I’m nearly out of breath as I reach my destination- the fifth floor. Running up and down the stairs an average of ten times a day gets annoying- but it is part of my job.
I’ve had lots of people ask me the same question- why not just use the elevator?
“I’m just really claustrophobic,” I say. Occasionally I’ll just throw in a different answer for fun- like that I’m trying to lose weight or something like that.
But that never captures the whole truth.
I honestly don’t know why it started with me- there’s no one else I’ve met with the same problem. I don’t know if I did something wrong- though as far as I know I didn’t do anything to trigger it. Our house wasn’t built on some sort of sacred Native American burial ground, it wasn’t occupied by a Satanic cult, and I had not bought anything cursed off the Dark Web.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I was eight when it first happened. My bedroom was on the second floor of my home- there was a long hallway leading out of it to a second bathroom, and in the middle were the stairs. The lights were usually turned off at the end of the hallway so that while I could peer out at it from the open door of my bedroom if I adjusted my head a little while sleeping, I wouldn’t see anything but a curtain of black.
One day that all changed. I just guess that I’m glad that I was walking up the stairs when it happened, I had turned around to hop into my bed when I felt it.
And I turned around.
In the darkness- there was something else. A void that consumed even the shadows with even darker shadows- a figure devoid of light. It had the shape of a man.
And it began to move towards me.
I flew down the stairs and nearly tripped, though I was unharmed thankfully.
I cried to my parents about it and they reassured me that it was nothing but a figment of my mind.
And for two years, it never happened again. I slept in my bed and had nearly forgotten about it.
Until it happened again.
This time I was in my bed when he began to approach. I had nearly fallen asleep when the darkness moved, and I got a better look at him this time. He was truly a being of nothing but black. He moved- he was slow, but he moved nonetheless towards me.
I jumped out of bed, but he was blocking the entrance to the stairs now. I seriously considered jumping out the window when thankfully my screams called my father upstairs- and the man vanished.
I told him I had just had a nightmare, but I slept in a spare room on the ground floor after that. I always had the window open just in case I needed to jump out.
Adulthood came and with no further interactions with that man, I almost forgot about him.
Almost.
Two years ago, I was walking down the stairs of the apartment complex I had moved into after college. I was headed towards the laundromat- we had one in the basement of our building. A few quarters lighter, I was about to go back up to watch some television before coming back in around half an hour when my heart nearly froze.
I saw him. At the top of the stairs.
He was every bit as terrifying as I remembered him- no features, just a void in the silhouette of a man.
He began to come downstairs. I panicked and turned- but there was no way out. Our laundromat was old and didn’t even have any windows- we were technically underground as it was.
I thought I was done for until I heard voices coming from above- and the shadow vanished. Thankfully some other folks had to come down. Unlike the other two instances where I saw him, this was in the middle of the day.
I’ve realized two things since then. One, that the man never approaches me while there are other people around.
Two, that while he is slow, he’s always tried to corner me in a place where I can’t run. And I just know that the day he catches me- it’s going to be all over. Death, or a fate worse than that, awaits me the moment he lays one of his formless hands on me.
I was saved twice by other people, but I don’t think my luck will last a third time.
I have to always make sure that I’m in a crowded area- but as you can imagine that’s not always possible.
And so, I always have to be vigilant. I need to always make sure that there are at least two exits wherever I go. Elevators? I can’t count on there always being people in them- and if someone gets off before my floor- well, what a coincidence! I have to get off on that floor too. I just don’t risk it most of the time.
But it’s hard to explain all of that to someone you’ve just met, I’m sure you understand.
And so I tell them something which, now that I think about it- is true.
“I’m just claustrophobic.”