We were descending the grey and forestgreen concrete stairwell, midday pouring through the tall narrow window to our left, as I realized the wooden steps have altered since our ascent.
I don't know the bald man behind me. He seems like a colleague, or a coworker, perhaps. He asks why I've stopped. I don't answer, staring down at the absent step. The holes where nails had been driven into four-by-eights splintered and raw. It might be possible to get my leg over the railing and find secure footing where the stairs are affixed to the cinderblocks. The wood doesn't look very old, merely filmed with stagnant dust.
I'm considering whether to try when the gravity in the stairwell shifts and we are thrown into chaos.
Reaching back I grab the man's belt as space itself tilts, and we are falling suddenly upward, a great grating mechanical noise like a dial-up modem echoing all around, shrilling like some vast swarm of nocturnal insects, and I wake, head buzzing.
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