About the Contest

This story is an entry to @bananafish’s Finish the Story Contest. If you fancy participating, you can find the contest here.

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Prompt

The darkness flowed into the basement stairwell as Jon opened the door. He paused, listening. Shit! They’re already asleep, he thought. His parents had gone to bed promptly at eleven thirty when the evening news was over. Usually he did his best to get into his room before they went to bed so he could avoid the situation he now found himself in. I knew I shouldn’t have tried to finish that bonus level! It was so easy to lose track of time in the basement hangout. 

A tiny night light at the end of the kitchen counter illuminated a small spot on the floor beneath it, but otherwise the room was dark and still. In his mind he ran through the short path that would take him down the hallway, up the stairs and into his bedroom. All he had to do was turn the basement light off in the stairwell and walk through the darkness to get there. Keeping his hand firmly on the doorknob and taking a deep breath he flipped the switch. The stairwell light went out leaving him with after image shapes moving in front of his eyes. Deliberately he closed the door slowly so he wouldn’t wake anyone, and tried not to panic. Nothing to be afraid of, he thought, it’s just my house at night. The hinges creaked and the latch snapped shut with a jarring bang in the otherwise noiseless space. 

Stay calm, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Stepping carefully, he made his way down the hallway. As he got closer he could see the faint yellow glow of the upstairs hallway light through the doorway to the next room where the stairs were. He paused, took a breath and continued. At the bottom of the stairs he looked up and saw the light. He hated that light. The dim yellow reflected off the walls, making the stairs and hallway appear dingy, rundown, dangerous. 

With his first step on the stairs he felt the darkness close in behind him, lurking, waiting to see what he did next. Another step and he felt the pull of it, coaxing him to step back and let it take him. Stop being stupid. It’s just dark, there’s nothing there, he thought. He went up the next three steps quickly while trying to keep the panic at bay. 

Tink, tink, thud. He stopped and turned around. Tink, tink. Waiting, he heard nothing else and rationalized the sounds as the house settling. But he looked at the bottom of the stairs, where the dark now consumed whatever light managed to escape down the stairwell. Nothing moved inside it, but he felt the pressure of it, reaching for him through gloomy light. Instinctively he knew it wasn’t bright enough to hold it back, that if he waited where he was, halfway up the stairs, the darkness would eventually reach him. He didn’t know what would happen if it did, but some part of him wanted to find out. The sane part screamed at him to run. 

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The Story Continues…

It was one of those days when Jon’s sane part formed an overwhelming majority over the insane part, and if that was not enough, his adrenaline joined forces with his sanity.  

Jon could feel twice to thrice the pump that he used to feel playing the first shooter games every day. The surging energy was zapping through his body like magma building up below a crater before blasting into the air. Lightning fired through his synapses until they fused the nerves for only one action – running. And that is what Jon did. 

Jon no longer believed in tip-toe-ing nor saving himself from his parent’s wrath. At the moment, their wrath would be way better than his fate should he fall victim to whatever was behind him. He decided to use his vocal chord as much as the muscles in his limbs. He screamed at the top of his voice while pacing three steps at a time running up.

“Mom.. dad.. open the door…” but Jon couldn’t hear his voice, leave alone his parents. He could feel his throat burning up from the apparent scream, but nothing came out in terms of voice. His vocal - vibrations refused to travel in the direction of the door ahead; in fact, it didn’t even bother compressing the air ahead of him.  

And then the strangest thing happened. Jon was sure he was running like his life depended on it, and it did, but he got nowhere close to the door. He then looked down, and as his pupils had dilated enough to see in the yellow-light lit darkness, he could see the stairs moving downwards. It was as if he was trying to climb an escalator moving down; only this escalator was moving down faster than he could run-up.  

“Tink, tink, thud.” 

Jon heard the noise again, and sanity told him that if the house really had to settle, it would have done that long back. He stopped. The adrenalin, though, did not bother toning down nor did the lightning-fast and lightning-hot synapses. Jon’s body was on fire, and he was in line for an imminent meltdown.

Then silence followed. The stairs and the air stood still. The only thing moving was sweat all over Jon’s body. Sanity had already proved that running would take him nowhere and in the choice between “fight” and “flight”, he had to choose the undesirable “fight” option. The silence continued. 

“You lose,” a voice screamed in his ear, and something grabbed his feet. 

“Holy s**t,” Jon yelled and jumped out of his seat. 

“You lose, you lose, you lose…” the gaming console’s automated voice yelled. Jon had fallen asleep playing the game. In his jest to win the bonus level, he pushed himself too far beyond his sleep time. 

He was glad that whatever he had just witnessed was only a dream. “Phew.” 

And then he noticed. It was twelve-forty-five. His parents had put off the lights long back. 

Shit! They’re already asleep, he thought.

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Image Courtesy: Pixabay.