It began with a nightmare.
It always does.
From somewhere outside came the sound of someone screaming. A woman. The scream shrill and panicked. Raw. This was new, but not surprising.
He stood atop the stairwell and gazed down into the darkness. He should not have been able to do so, and hadn’t been able to for years, not since the accident. The iron balustrades and steps together formed the cancerous spine of the ailing building within which he stood. Yet he could not recall how he had arrived to be where he was. Sunlight far above and beyond the algae coated skylight filtered weakly into the upper most floors, yet too feeble to make much of an impression. That it did make was of old paint like dead skin, peeling and exposing the dark skids of rust from beneath. A wind blew cold against his skin, one of the windows above were broken, through which hung vines like the tendrils of a long dead sea creature, hauled to land by unseen hands and left to dry under that unforgiving sun.
The rest of the ivy within the building thrived, and entwined everything, keeping that decaying paint from coming away from the railings. It held everything in stasis, the ravages of time encouraging more paint to fall away, yet more ivy to grow, holding it all in a perfect balance of life and the illusion of death.
I do not know how I came to be here, Adam Campion thought, his fingers curled nervously around the thin metal rail, unconsciously locating a part devoid of ivy and feeling the paint come away under his bickering grip. He would pull his hands away and they would be stained umber, flecks of old paint and metal held in the creases of his skin.
A sound from below, far down within the deep. Nearly strangled at the point if inception and only meekly reaching his ears. He strained to hear another, but it had been drowned in silence.
Over the railing, able to peer down below.
Of course.
He was asking himself the wrong question. This was the right one: I do not know why I came to be here.
For he already knew the how. His mind had brought him here. This was not reality but a building within his subconscious. He had seen it before, many times, but not for many years. Back then he didn’t know why he had been drawn to this place either. Nor why he would now, after so long, be back here.
He squeezed his hands around the flaking metal and heard the old paint as it scrunched beneath his grip. He felt it against his skin. So vivid, so real. He inhaled the stale air deeply before letting it escape his lungs slowly. He shuffled his position and looked down once more. How quickly his mind had adapted. How easily he was slipping into the past.
The noise again. A creak. Dull metal protesting as it was bent out of position. A loud reverberating clang as whatever it was fell to the floor.
Or was cast down to the floor.
He strained to see below. Above him the withered tendril of ivy waved slowly and brushed the nape of his neck. The caress of a long dead lover. It made him shiver involuntarily and and he batted it away before taking a few steps to the side towards the top of the stairs. He now stood directly in front of a door that stood slightly ajar, a thin crack of the same yellowed sunlight drawing a line from the base of the door to below the point of railing at which he now stood. He cocked his head and waited. Nothing more followed save the narrow cracking of the door moving slightly further inward. A light and welcoming sigh beckoning him in. He remained where he stood. There was nothing in there for him, nothing inside that he may want. He could see the peeling wallpaper, the moist and spoiled carpet. The door opened another half foot until it came to rest against something on the other side. Something that blocked out the light from underneath. Adam could see part of what it was, a pale fleshy part, a hand like an extra terrestrial spider, turned upwards as a claw, holding a pocket of air within it’s grasp. He didn’t wish to see any more and so he turned away from that room, no matter how much it may attempt to entice him inside.
Still gripping the railing tightly, he turned his attention back to the stairwell and the darkness below. More creaking and protesting from something unseen. Something brushed against one of his hands and he drew it sharply to himself, glancing to his side and seeing a slow tendril of ivy that hadn’t been that close a moment before. Now his other hand, only this time he didn’t withdraw it and kept it there.
The touch was gentle, but insistent. Not entirely unpleasant. He left his hand where it was and the ivy coursed around it, wrapping itself around his flesh and the flaking rail, until he could no longer move it even if he wished to. Behind him something moved, something behind the door. He imagined but didn’t see that alien-like appendage clutching the pocket of dead air a little tighter, as each finger moved almost imperceptibly in turn.
His feet. He hadn’t noticed or thought anything of the fact they were bare until now, clad in his underwear under the t-shirt he had on. His bedclothes. A soft caress, a passing kiss and nothing more. Insistent tugging and warmth and now he could no longer lift either one. So fleeting was the memory of being able to walk, and now it had left him again. He didn’t mind for - despite everything - he had instilled within him a great calmness. Even as the door creaked wider still and the sound of something heavy and soft moving over wet carpet bled through the air towards him.
He looked back to the original part of the railing, where he had taken the hand away that was still free by his side. The ivy tendril was unmoving yet raised in the air, like some insectile feeler. He could see the small almost microscopic barbs that ran along the underneath, pale in the yellow light, and he placed his hand slowly and firmly back down on to the railing. It only took a moment for the tendril of ivy to begin to sway slowly before dropping on to his hand. This time he didn’t even feel it.
Moments later he could not move that arm either, and the door behind him swung open wider. He couldn’t turn, even if he should wish to, and instead leaned forward and looked down the stairwell again. He could now see almost to the bottom, as light from a lamp somewhere unseen bled into the centre.
There she was. He had expected to see her. She was always there, in these same dreams when he was younger. She was leaning over the ivy covered balustrades, pale and sightless face craned up towards him. Her mouth was agape, a black oh in the soft incandescent light.
Instinctively, Adam leaned back, away from the railing, suddenly, painfully aware that he was now trapped where he stood. His breathing quickened and for the first time since the dream began, he wished to wake up. He hadn’t recalled it ever feeling so vivid. Was it normal to be aware that you are dreaming?
He leaned over again despite himself in time to see the small pale facedisappeap into the stairwell. Now there were noises, echoing up from below. Hurried footsteps, heavy on the the rusted metal stairs. An occasional loud clang that reverberated around as part of the stairwell gave way underfoot. He leaned over as far as he could, straining to see. Occasionally he caught sight of a small pale shape on the handrail below, sliding up and along before being withdrawn back out of sight.
She was hurrying up towards him, and he was trapped.
He struggled against the ivy, which pulled itself tighter. He could now no longer lean forward. Yet he could hear her. Soon he could hear her breathing. Ragged and shallow.
The door opened fully behind him and something slumped on the bare floor mere metres away.
Something against his neck. That lover’s touch. Gentle. Easy.
Around his throat.
He opened his mouth to scream as a pale hand clutched the railing beside him, reaching from below, the owner of the limb rising to meet him. An empty grin on a horrid visage. She always rose to meet him.
This was when he awoke.
But not yet. She wouldn’t let him.
Ringing, from somewhere unseen. Or perhaps it was merely the sound emanating from him.
Louder.
Insistent.
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