Please note: this story was provided by the author and published as is.
When I first moved into Garrison House – my college dormitory – our Resident Advisor provided us with a whole list of dos and don’ts.
Do park on the street – there’s always a spot available. Don’t use a humidifier – the walls are prone to peel. Do use the study rooms – there’s free donuts and coffee on Sundays.
And don’t use the northern stairwell – the stairs only go down…
Like any college university, ours boasted its own local legends. Like the McCordsy Well. It was said that the day before finals if you ran a lap around the entire campus and then threw a pencil down the well, you would pass your next test. Who was McCordsy? I don’t know. Just another name ascribed to some landmark. But he must have been more deserving than of a ditch full of pencils because now there’s a grate shielding the top.
There was also Lovers’ Window. Spanning a whole courtyard, two windows, across two buildings, face one another. Rumor is, on a rainy day, you and your significant other could smudge your initials on one window, run over to the other and (if it was meant to be) you’d see them reappear.
By how much running is involved, I assume all these myths were made by a track student. That or they had longer legs because I can’t imagine anything less romantic than sprinting. Yet all that to say there was enough folklore going around to make the most mundane of things hold some notoriety. Even a set of stairs…
Now, Garrison House was devoid of most of the mysticism that seized our campus, save one little rule. You could take any stairs, any elevator, any which way you want, but you can only take the back, northern stairwell going down.
But that was the end of it. No elaboration, no why, no spooky story. Hell, there wasn’t even a name for the stairs, it was just “The Northern Stairwell”.
Now, if I cared at all for any of the roughly hundred or so urban legends I faced each day while walking to class, maybe I would have asked more questions. But as it was, I didn’t care. The northern stairwell was in the back, out of my way from everything – from all my classes, where I parked – and since my RA seemed to stress with more emphasis the “No Weed” rule, I had no reason to consider the stairwell as anything more than a possible fire-escape.
However, some superstitions exist for a reason…
I moved into Garrison House Junior year. I was a transfer student, didn’t have many friends, and knew next to no one aside from my roommate. Liz was nice, quiet, kind of like me, but she’d been around for two years and had the friend group to prove it.
She invited me to meet them, at a party off campus but within walking distance. I didn’t have to ask – this was obviously a “college” party. Lots of alcohol. I’ve never been much of a drinker – I’m too light of a lightweight – but I wasn’t going to turn down a chance at making new friends.
So, we went. And it was fine, good, fun even, which was more than due to the alcohol. I don’t really remember leaving – if that gives you any idea – but at some point I was stumbling, smiling, back to my dorm. I’m sure Liz tried her best to stop me, or she was busy with some of her other friends – honestly, I wasn’t her responsibility, and I’m as stubborn as I am a handful once I’ve had a few drinks.
Luckily, though, as I’ve said, the party was only a stone’s throw away from Garrison House. Even still I nearly got turned around, and when I did arrive I missed it, tripping around the building, forgetting where to enter.
I came in through the back, half giggling and lost, and I remember falling backwards so that I was leaning against the glass door. I closed my eyes for a moment, half coaxed into a dream. I might have fallen asleep – I was certainly drunk enough – and to anyone outside that’s exactly what it looked like. But with a delayed thought I sprung back to my feet and went for the 2nd door – the one that led from the stairwell into the building.
But it was locked.
I dropped my head and sighed.
Now I should mention that I had my keycard on me and the door was only locked by scanner. But at the time, I didn’t know that, and at the time, I was very drunk. So from here I only saw two options: either I go back outside, all around the building, and take the main elevator, or I go up the stairs.
Honestly, knowing the layout, it wouldn’t take a math major to tell you that either choice was about the same distance. The only difference is one choice had me admitting defeat. And so, taking too long to think about, but not long enough, I began going up the northern stairwell.
And I guess this is as good a time as any to actually describe the stairs. From what I could tell they were solid concrete, not even painted, just blah-gray stone that went up to one landing, turned around, and went up again. There was no railing, because there was no drop (the stairs were surrounded in stone, giving each side a very tight, very narrow tunnel-view going up and down). And when I say these were the back stairwell, I mean hidden-in-the-back. Whoever designed them wasn’t trying to impress anyone other than the guy who checks for building violations. But the lack of aesthetic was well concealed. The only light showed from a set of fluorescent lights that gave a pale-blue stutter wherever you stepped.
Around one stair I went and then another. My dorm was on the fourth floor – a number that may have gone undervalued in my intoxicated state. Very soon my feet were fighting to keep up. If it weren’t for the booze I might have regretted this choice, but then again, if it weren’t for the booze there wouldn’t be a “choice” to regret.
And so up and up I climbed, slowly feeling like an upside-down caver – or an enclosed mountain climber? My point is it was tough. Not only was it an uphill battle but the dim lights, the rigid walls, all of it made it feel like I was descending (upwards) through a slight tunnel. The stairwell even echoed like a cave with my sluggish footsteps skipping off the walls.
A big painted “3” spread across one landing, marking the third floor but what felt like the third mile. Maybe at the higher elevation the drunken fog was starting to clear but at last a reasonable thought popped into my head – rather than keep climbing, I should just get off on this floor and take the elevator. My legs agreed.
I tried for the door but, duh, it was locked. This time I remembered the scanner and my keycard. I fumbled with my ID, scanning it, but was rejected by a flashing, red light. I tried again, with the same results. My thought, which at least made some sense, was that our keycard access was floor specific. Groaning, but three fourths of the way there, I continued upwards.
Up and up one landing and then up and up another. The number “4” came into view as well as the door to my floor. Exhausted, I dragged myself over and scanned the keycard.
The light flashed red.
I tried it again – denied.
I tried it upside down – denied.
Sideways, part-ways, jiggling the handle – red light.
I felt like banging on the door but then I paused to think. Was this my floor? No, I wasn’t so drunk that I was confusing where I lived, but I remembered some elevators and buildings were weird with how they labeled certain floors – sometimes they skipped a number, and sometimes they added one. So, maybe this was actually the third floor?
Ignoring the obvious “4” staring at my back, I turned towards the stairs going up…
Now, I was positive, my dorm was not only on the fourth floor, but the top floor. So either my assumption about the floor mixup was correct, or these stairs led straight to the roof…
Well, there was only one way to know.
By now that full-blown buzz was gone, replaced by sweet dreams of my bed. I was exhausted – mentally and physically. Four (or five) floors seems like so few but with too much makeup and too little cardio I was already hot with sweat. Even worse, the stairs were like the interior tubes of a fast-food playpen, so compact they strangled the air into a heavy fug.
Yet, finally, I came to the summit – floor “5” for 5 pounds lost. Almost relieved, I approached the scanner and door… before my eyes caught something else…
There was a look on my face stuck between confusion and some other emotion I had yet to acknowledge. But as I stood before the door, frozen, keycard in hand, my gaze was locked on the other set of stairs… going up.
I could see it, glowing in the faux-sunny-blue fluorescent light, a landing above me.
Nothing, not a step seemed out of place save in the little mental map I had drawn in my head. Was it possible that our building went higher – sure, absolutely, right before me was standing proof. But even knowing that, my eyes wouldn’t let go.
Watching out of the corner of my eye, I tried my ID against the scanner.
The light flashed red.
Screw it, I thought. I’d try the front door. I had zero desire or reason to go any higher. There was nothing up there for me, and if there was a floor it wouldn’t be mine – just an attic or storage or whatever.
I went leaping down the steps in stride, sometimes taking two or three at a time. I don’t know why I was going so fast, because nothing was wrong. Nothing was wrong, that’s what I kept telling myself and yet even going down now my lungs were pushing harder.
Nerves racing, I bolted around the 2nd landing, getting faster and faster, spinning around the last landing and down before…
The stairs stopped…
Suddenly, my eyes were at war with what I was seeing. I counted four corners, then again. I ran towards it, feeling for what wasn’t there, knocking, scratching, banging my firsts against… a wall.
A wall – that’s all that stood on the bottom floor. There wasn’t even a bottom floor, the stairs just went down and abruptly hit concrete. I tried looking around for a door as though somehow in this limited space I only got turned around, but round and round I turned, only making myself feel dizzier.
I sprinted up to the 2nd floor. The number “2” stood in bold lettering across the wall… but there was no longer any door.
It was gone, just like how the first floor was gone, erased with smooth concrete. I ran up to the third floor, not even stopping to see that the door was missing, but running, faster up another landing and another, trying to catch the first door I could find. But higher and higher there was nothing! I blazed around another empty wall, another landing without a door, towards floor number 5. Up and up, losing the race, and slowing to a sharp pitch in my breath.
Floor 5. The door I had scanned just a minute before – it was like it never existed.
I think I tried screaming for help. I know I cried. I know I paced the floor like a caged animal. But I don’t know how long I stayed there. Time and all of my emotions spiraled into such an incoherent frenzy that the minutes burned like hours. I might have stayed longer, but out of some nightmare logic I was now convinced that the walls were closing in on me – that they were tightening, like the stomach of a snake. They weren’t, of course they weren’t, but my paranoia had reached a fever pitch, and with growing fear I now felt that I was sinking.
Heart already racing, I flew up the stairs, but I was crazed, crawling hunched over on both my hands and feet.
The landing turned and went up again. Peaking over the stairs was the number “6”. There was no door, but somehow even more stairs. Quickly, I climbed, going further and higher, from seven to eight and eight to nine, floor numbers marking my degree of insanity…
I think I stopped around the 14th floor…
My body ached all over and it was all that I could do just to keep breathing. Ironically, the cold, concrete floor was my only comfort. Everything else I hid behind closed eyes…
Then I remembered. My phone.
In another moment I was on my knees, tearing at my jacket and digging through pockets. I found it, but one flash of the screen was enough to scatter all my hopes – there was no reception. I tried lifting it higher, taking it to one corner of the landing and then the next. Neither worked. Then, I turned towards the stairs.
There was no reception on this level, and going down was a dead end…
But maybe if I went higher…
I was in no rush this time. In fact, I approached every step with a rabbit’s temper. I held my phone out, hoping with each step that that step was all I’d need. And so, step by step, floor by floor, I slowly went up, searching for any signal…
If I wasn’t sure before, by floor twenty I knew – this “place,” it wasn’t real. Or at least, it wasn’t Garrison House anymore. Unless the whole stairwell had somehow slipped into the ground, there was no way it stretched 20 stories high. A tower like that doesn’t go unseen sitting around a college campus. So then where was I? Would my phone even work here?
There were several more questions I’d have to tackle but in the meantime I decided to conserve my battery, stopping only every few floors to check for service.
Yet at the back of my mind I could feel all my anxiety bubbling. I had no idea where I was, no clue as to how I was getting out or if I was getting out. Was anyone looking for me? Do they even know I’m lost? It was too easy to stress. Like the stairs, it was an endless climb trying to overcome this growing dread…
Created by: Luke Previs
There was no door, no change to my surroundings save the rising number upon one wall. Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one… I counted them as I went. They were my only marker, my only indication of possible progress. I took a break, checking for service but found nothing. And then I went on.
Thirty-six… thirty-seven… thirty-eight… Another break…
Forty-four… forty-five… And another…
I wondered, what would happen when I reached fifty? Would I finally find a door? Would the stairs come to a stop? But that’s the problem with numbers. We assign them some significance but, in the end, they’re all made up.
Fifty… fifty-one… fifty-two…
The stairs kept going.
I was furious, raving at every one and thing that got me here. I was mad at myself for drinking so much, I was mad at Liz and her friends, I was mad at these unfeeling, unending stairs. Desperate, I tried tearing at the light fixtures that hung above the landing. My half-formed idea was that I might break through them and find a cut-out or opening which I could climb through. Stupid, I know. Even worse I hadn’t anything to reach with and so I was left hurling my shoes like a madwoman. But every throw either missed or bounded off the lights without a scratch. So then I took my jacket, and tying a shoe inside the hood I slung it at the ceiling once, twice, maybe twenty times. But the plastic covering was thick. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t break it…
I dropped my coat and slumped against the space where a door should be.
I sat there, brooding in the light of these hellish stairs.
How was this happening to me? Why was this happening to me? Was I dead?
For the first time I felt around my head for any signs of trauma – maybe a bump or trickle of blood – but for every measure except my aching feet I was perfectly fine. I checked my phone again. No service, which meant no messages, no location data, nothing. I scrolled through several of my photo albums hoping for something wrong, something that might suggest this horrible stair scenario was but a twisted dream. Yet every photo was there, unaltered. Not even a dream is this convincing…
If this were a test I’d be biting my pencil. I tried but failed to remember anything about these stairs or the legend surrounding it. All I knew was that you weren’t supposed to climb them. Too late for that. So now what? Usually, in myths and fables there’s some sort of solution, right? Some lesson to be learned?
Maybe that was it, I thought. Maybe this was all happening because I had too much to drink. Well, obviously it was, but I meant like actually, spiritually, or whatever.
It sounds insane, but at the time I was willing to believe and do anything just to get home. I swore, out loud, that I’d never drink again. I swore I’d be kinder to those who care for me. I swore that I’d get my Master’s Degree – a Doctorate! I swore I’d never take another set of stairs ever again!
And after each promise and prayer, I opened my eyes, hoping by some impossible means that I would be freed of this place. And when that didn’t work I tried proving my conviction by going down. I tried again and again until I had wasted every meaningful vow and every step upon the stairs and found myself back… on the bottom floor…
I’ve never felt more useless or pathetic in my entire life… Wallowing in front of a wall, begging it to open, not even a rat trapped inside a maze looks so pitiful. But I had given up. I was at my lowest point mentally and literally.
What if the exit was only a floor above where I had been? Or worse, what if it kept moving and now that I forfeited fifty floors I’ll never catch up? Every thought only seemed to weigh me down, to keep me there.
I was better off waiting for help…
I was better off starving…
I was better off dead…
I don’t know how long I laid there, depressed and unwilling to move, but I know at some point I must have fallen asleep. Because for a brief moment I forgot. I opened my eyes and forgot where I was. But creeping out my dream came the memory and a spark. I turned around almost believing that it was all a dream and that I was back in the real world… but a solid concrete wall put a stop to all my optimism…
Still, that spark was enough, and afterward I was on my feet and at very least with the mindset that I had to keep trying. And so, for perhaps the millionth time that day – if it was still the same day – I took another step up the stairs.
It would be pointless to redescribe everything I saw. Each landing, each floor, each step, it was all the same. It was the very definition of madness – doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. And yet other than giving into madness it was my only option. However, on my second ascent, I did notice something new. And perhaps it was there before and I only ignored it, but this time as I climbed ever higher I was sensitive to the fact that it was getting colder.
Even with my jacket on it was starting to feel like I had gone outside. But there wasn’t any wind nor even any vents. And maybe that’s when I realized I was having trouble breathing. Was it because of the elevation? Was I running out of air? I wouldn’t let myself panic but now I wondered if there was a limit to how far I could go.
I could see my own breath now. I could hear it too – a wheezing, gasping sound. Consequently, my breaks were becoming more frequent. I used to stop every ten floors or so but further on I found myself struggling, making only half the distance in twice the time. Before I wouldn’t have cared for a railing but now I was gripping the sleek wall for any support.
I reached the top of one floor, shivering, dizzy, and heaving air. No matter how hard I tried it felt like my lungs were never full. Each gulp only sent a shock of ice through me.
I lifted my eyes to the wall. Floor 68. Would I even make it to a hundred?
Just then I felt something – a fuzziness at my side. At first, I thought I was going numb but this feeling had a pattern to it. It was vibrating!
With shaking hands I managed to pry my phone out and inspected the screen. Next to the caller ID was Liz’s photo. I answered, “Hello?”
I was more shocked to hear my voice – a weak and dry crackle – than the noise that blasted through. There was almost too much of it to hear. There were people, maybe music, all blaring over the poorest of audio quality. Somehow, I was able to isolate Liz’s voice.
“H-y! Suzzi-? … Where are-? I’m at th- … Can’t find you… Are you-?”
“Liz! Help me! I’m stuck inside-!” My voice was so quiet that I could barely even hear it. And before I could try and clear my throat, the call dropped.
Panicking, I tried calling her back… but the signal was gone. I cursed myself, yet short of chucking the phone away I realized there might still be hope. I could still get a signal. And from the sounds of it – what sounds I could hear at least – Liz was looking for me. I had a reason to keep trying.
Gathering myself, I continued up the stairs. But I was barely halfway to the next landing, when I stopped again…
I thought my ears were playing tricks on me. There was a sound, the same sound I had heard for over sixty floors, and a sound that was no different from before. Except now I was listening…
I took another few steps, and listened…
There it was again!
This stairwell carried an echo – that I knew from all my screaming and fits of rage – and it even reflected some of my footsteps. But somehow, gradually, the echo coming from below me had gotten louder. It was more displaced from where and when I placed my foot.
It almost sounded like my echo… belonged to someone else…
A cold sweat – freezing cold – spread across my body. Anxious in the silence I started up the stairs, but as soon as I did, they did too. I paused and everything stopped. I went on and they followed. I froze again, and called out, “Hello? Who’s there?”
There was only my echo this time, but it was my echo, one that felt right. The other set of footprints remained silent.
There was nothing else I could do except run or turn around to meet them. And so, I ran!
The instant I did they took off after me. I tried going faster but I could hear them keeping up. Pushing harder only made my legs lock up – they were so cold and tired that I felt I couldn’t control them, and with the air so thin I barely made it two sets of stairs before I collapsed, out of breath…
Yet the moment after I stopped, whoever was below me stopped too…
I knew I couldn’t just sit around. It was too cold and there was no guarantee that this stalker wasn’t currently creeping up the stairs. But I couldn’t keep running, not at this rate.
So I switched tactics. I collected my breath and without wasting any time, slowly, quietly, I went up the stairs. I wasn’t sure if my stalker only moved when I did or only when they heard me but at least for as long as I kept quiet it sounded like no one else was following. But this process took time. And walking so deliberately stressed some muscles that were already burnt. Eventually, I had to rest.
Floor 75. My knees nearly gave out as I hit the top. Maybe if the concrete wasn’t ice cold I would have sat down, but even then the brittle temperature kept me stiff. My hands and feet felt like they were carved from ice and my breath had lost all its warmth. I was debating whether I should turn around, go back down where it was warmer, when a far more chilling sight kept me still…
At the bottom of the stairs, there was someone there.
But they weren’t moving. They were facing the other way, the same way I was. Yet even though I couldn’t see their face, I could see their clothes and their hair. And from that I could tell that it was me…
I raised my left hand, and like pulling on puppet strings, this other me followed. But the movement wasn’t right. In fact it was too right, too even and smooth. None of my shivering or hunched posture was reflected in this thing, rather it was straight and lifeless like some 18th century self portrait. I took a step back, and still going backwards, it took one step up the stairs.
I spun around and ran up the next floor, limping, trying to put up some distance. But I could hear, loudly now, as it came clambering behind me. I stopped before I reached the next landing to look over my shoulder.
It was there, looking over its shoulder so that I couldn’t see its face. But somehow it was closer. Not by much, maybe only one step, but I realized sooner or later this other me was going to catch up.
“What do you want?” I asked.
It didn’t respond.
Slowly, I turned away and out of the corner of my eye I could see it turning too. I tried to think of a solution but my mind was clogged with fear and cold and air that was too thin. Then suddenly… I heard something running up behind me.
I bolted! This was it. Whatever was left inside of me I felt I had to use it now. I slung around floor 76 and went up again but was so blind in my haste I barely noticed my pursuer was now above me. I paused for only a fraction of a second before I realized what was happening. Booming through the stairwell was a new sound – one familiar but lost. This noise on loop, it grew louder as we raced towards it – it was the sound of a million doors closing.
A door! There was a door! And this other me was going to get there first…
I screamed, fueling every bit of myself into my body. People talk about an adrenaline rush – mothers lifting cars to save their kids – well I felt it. It was like I had been given new legs, like my soul had only one purpose – Run. Climb! FASTER!
I bolted onto floor 77 and saw it all in a flash. A bold lettered “4” across one wall, the metal door and greenlit scanner, the other me turning the handle.
No. I would die before I let myself be stuck here again. Charging at them I seized the other me’s shoulder just as the door flew open. I launched myself, slipping away and through the frame, and SLAMMED the door shut!
Gasping for air, I felt… warm.
Rage and fear pulled from my eyes and revealed light. Not the faint blue flickering of a shadowy stairwell but the tender orange glow of our hallway. I broke away from the door, afraid like it might suck me back in, but it stayed closed. From someone’s dorm I heard the muffled sound of music. I checked my phone and there was service.
I made it out…
^ ^ ^
Not much later, I called Liz. Apparently no one knew where I was. But apparently no one was looking for me. And that’s because technically, I was never missing.
I left the party around 11:43 and arrived home, from a three minute walk, at 11:47. I got back within the same day – no within the same half hour as when I was trapped in that stairwell. But how? Was it all my imagination?
Absolutely not.
Liz admits that she tried to call me around 11:46 – which was the same call I remember answering. But she says when I picked up she heard only static. Shortly after, the call hung up.
Liz thinks I was drugged. She believes me, thank God, but it’s harder for her to believe my story. And honestly, someone slipping my drink makes more sense than getting lost in hell’s stairwell. Who knows, maybe there’s a drug out there strong enough to reproduce that kind of nightmare… but I highly doubt it.
I wasn’t willing to go to the police. And despite Liz’s interest, I for sure wasn’t going back to investigate those stairs. In fact I made her promise me to never set foot in that place. It took some serious convincing but eventually, whether or not she believed what I was saying, she swore she’d stay away…
I barely drink anymore and if I can I avoid any and all stairwells. Maybe what I experienced was local to Garrison House but you really think after what happened I’d be willing to risk that?
Only Liz knows the whole story – most of it at least. I’ve debated whether I should share it with anyone else – maybe make myself out as the resident cook proclaiming doom to all who tread the back stairs – but I don’t think I have the courage…
The only part of my story I didn’t tell Liz, the part that I never want to think about… is the part where I escaped…
When I bolted past the thing that looked like me, when I ran through the door and slammed it in its face, I got a good look at her. And even though I was panicking and my eyes were blurry with tears, I know what I saw…
It was me.
Of course it “looked like” me, but it was more than that. Not some reflection or faulty clone, it was me.
It was me, and I locked her in there.
It was me, and I don’t know if it was just a part of me… or something more…
Sometimes, when I dream, I dream that I’m back there, trapped in a cold stairwell that never ends and where it’s so hard to breathe…
And even though I survived, even though I think I escaped, sometimes…
It really feels like I didn’t…