Becoming (Part 3)

Soon after the incident with the lady at the end of the bed, I undertook a solo adventure to the cellar of the tenement.

The five of us lived in a one-bedroom flat in a granite tenement. My brother had gone to school. I didn’t go to nursery so stayed at home. As usual, the front door was unlocked and open so that I could go down the one flight of stairs to the landing toilet. Nappies were for babies. The stairs were my playground. In the daytime, I had them all to myself. I’d use them as tracks for my circus train, roads for my Dinky motor cars, and an assault course for my imaginary friends.

I left the toys upstairs and raced down the eight flights to the ground floor. At each one-eighty bend I gripped the bannister and whipped myself around and down to the next flight. Out of breath, dizzy and grinning, I reached the ground floor.

On the left, down a short hall, was the big black front door that led out onto the street. I turned right and walked the few steps to another set of stairs. These stairs had no smooth bannisters made of wood and wrought iron. Each step was a single block of stone. The stairway curved down between stone brick walls into darkness. No switch on the wall. I had stood at the top many times and never dared to go farther. To find out, I had to descend.

I didn’t stop to think. I stepped down one step. Then another, then a third. I glanced back and saw that the hall was still visible and bright with light. Everything below was dark.

I skipped down three more steps. The staircase curved under the hallway floor, which was now above me. With each step down, it got darker. Every time I looked up to check, the archway to the hall had narrowed. Like it closed behind me. After a few more steps, I couldn’t see into the hallway anymore. The rock walls reflected very little light as I stood on a step with dark above and dark below.

My throat tightened, making it hard to breathe. My heart fluttered in my chest, and my guts did a long slow roll inside me. I was going to be sick.

I heard the rasp of my breath as it squeezed past my throat. I needed to go.

Was that a scrape of a shoe on the stone above me? I looked up. Was there someone there? Only darker than the dark.

Nothing there, I told myself, it’s a game. Was that breathing? Or an echo of my gasps? I couldn’t go up now. I had to keep going.

I touched the curving wall to my left and took another step down. I probed with my toe. It felt too slow. The pressure of the presence behind me (imagined or real, game or not) made me hurry. I took each next step down quicker than the last.

I had no bannister to grip. I bombed down, uncontrolled, and I didn’t think I’d be able to stop. Light dazzled me as I rounded the bend. My eyes squinted at the square of light floating above me. I stumbled, having reached the bottom, somehow kept my feet, and rushed toward a door with a glass panel in it. I groped for and turned a handle, banged the door with my hip, and flung it open.

I saw a grassy slope that ran down to a red brick wall. Interesting shapes poked up out of the long grass. I forgot about the dark presence on the stairs and ran forward to explore.

Eventually, after what seemed like an age of exploration, I knew I had to go home or I would get into trouble. I went back in through the back door and closed it behind me. I shuffled forward until my toes touched the bottom step. Only darkness above. I twisted back round to look at the square window of light that led out to the garden. I knew I’d come back.

First, though, I had to climb. I had to traverse that area of darkness halfway up. I hoped the presence would not be waiting for me when I got there.

I lifted my foot onto the lowest step and ran, hell for leather, up the rest, into the darkness and back up into the light.