The Boy and the Beast

15| everythingphobia

The house is pitch black.

Maybe it wasn't a smart idea to invite an entire football team to my house. Especially not if they're out to push me down into the cellar [I avoid the cellar at all times, it belongs in one of the American Horror Story seasons].

On my toes, I step down the rickety wooden steps, framed by nothing but an air railing. They dared me to go down to the cellar and grab one of my dad's bottles of Bordeaux, because apparently I have everythingphobia [which I don't have, I'm just a cautious person when it comes to ghosts and demons and all their underworld buddies].

Soft dispersed dust cascade across the damp, claustrophobic air as my feet push about decades of dirt. Somewhere far off, the pitter patter of water splashes on a hollow wooden barrel at the back of the cellar, echoing like the steps of a person in a long, never ending hallway. The lack of light is hindering my already terrible eyesight [for some other reason I'm not wearing contacts, so I see pictures like a kid coloring outside the lines].

"Puck-puck," someone mocks me from above the staircase. Laughter erupts like bad music to my ears, I'm tempted to change the radio channel.

I scan the creak wooden steps toppling above my head before looking back into the cellar.

"Fuck off," I pant.

They have no idea why I'm always cautious, so they can't just casually call me a chicken. I'm not.

I step down one step, the wood creaking beneath my foot as if my weight's more than an elephant's. The echo reverberates loudly across the cellar, busting through the noose-like silence. I swallow hard, but my throat aches too much for the anxiety to go down. My heartbeat shatters my sternum; I swallow again. My hand follows the crinkled wall, but my whole body is shaking, making the wall seem more even than baked.

My foot comes to contact with the solid concrete floor beneath the stairwell, but my movement is stopped by three loud bangs from the back of the cellar. The next bang is from behind me—the door.

Clinking keys and metal crashing against metal emphasizes the lock, making my heart clatter, clang, demolish my sternum.

I gulp, examining nothing but a void. An abundant, raven void. My steps falter as I back up the staircase, crackling beneath my weight. I'm not even that heavy.

Red, firefly eyes switch on, hiding behind the rows and rows of wine cases, glaring at me as if I stole their booty.

I step up another step, a needle/thin spider leg, hairy and matte, peeling from one of the wine barrels. My feet scurry up to the door faster than my heart is beating, but I still keep my eyes down at the villains.

The bulging SOS lights grow brighter and bigger with each step I take away until my back hits the door.

A wave of relief washes over my body.

I finger the wooden slab keeping me from safety before my touch meets the touch of cold iron. I twist the doorknob before backing into the doorway to the kitchen immediately.

But there's no kitchen.

No counter scattered with food debris or utensils sparkling like a vampire in Twilight. No island where my mother prepares breakfast to feed my father and I seated at the opposite nook, bickering about the Dolphins' loss to LA.