Slip

Let me tell you something: your worst nightmare pales compared to what I thought could be there. After all, I've been hearing occasional quiet moaning and whimpering for a few days now. My imagination was running amok. And you know what? It scared me to death nonetheless.

See, I didn't want to go down there. There was always something better to do. Somehow, my cellar with it's eerie noises didn't seem important or even real in the daylight. The plain truth is that I was rather anxious about that dreary place even before the nerve wranking noises and somehow managed to put off going there so long it slipped my mind. The problem with fear is that eventually the world forces you to face it, and scarcely on your own terms. One day you will find yourself going down a steep stairway into a dark basement. At least I did.

Step by step the blackness engulfed me. The weak light somewhere high above soon became useless, then just a memory. A kid can tell you darkness is mere absence of light, seeing the light of the day or even a single light bulb, I would happily agree. Not down there. Down there the darkness feels like a dense viscid fluid. Struggling to breathe and pointlessly convincing myself there is nothing to fear, I fumbled for the next stair.

Picture falling into the dark unknown I was facing, the horror of not knowing when and how you will hit the ground. Just as that thought came to me, my foot slipped.

Granted, going down a dark corridor into an even darker basement lacking any kind of lighting might not have been the brightest idea. Blame the dark on the tripped circuit breaker, blame the lack of even a single candle or flashlight on me. Still, the breaker needed to be reset, no two ways about it.

So here I am, falling. And trust me, the one thing worse than plunging into jet-black dark basement head first is doing precisely that holding a kitchen knife. Why I brought it with me? I could not say, an instinct perhaps. More likely just a crunch against the fear.

Since the idea of accidentally stabbing myself held little appeal I tossed the damn knife as far away as the awkward midair posture allowed. The crash landing came a split second later. My wrist was first to touch the ground, the hand snapped backwards and a bright instant of pain shone through the dark. The unintended somersault ended abruptly with a bone-crushing thud. The impact knocked the air out of me and left me lying on my back desperately gasping for breath.

In fact, sprawled under the staircase in utter darkness I was eerily content, once I caught my breath that is. Maybe more relieved than content, except the likely broken wrist and hopefully just badly bruised ribs, I seemed quite unscathed. The fall was nasty, deadly almost, one you should be happy to walk away from. And for a blissful moment I was. Then the monstrous shriek echoed through the basement.

The animal-like howl left me frozen. I couldn't move, couldn't think or breathe. It took me few seconds to strugle from the fear-induced torpor. Then I burst into frantic activity - groping the walls in desperate search for the tripped circuit breaker. And throughout the feverish exercise a faint shuffling noise and foul stench jangled my nerves. Any time now it - whatever it was - would touch me, strike me, perhaps kill me.

At last my trembling fingers brushed a metal box resembling the circuit breaker. Restarting it was a matter of two seconds. Undergoing such and ordeal just to flip a few switches, a bizarre thing indeed.

The first lazy flickers of the fluorescent lamp may well have been the worst instants of my life, even considering the preceding minute. It stooped hardly two steps from me. Staring at me. I say 'it', even though at that point I knew it was human, there was just no way to make up the gender. A filthy, ragged, miserable thing. A person about as far from you and me and any sane human being as anybody can get. And despite the rags, stink, rot and grime the eyes were pure. Pure mad that is, both repulsive and riveting.

A most cursory glance would tell you the creature was psychotic and have been for quite a while. Mulling over a lunatic dweling in my own house, the kitchen knife in one of the filthy hands completely slipped my attention.