Red Stairs

The weekend was the time when somebody like me, a 12-year-old boy, didn’t have much to do apart from playing alone in the house. My mother kept an eye on me at all times, and I can’t really blame her, after all, I think I broke every single window in this house at least twice. That’s why I’m not allowed to play football indoors anymore.

I was getting so bored that I decided to go up and down the stairs. Up and down, up and down… That was literally the only thing I was doing that day. Mum passed by and shouted: “Please stop fooling around!”, while my brother didn’t even bother to say anything. Despite that, I kept on going up and down the stairs and I started counting the stairs to kill some time. I counted 14 steps, again and again. My brother passed by once again and whispered something like: “What a numskull”, so I returned the “compliment” even though he didn’t really seem to listen to what I said. I went up the stairs once again, but this time I counted 16 steps. I thought that I made a mistake, since I counted the 14 steps like 10 times today, so I decided to count them again. They were 14, yeah, it must have been a mistake. That being said, I got bored with the stairs so I went to watch some TV instead.

The following day, I resumed my routine of running around the house. I ran under the tables, went into my brother’s room when he was away, and so on. I was pretty old for these things, but I was so bored that I would have done anything to kill some time. Finally, I went down the stairs and counted them once again. 18 steps. Something was wrong. I counted them again and this time there were 15. I rushed to my brother and told him about it. He wasn’t really interested, but since I kept asking, he had to get up and count them for himself. He counted 14 steps right before my eyes then went back to his room and shut the door.

I was so frustrated and confused, that I decided to try something different. I covered my eyes and started going down the stairs while counting them. 1,2,3,4,5… I got to the 18th step again, but strangely enough, it wasn’t the last; 19,20,21,22 and I kept on counting, there seemed to have no end, it was weird; our stairs couldn’t be that long. 40,41,42, Where would they end?

I spent over an hour going down the stairs, I was already at the 120th step and still counting. I wanted to open my eyes, the curiosity was killing me, but I wanted to reach the last step before opening them. Slowly the silence faded away, leaving place for some strange whistle sounds. Step by step, other weird sounds started to appear: rumbles, scratches and some kind of dragging noises. The sounds were stronger and clearer with each step I took. I thought I heard a muffled scream when I finally reached the last one. The 666th step. I just froze; feeling like my throat was being choked by some kind of pressure. The sounds stopped as soon as I reached the last step. I wanted to open my eyes, but I was afraid of what I would see. It was very hot, like the heat coming out of an oven or a very hot summer night. I was struggling to breathe. I was too scared to open my eyes, so I just walked around whilst feeling the walls with my hands.

I reached another set of stairs going up. I wanted to get out of that place so I just went up. As I started climbing, the sounds started again. I went up one step at a time, counting them and naturally, the last step was the 666th. I kept going forward, feeling more tired and exhausted with each step I took. It felt like I was getting weaker with each step. As I kept walking, I stumbled across another set of steps that were going down again. I was freaking out so I decided to finally open my eyes.

EVERYTHING WAS RED!

I then looked down at my hands, and they were full of wrinkles, like the hands of my grandfather. Terrified, I rushed down the stairs, and, at the end of them, there was no other way than up. Every time it was the same, up and down, up and down.

I went up and down countless times until my weakened fragile body finally collapsed on the ground. I slowly fell unconscious as I felt something dragging me by my ankles, down a set of stairs…