Stairs to Nowhere

Author's note: Inspired by a certain flight of stairs I walk by every day. The story has been purposely written in a way in which the gender of the main character remains ambiguous.

How often the smallest things can obsess the human psyche. I had never considered myself a person that thought too much about minor details in everyday life but that changed when I moved in my new home.

Despite my small income I had managed to save enough money to leave my parents' house and rent an apartment for myself, it was small, old and reeked of humidity but I was excited to be on my own for the first time nonetheless. These incommodities however were not the main reason for the cheap price of the flat, it was the noise of the public transport flowing through the station just in front the apartment building. The engine of the buses that constantly drove by below my window was rather bearable compared to the thundering noise of the trains as they entered and left the platform screeching over the rail.

Aware of the location of the apartment, my parents had advised me against moving in but I argued that all these, what at the moment seemed to me, little annoyances didn't bother me as much as a daily one hour drive to work and spending the astronomical sum of money in gasoline that such trips meant. Not only living next to this station guaranteed that I'd only needed 15 minutes to reach my workplace but also the rent and the public transport were so much cheaper than the gasoline I required in my previous lifestyle. With the current economical crisis the family was going through any savings had to be welcomed so after a teary farewell I left for my new home.

I remember to be happily musing to myself while unpacked my belongings when I noticed something outside my bedroom window that I hadn't seen the first time I had come to visit the apartment: next to the outer wall of the train platform there was a flight of stairs that led underground. It occurred to me that the entrance to the metro, the only mode of transport that was mercifully silent from the outside, was even closer to my apartment than I thought; in fact, those stairs were practically in front of the doors of my building! With this new discovery in mind I decided that, since the time difference would be minimal, it would be more convenient to take the subterranean transport to work instead of taking the train as I had first planned.

But as I was about to descend the newly discovered stairs the next morning I was surprised to find that this wasn't the entrance to the metro station nor to anywhere, what lied at the bottom of the stairs was nothing more than the brick wall of the train platform. However, unlike the rest of the wall, this part was in a shameful state. What had once probably been colorful graffiti were now faded and covered in the filth caused by the trash that people had been throwing in during the years as well as the urine of the homeless that frequented the neighborhood; all of this resulting in a rancid smell impregnating the place.

Confused and nauseous, I turned away and walked inside the train station through its main gate. Nevertheless, as I boarded my train I couldn't stop thinking about that wretch of a corner. Certainly, cleanliness in a public space was not always something to be expected, especially in a small forgotten place like that; at best you could expect it to be cleaned on a rare occasion without putting much effort into it. But that flight of stairs was even more forsaken than a small dirty alleyway in a metropolis, for who would build stairs that led nowhere? The train station didn't seem to be very old so perhaps they belonged to whatever building had been in there prior to the construction of the train platform or maybe a direct entrance to the underground station had indeed been planned but the project had been left unfinished.

These and more possibilities came to my mind but by the time I got to work the thought of the stairs had left my mind. I didn't remember them until I returned home many hours later when I saw them again when I was looking for the keys of my apartment building. I didn't give them more than a passing glance then for I had seen enough that morning but my previous curiosity for their origin had returned. At that moment, however, my stomach demanded dinner so I chose to satiate its hunger rather than that of my mind.

As I opened the shutters of my bedroom window the next morning I was again greeted by the presence of those stairs and their uncommon termination which I had completely forgotten about last night after eating dinner. Unlike the other day, now I noticed that its filth was visible from my second floor window and again I started to wonder about their origin deciding I would ask my landlord when I had to pay my rent.

Despite this decision I still kept elaborating my own theories as I walked past the stairs on my way to work and back home daily. Hence, when the day of meeting my landlord came I had not forgotten my own personal mystery, but, to my disappointment, he couldn't fill me in any details, those stairs had been there since he could remember. After that fiasco I finally sat in front of my computer to learn about the enigmatic stairway online but my desire for information remained unsatisfied because beyond its rare appearance in some photographs of the station it wasn't mentioned anywhere in the query results. It seemed I would just have to wait for my curiosity to fade away like the paint on that dirty wall at the bottom of the steps and start to accept the place as part of the cityscape of my neighborhood.

As I stretched myself one morning, still lying on the bed, I looked at my clock to see that I hadn't heard the alarm go off and now it was almost an hour later than when I usually get up on workdays. I immediately sprang out of bed and run to the shower, that choice meant that I wouldn't have time to prepare breakfast though so I just grabbed an apple and a bread roll on way out to eat on the train.

I was in a hurry to get to the train platform but as soon as I stepped outside the entrance hall of my apartment building I was approached by a heinously-looking man, a sickening stench emanated from him and both his old clothing and hairstyle were dirty and in disarray.

"Please, could you spare something for an old man?" he simply asked.

For a split second I had feared that this man intended to mug me but my panic abated when he spoke those simple pitiable words. He had to be one of the homeless that were sometimes seen around the station begging for change. He looked so miserable that I couldn't help but feel brokenhearted. I really didn't have much money on me to spare so I offered him my bread roll instead. At that he formed a smile.

"Oh, thank you for your kindness! A Hand that Feeds is so unusual these days." He muttered.

I disregarded his rambles as I wished him a good day and darted to the station to catch the next train. Despite my efforts, in the end I couldn't avoid arriving late to work so I had to stay extra hours to make up for my unpunctuality, when I returned home I was so tired that I skipped dinner altogether and searched for the comfort of my bed.

The next Saturday night was a particularly warm one so I had left the window of my bedroom open wide while I comfortably sat in my bed reading. My lecture was soon interrupted by the shrill sound of a train stopping in the platform. My parents had been right about the poor living conditions I'd had to endure everyday but thankfully no trains came in or out of the station during the wee hours and they began to be operational again just a tad before sunrise which meant that I could at least enjoy a good night sleep. If I stretched my neck a little I could even see the red over black letters of the sign in the platform which was used to announce when would the next train arrive, currently it only displayed a friendly reminder to the people who were about the board the train to wait till the doors were completely open before stepping inside. No other information was displayed after the train loudly left so that meant that had been the last one for the day.

I casually let my eyes wander over the brick wall of the station before returning to the book waiting in my hands. By chance my gaze stopped at the side of the wall that was at the bottom of the mysterious stairway and I felt a chill down my spine. My distress had not been caused by the now all-too-familiar steps but because of the person who sat at the top of them and whose piercing stare that was fixed on me. It was hard to tell under the dim streetlight of that side of the street and because he sat under the cover of the shadow cast by the wall but I was certain that it was exactly the same beggar that had approached me the other day. Feeling that I had been spied, in an almost involuntary fearful reflex, I closed the shutters of the window.

In spite of my sudden reaction, during the following days I realized that man sitting in the exact same place every night, more often than not looking at my window like a hound waiting for the prey to poke its head out of its hiding hole. Was he thinking of robbing me in my house? Or maybe he was just like those wandering cats that if you had fed them once they kept returning to your house in hopes that you would be as kind to them as you were the first time? If that was the case I just couldn't understand why wouldn't he just ask me again personally like he did before, thus the idea of him attacking me and stealing away my few possessions grew all the more stronger.

I completely avoided looking at him when he was purposely staring in my direction but I allowed myself to peek outside for a while when he seemed distracted toying with something that he held in his left hand. In my already nervous state, the first time I noticed this behavior I instantly picked up the phone thinking that he may have some kind of weapon. I was about to call the police but when I saw the man didn't move and, oblivious to my discomfort, just kept playing with whatever bauble he was enjoying himself with I put down the cellular shaking my head. I was becoming paranoid because of a homeless man who just needed a spot to pass the night. Those stairs probably offered better shelter than any other place in spite of the stench of that corner and maybe because he already had that poor personal hygiene he didn't even care about the smell anymore.

With every passing day, my fear for my homeless neighbor was becoming more muddled with the pity I felt for him. Consequently, when one morning before going to work I saw him still dozing in his usual position, I brought him a peach. I imagined that fresh fruit would probably be a luxury for him, and his organism would need the vitamins.

As I got closer to him I managed to see the object I had seen him play with from my window. I thought it had to be a rosary since it was made of beads but there wasn't any crucifix attached to it, instead there were several small decorations hanging from it in the shape of what I could only describe as hamsa hands although they were not quite the same. I smiled to myself when I realized this detail; some people believe this amulet to bring protection to their owners. No wonder the man had used that strange terminology when I offered him food the first time! Nor was I surprised when he used it again to thank me when I gave him the fruit and returned my smile.

"The Hand that Feeds returns, you have my gratitude." He said more but I had already started to walk away and the meaning of his words was lost to me.

Despite this, my fear for him had not disappeared completely. That evening, after washing up the dishes, I went to my bedroom to find him looking at me with that unreadable expression. I felt as if my kindness had been betrayed and, just like that first day, I closed the window shutters so I didn't have to endure his piercing stare. He had left a stain in my subconscious, though, for that night was the first one in many years in which my dreams were haunted by horrible visions.

I had been engulfed by darkness; unable to see, I tried to use my hands to feel my way around but I could find no objects to help me as a point of reference. The more I walked blindly and I still hadn't even brushed my fingertips against anything the more anxious I felt. When my hands finally made contact with something I was not relieved for all I could feel was a cold brick wall. I searched for a door or a light switch to no avail. I dreaded the mere idea of going back where I could neither see nor touch anything so I just followed the wall hoping to find something sooner or later, even a corner would have been a comfort, anything but that endless wall.

I could no longer hold my fear and I began to bang the bricks with both hands as I pleaded for someone to come and rescue me. But all I could hear in response was a distant voice who spoke in a language unknown to me and when I tried to yell again I realized it had been just an echo, it was me who was speaking those alien, yet familiar, words:

"Mg yarephai naflnog Y'Golonac ch'ah nglui ph'shugg gebagl sgn'wahl h'gof'nn."

Covered in sweat, I was finally set free from my nightmare by the alarm clock the next morning. Still shivering I took a shower. By breakfast I was finally starting to forget about my dream and any memory of it had been completely erased when I returned home from work.

But that nightmare was not an isolated occurrence, for that very night I visited the exact same dark place again with its unsettling wall and so happened the following night and the one after that. I had become terrified of the mere idea of going to sleep for I knew my dreams would take me once again to that confined nightmarish place. I tried to sleep as little as possible but sooner or later my eyelids would close and take away the comfort of the light.

Already my poor sleeping habits were taking a toll on me: dark circles and bags had formed under my eyes and my coworkers commented on my almost erratic way of working. They kept saying I needed more sleep to which I agreed arguing that I seemed to have insomnia but I soon changed the subject so that they wouldn't know of what really kept me awake at night.

Not only did I have to deal with the nightmares on a daily basis but also with that heinous beggar who kept staring at me from across the street always in his preferred position at the top of the stairs. I had become delirious, torn between the fear of his gaze and that of slumber. I had even began to consider the idea of boarding up my window just so that I didn't have to face his gaze anymore but then the thought of a darkened room made the memory of that wall and the foreign echoing words return all the more stronger and all I could do was crawl in a corner wishing that unseen vision would stop torturing me.

The only relief I had was those precious yet short moments when that man was focused on his trinket. It was in one of those moments in which I was the observer when all of a sudden I realized why the words I screamed in dreams, despite their foreignness, were familiar to me. That was what the man had muttered that day when I had offered him that piece of fresh fruit on the very same day that the nightmare had begun.

Devoid of proper rest and no longer able to reason, I stormed out of my apartment to face the man outside. I had the certainty that I had seen and touched him under the light of the sun and, unlike that abhorrent wall in my sleep; I could still see him during the night. I didn't even wait for him to speak, I simply grabbed him by the collar of his foul clothing and slammed him against the concrete. He didn't try to fight me; he just looked up at me.

"Are you not the Hand that Feeds?" The homeless man asked softly. Slightly confused but still maintaining his relaxed tone he looked up at me: "Hasn't He visited you yet?"

When he got no answer he smiled knowingly. "He has."

There were so many things I had wanted to ask him but none of my questions came out of my mouth instead all I could say were those hideous words:

"Mg yarephai naflnog Y'Golonac ch'ah nglui ph'shugg gebagl sgn'wahl h'gof'nn!"

I was now not blinded by darkness nor fear but derangement and fury. With an intense movement of my arms the man's head crashed again against the pavement. For I know not how long my belligerence continued without him actually offering any resistance. Many times his head rose only to be forced to painfully collide with hard concrete by my hands until at last all that was left of it was a gory mass of grey matter and pieces of the cranium.

I was later told that when the police arrived they found me at the bottom of the stairway scratching the wall of the train station with such vigor that I had torn off my fingernails and my hands were bleeding profusely yet I was still screamed those unnerving unknown words.

Albeit in a very different place from that of my dreams, I am now trapped again. Here only iron bars keep me from the outside. I can only wish that the death penalty for my crime was legal in this country. That final punishment would be so much more merciful than an imprisonment that keeps me alive and allows me to still fall asleep at night. For now, due to my continued coerced visits, I am well aware of the place that man has cursed me to roam in dreams every night and I know as well that for an eternity I could be searching in vain that infinite wall for the flight of stairs that I used to look at from my bedroom window as I keep repeating to myself in that strange language:

"Yet the time will come when Y'Golonac strides forth from the loneliness of aeons to walk once more among men…"

Freedom from that endless futile search will only be possible when the Hand that Feeds comes for me, for now I also know how the sentence continues: yet in the coming future Y'Golonac will cross over the threshold to the realm of Earth to share it with his children.

Disclaimer and Trivia:

Y'Golonac, one of the Great Old Ones of the Cthulhu Mythos, was originally created by Ramsey Campbell and, even though he was mentioned in previous stories, first appeared in the story 'Cold Print', which I highly recommend as it is one of my favorite Mythos stories not written by Lovecraft.

According to the Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia by Daniel Harms: "Y'Golonac spends most of his time behind a colossal wall in an undiscovered place, served by eyeless figures who crawl over his body. He manifests himself only in order that he may choose new priests for his earthly cult. […] The largest known cult [dedicated to Y'Golonac], called the Sons of the Hands that Feed, consists only of one hundred members worldwide.' But I have been unable to track where this cult is ever mentioned in the stories. Supposedly, Y'Golonac can only appear to those who have come across the texts known as The Revelations of Glaaki and read some of it but I recall from published Call of Cthulhu adventures that in several occasions he was summoned just by hearing words from the Revelations which is what happened to the main character here.

To write that sentence in R'lyehian I used Yog-Sothoth's wiki page as a reference, a very loose reference since there's only a small bunch of words in it. I could have used Aklo which fans have made more rules and words for but by the time I heard of it I had already coined that sentence.