her. at least, it was. she was finally moving up in her workplace. she was going to be able to afford rent, better food, finally start paying debts. providing she gets out, she’s not sure he’ll get another chance for this interview, or even if he’ll keep her position. she tries to push these thoughts out her mind. not now. get out first.

twenty two floors. the floor and railing are speckled with liquid. water? she remembers the deposit she made earlier into the abyss. she takes extra care to avoid it. she makes an extended lean to peer yet again over the rail. there, maybe five floors down. something is spanning the distance of the gap, laying flat on the bars.

she hurries down the next series of flights, keeping the board in her line of sight. her leather pumps scuffle and click down the steps awkwardly. no, not a board — it’s a metal plank of some sort, like the seat of a park bench. she comes closer to it. it’s covered by her sick. to her right, two metal pegs jut gracelessly out of the floor, several feet apart. the rest of the bench, she assumes. she doesn’t remember there ever being a bench in this building.

she continues on.

thirty one floors. or was it thirty two? she’s never been good with remembering numbers. she sits and opens her briefcase. her legal pad contains notes and random scribbles from days in work past. she folds back the first page. she marks thirty one notches into the paper. thirty one testaments to her sanity. as long as the ink remains, she tells herself, all of this is real, and she has stepped into hell.

fifty three floors. a doorway stands framing nothing but the same wall that surrounds it. beside it sits a weary cardboard box, tossed aside with disregard. broken glass spills out from it like an arm of someone trying to crawl their way out of the box. she picks up a piece of glass, then turns the box up with her foot. what wine glasses didn’t break are covered in dust and grime. she kicks it back over. she pulls out her legal pad. she’s started a list next to her tally marks. a list of things that shouldn’t be. she adds her recent discoveries.

doors with no handles
stairs don’t end (???)
broken bench
doorway filled with wall (???)
box with broken glass

with that she pockets the shard, marks another count and continues her descension. her stomach grumbles at her yearningly. she hadn’t thought about packing a snack.

seventy eight floors. a hockey stick leans up against the corner. where are these random things coming from? were there other people here before him? or did these objects, like her, stumble into the wrong plane? her stomach hums. she struggles to put it from her mind.

ninety two floors. a door lays horizontal against the floor. recessed into the floor. a part of the floor. it all looks so intentional. yet it feels so aimless. was she intended for this? is this is destiny? to be locked in a staircase for eternity? she is breathing heavily. she sits, and pulls a water canteen from her purse. she suddenly wishes her water was something much stronger.

she leans against the wall, looking around as she sits. she spots something a few stairs down. a small box. she lifts herself down those few stairs and sits again to inspect it. a carton of cigarettes, seal already broken. she opens it. 11 orange cylinders peek out from their nest. a twelfth is turned around, leafy fingers springing from its mouth. her first stroke of luck. she searches around her for a lighter, matches, anything to start a fire. nothing.

she shoves the carton in her pocket and is met with sharp pain. she hisses, pulling out her hand to inspect the source of injury. her finger has a slash through it, already pooling blood quickly. she instinctively sucks on it, bemoaning ever putting a piece of broken glass in her pocket. she pulls it out, holding it in her hand. a corner is splashed with red. below it, a spot of white light flickers on the wall. she moves it away and watches the spot flare into a large halo. she moves it closer and it focuses into a pinpoint. smoke rises from it.

she quickly pulls the cigarettes back out, fumbling with the lid. careful not to cut herself again, she pinches one from its resting place and puts the box back in her pocket. she turns so that the light is behind her, and holds the glass piece over the cigarette. she adjusts back and forth ever so slightly, finding the point of…

ignition. smoke flares up from the cigarette. she whoops in triumph, and it becomes a hollow moan into the ether. she puts it to her lips and inhales. she coughs. it has been several years since she had quit, but this burns with the vigor that can only come with time. how long have these been here? days? weeks? years? plumes of smoke linger in the air. she grinds the finished remains into the floor and stands, resuming her journey.

nicotine follows her close behind. spots fill her vision and she loses her balance. the pointed heel of her shoe snaps under her graceless step. she scrambles to hold onto anything to keep her upright, but fails. she can feel each sharp step as her world spins. lightning goes through her arm. suddenly she is face to face with the floor, and gravity has won. with a crack her vision turns white and she is still.

ow.

her head throbbing is the only thing proving to her that she’s still alive. she can’t feel her feet. what happened? stairs. cigarette. dizzy. stairs.

stairs.

she opens an eye and tries to focus on her surroundings. cold grey cement. cross hatched steel lining. humming, flickering lights. she almost forgot she was here. her skull is pounding. she shifts her weight and puts her arm underneath her. she pushes. pain erupts through her forearm and her vision becomes static. she looks at her arm. there, halfway down from her elbow. it’s bent in a way that bones aren’t conducive to. she touches it gingerly, and tears well up in her vision.

broken. her arm is broken. the room starts to spin again. with her good arm she pulls herself up, propped against the wall. her wounded arm lays in her lap, screaming. she needs to wrap it somehow. she slowly unbuttons her blazer and carefully peels it off of her, breathing heavily as she pulls it gingerly around her fractured bones. she throws it around her neck. using her teeth and her functioning hand she ties a tight knot, and carefully sets her injury into the cotton. using the wall as a support, she slowly works to a standing position. her arm is on fire, but so far so good. she steps out of her half broken shoes, picks them up with two fingers, and slowly begins her journey once more.

one hundred and seven floors. going consistently down and anti-clockwise is starting to take its toll. her body has acclimated itself to the constant rotation, and surpasses her. her arm is swelling heavily, and she can see bruises start to form. spots are once more leaking into her vision. she steadies herself against the cold wall, and leans against it. she feels as if the staircase is spinning without her. she takes a deep breath, letting her mind recalibrate. is this the rest of her life? broken. confused. lost. hungry. starving to death would be a terribly long way to die.

the chill of the cement calms her disorientation. she runs her hand along the smooth paint. her fingers fall on an imperfection. it’s rough, like something cut its way into the surface. she picks up her head from the cold cement. her eyes slowly focus on the mark. it’s small and angular. it appears smooth, not as if someone had scratched it in, but like something took a small wedge out with force.

something like the corner of a briefcase.