Once again, I look cautiously at the staircase. “It's a little slippery. And holey. Maybe we should wait for it to dry and firm to go up.”
“No,” he fights forcefully, and continues. I notice that he's stomping, but his footfalls are far too heavy for the infrastructure of the slope, and I feel something akin to a knife twisting in my gut at the thought of him falling through, leaving me unable to save him.
“Hey, hey,” I warn, following closely, my hands out, ready to rescue again. “Seriously. Be careful.”
He doesn't respond, but continues his same actions, which makes me feel a little stiff. I take in the back of his body, covered in the staircase dust, the skin that is stained red now, and the bend that is harsher and more angry than I've ever seen it.
“Screech... hey, come on! Stop!”
“What?” And he stops, turns towards me, and his eyes are most definitely green now as they glare up at me, serious and dark and hateful.
In life, there are always these moments. These do or die moments. The moments when you look and realize that literally your whole relationship, or your whole future, or your whole everything is on the line. And you know it, undeniably, without a doubt, but somehow, that doesn't make you stronger. The thought that this question or phrase or moment could change all of history, all of the course of your mind, doesn't make you more apt to answer them correctly.
And I know this is one of those moments, just by the way he stands there, watches me with narrowed eyes and a rheumatic chassis.
I do not know what to say as those eyes assess me, unforgivably, for a crime of which I never remember committing. Yet I am sure by the color of his build that I have, and the fact that I cannot remember the length of time in which I supposedly disappeared, I realize I must have done just that.
There are no words strong enough, no apology loud enough, so eventually, I do all I know how to.
I reach out and wrap the small child into a hug. At first he stiffens, automatically, into one of those my mother is hugging me in front of the entire school play yard and everyone is staring me down and if you don't let go right now, I'm going to hit you in the head with my backpack and pretend to my friends that I have no idea who you are and I might even get child services called on you, but then he realizes that we're not in the play yard, and that no one's around, and that it's just the two of us, against the entire world, against the staircase, against the sky and ocean and rain of blood.
And I think he's as scared of being alone as I am. After all, the only reason I saved his life was because I didn't want to be alone. It had nothing to do with him dying, which sounds totally insane.
I probably am, actually.
He sinks against my grasp and then hugs me back, hard. I smile and bend down so we're closer to the same height, bury my face in his hair.
“I'm so sorry about whatever happened before,” I swear quietly, into his soot and blood covered follicles. “I didn't mean to space out or whatever. To disappear.”
He's very quiet against me, and that fact begins to make me feel sick. “Screech?” I prompt.
“Yeah. I know.” I think his whatever colored eyes are closed tightly against me. He's still shaking – is it because I'm touching him? Is it because of yesterday? Is it because he's afraid of falling? – and my reply is just a gentle pat against his head.
“It's okay, Scree. We're invincible, you and I.”
“Invincible?” He pulls away to look up at me, his red skin contrasting so nicely with his eyes, whatever color they are, his face contorted in some sort of fear or hopefulness or something.
“Yeah. You and I, together. On the staircase. Nothing can touch us.”
He smiles, the smile so small, but it somehow touches all his features, even in a minute way, and it makes me feel very calmed, and relaxed, and I can't help but smile back, my smile just as small but just as honest.
It's really funny. I forget how young he is, sometimes. How much he's a kid.
But all kids need impossible lies to survive like they need air. They need that sort of hope that can only exist in childhood – the hope that reindeer can fly and fairies will live and maybe a wardrobe will hold a whole other world if they just believe hard enough.
I don't think I've ever really let go of that kind of hope, but when you're in an impossible world such as this, I guess it's hard to believe that impossibly good things aren't out there, too.
“Nothing can touch us,” he eventually repeats.
Even if it is a lie, it's a damn good one.
six
“Do you see that?”
We've been precariously picking our way across the definitely diminutive incline for a few hours, and I look up. The fog has cleared considerably, enough to see what's ahead of us. The staircase just slopes upward, a sort of eternal acclivity, and there seems to be no change in the size or frequency of the stairs. The holes that were once plaguing us have decreased, and all in all, despite having to walk painfully slowly, we're doing rather well, I believe. We have both complained of being thirsty multiple times – apparently whatever magical spell that made us neither hungry nor thirsty has lifted, and leaves us struggling for commodities, necessities that we cannot have. Still, neither of us are too dehydrated to walk yet, though the taste of iron is distracting and makes for much lip mashing. Despite it all, we are doing well, very well.
And I do see to what he is referring.
It's this figure, up ahead, racing down towards us in a fevered sort of descent. The stairs here are narrow, though – no room for a two way street, and the character doesn't seem to be in any hurry to slow down.
I swallow, kind of back up a bit, though I know that's useless. “Yeah.”
“What are we going to do about that?”
“It'll slow when it reaches us.” It. Because all life forms are defined as its before they make our acquaintance, and are fine to fall over the edge until we exchange ages and a hand shake. At least, that had been the rule when I was traveling in my group... and my, did I see a lot of its fall.
But it doesn't seem to slow down. In fact, it seems to increase speed as it tears down the small decline, and Screech and I both realize something as the being gets closer and more substantial.
And that is, of course, the fact that it isn't substantial.
“Scree,” I call, and grab on to one of his spiny shoulders, pulling him backwards with me. He seems frozen to the spot as he watches the creature rip down to us.
It seems to be crafted purely of smoke, gray and light with touches of white and black in its curves. It's in the shape of a human, two arms and two legs and a body and a head with black holes for eyes and a mouth, the mouth one open and exuding a small, tiny puff of white air. The arms are flailing and the legs are racing, always racing, towards our figures.
“Scree, get behind me,” I say, ignoring the accidental rhyme that I normally would have joked upon.
But he does not move, frozen to the spot, staring at whatever it is.
“Freck, what do – ?”
“Get behind me.” He's so slim and so little that I could easily throw him behind my figure, but he's also so slim and so little and the chasm of endless death waits directly below us in any direction, so I don't force him, though I do coax him rather urgently.
It gets closer, and closer, and I'm estimating it's going to be on top of us soon. I crawl towards the ground, unsure what else to do, because there is no other way to give the creature any room to walk but over us.
“Do you think this is the fire, that oven I was talking about, and by lying down on the staircase and letting it walk over us we'll be burnt, and molded into those corpses, become part of the staircase?” He's not even turned to me, the little jerk. He's not even seen what I've done – he's only guessed.
“Shut up!” I don't have time for his illogical, infandous ideas right now. We don't have time for this. “Just get down, Scree!” My legs are on the ground, though it's hard to move quickly and carefully like
this with the blood so crusted on my body.
But he's not moving. And he won't move. And he's going to die, or something's going to happen, and, and... I'm getting frantic.
“You've got – ... Scree, you ne-ne-ed... S-Scree...” My words are totally wrong, not happening, not working, like my mind isn't, because it's yards away and then feet away and then inches away and he's just not moving, and he's going to die just when he started liking me again, and then –
It loses its form and explodes into thin air as it runs against an outstretched palm that Screech had held out to defend himself, and starts swirling backwards, long puffs of smoke recoiling as if Screech had created some sort of invisible glass wall that held him back, refused to let him in, near us. I shift from my position, kind of sitting up a little bit, onto my elbows, grunting in surprise.
It begins to fade, like rain turning into mist and then gas and then assimilating into the nearby air. I stand up, slowly, shakily, not really realizing I am moving into an upright position until I am there, and I grab on to Scree for support.
“I... how did you...?”
“No idea,” he mumbles. “I don't think I had anything to do with it. I think it just kind of... when it came into contact with something, it...”
I nod to cut him off, though he can't see me, and I don't really say anything else. “We should keep moving, Scree,” I offer, and push him forward slightly, very gently.
He whispers something I can't hear and I prompt him to repeat it, kind of push at him.
“Hey. What was that?”
He looks up at me, his eyes startling, and for the first time, I cannot be convinced that they are any color but black.
“I think it wanted help, Freckles,” he says to me, quietly.
“Did someone say 'help'?”
The two of us have the same exact reaction – we jump about twelve miles into the air before looking up, straight ahead of our path.
There used to be nothing. A few minutes ago, there was nothing but weird shadow guy. The staircase had moved up as normal. Hadn't I just thought that? But now...
There is a large, open plain a few steps away from us, and in the center of it sits a woman donned in red. The cardinal tulle covers the woman, who appears to be in her early fifties. She moves to lift up the veil covering her face, and I see that she has darker skin than me, even overtaking Screech, her eyes the same color as his is now, hair to match. Her fingernails are incredibly long in length, almost as long as each of her fingers.
But that is not the most horrifying part.
Among her plain filled with black and gray grass are fountains. Large, bubbling fountains covered in soft, smooth stones in which crystal clear blue water weaves in and out expertly. It is beautiful, pristine, perfect for drinking, and I am acutely aware of how thirsty we are.
Maybe I am the only one thinking of that. Perhaps Screech has better priorities, because his first statement is, “What?”
“Mm! What, what, indeed!” replies the woman, her face splitting into a large grin in which her front tooth has a prominent black hole. When she moves, golden coins shackled to her red bodice tinkles.
I look from the water to the woman to the boy. I'm very intrigued by all of this, but more importantly... I'm thirsty.
Of course, strange women dressed in odd clothing with nails so long that they could touch the top of the staircase without her moving at all on plains that literally appear out of nowhere and have water, actual water, are not to be trusted, but... still.
“Who are you?” It's Screech that does the talking, me that does the eying of those luscious geysers.
“I'm Madame Veneera!” She's still smiling, as if there's something to be overly elated about, and she waves us over, seemingly delightful. “Come, come, my children.”
“We are not your children.” Screech has to stop me from walking up at her request, and I can't help but give him a look.
“Scree,” I chastise, but I see his point. This woman is not only a stranger, but also a bit... well, to put it directly and briefly, strange.
“No, no, it's fine, my dear!” she says to me, laughing a bit. “It's the children who are always the most thoughtful, eh? Because they see things which aren't always there.” She winks at Screech and then turns to me, gestures behind her. “My fountains are the most clear and relaxing of any in the universe!”
“Yours are the only fountains we've ever seen,” Screech interrupts, the current of cynicism very obvious in his tones.
Madame Veneera laughs again – a light, chiming sort of chuckle that fills the surrounding area with an odd, awkward sort of grace that makes me uncomfortable and honestly, a bit vexed. Charm and finesse has no place in this world, and the fact that she has tackled both with such ease has left me rather disquieted.
Yet still, she is a human, lost in this world, as we are, alone, stranded. I don't see why extending a few welcoming hands is really too arduous of a task.
“We'll sit with you,” I offer, though Screech immediately pulls me back, the look on his face in incredulous consternation.
“What are you doing?” he whispers, rather loudly, and I push him aside as I walk towards Madame Veneera. I can feel his eyes boring into the back of my head, and I can almost see the look on his face in my mind's eye as I walk up the three steps to the open, empty plains. The ground here is softer, but still rather sturdy, and I walk and sit down in front of the woman. She gives me that smile, one that seems to be permanently plastered to her face, and that fact is a bit... unsettling, actually.
I try to swallow my predispositions as Screech comes and stands next to us, refusing the comfort of sitting, in no way allowing the woman any measure of his cooperation.
“I'm Freckles, and this is Screech,” I introduce with a forced smile. Everyone needs a friend in a place like this, after all.
“Freckles,” Screech begins, his voice dark, warning, but I shake him away, earning me eyes fit to kill. He crosses his arms and angles himself from the two of us, slightly.
“Hello, hello, my children!” She waves her hands towards the fountains. “You should wash off! Get that awful blood off your poor skin. My darling children! I am sorry, you two must have been through so much.”
“Yeah,” I say, trying to give her a friendly grin back. “I, uh, I didn't recognize this plain when we were walking up a few minutes ago.”
Screech begins to lean in, listening, catching my drift of the conversation: to find answers.
“Oh! That's unfortunate!” Her beam never once fades.
“Uh, yeah.” I pause, but she's not really taking the hint, so I try for the straightforward approach. “How'd you get this plain here?” It's about the size of a football field, if I had to guess, large enough to hold chariot races or jousting tournaments.
“How, how, indeed!” Her long finger nails direct us back to the biggest attraction; reservoirs. “You children should get washed off! You must have been through so much.”
She's already said that statement, and suddenly I feel as if I'm speaking to an interface and not a person. I downright frown at the woman in front of us, for the first time, but the simper of the other never pales.
“Yes, we'll get washed off. We're just a bit curious, that's all.”
“Curiosity killed the cat, you know!”
I rise now. I've gone from feeling mildly uncertain to disturbed. Laughing nervously, I return, stumbling slightly from an early dose of dehydration, “Yeah, yeah. Right.”
“Not that either of you are cats!” she assures, the hole in her tooth catching in the light. “I know that, of course.”
“Sure you do,” I agree. I notice how Screech isn't helping me out at all – he's just watching, now actually really properly focusing on us, but his arms are still crossed and his feet are still planted away from Madame Veneera, despite the fact that his body is no longer situated away.
I suppose that means I should continue my interrogation, despite the fact that, of course, I sor
t of want to run faster than I have ever have before and never look back.
“Um, why aren't you walking up the staircase?”
“Staircase? My, my! What staircase are you referring to? There is no staircase!”
I almost laugh it off as another one of her strange answers and reply rather sarcastically and cockily, when the broken cry of the now shifted Screech next to me jolts me away from our conversation.
My heart pounds in my ears as I turn to him, seeing that he now has his back facing Madame Veneera, and his small, still blood-covered hands are wrapped around his jaw and mouth. There's obvious panic in every line of his childish face, and he begins stumbling backwards as if he's lost the will to stand, towards our new acquaintance.
“Scree?” I question, my words mired in concern. When he says nothing, I swallow and begin turning to see what his black eyes are staring at, my body moving to allow the woman – who has begun to trouble me in a few minutes almost as much as Creep did in her entire stay – an amazing view of our backs.
I see what he is staring at – or rather, what he isn't.
The staircase that I have been walking on since my earliest memory is gone.
seven
I have always imagined fear as a silent thing. I have always believed that when one's world turns upside down, one would go strangely quiet, or faint, or lose breath and vision and be hauntingly calm on the surface despite the turmoil within.
But it's quite the opposite, actually, when the moment actually happens. Because it's the fear that makes it real, and pulls you into the moment so assuredly that you cannot escape, cannot hide behind a veneer.
Veneer... why did that word seem to ring Abel?
I mean, a bell.
But my mind hardly hesitates on these facts, these words, because I'm finding myself stuttering, spluttering, stammering, my words random and incoherent as they fly out of my mouth.
“N-no... I... wh-where?... but, but... we... there was...” I point to the place where the staircase just was, just was, just a few minutes ago.
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