It started with a strange report from Mrs. Albright in 2A.
She claimed she'd climbed the stairs to her floor five times… and somehow ended up on the same landing every time.
At first, I thought she was confused.
Old.
Tired.
But then it happened to me.
I left my apartment on the third floor and decided to take the stairs to the lobby.
As I stepped down to the second-floor landing, I noticed something:
The light bulb flickered in a fixed rhythm.
Three long blinks.
Two short.
Every time.
That wasn't normal.
I kept going.
But after another full flight…
I was back on the second-floor landing.
Same dust pattern.
Same creaky tile.
Same flickering bulb.
Three long. Two short.
I marked the railing with my key.
Deep scratch.
Unmistakable.
Walked again.
Down one level.
Scratch was still there.
I walked faster.
Down.
Down.
Down again.
Still the same spot.
The same smell.
Old cigarette smoke and rusted nails.
I tried going up.
Same thing.
No matter what I did, I was stuck between floors 2 and 3.
But the geometry didn't loop.
The steps kept extending.
The rail curved differently each time.
The shadows on the walls tilted as if they were trying to shake me loose.
The stairwell was changing as I moved.
That's when I heard the footsteps.
Behind me.
Two floors up.
Then one floor below.
Out of sync.
Too fast.
Too heavy.
Not following me.
Pacing.
Like whatever it was had been trapped there too.
I stopped walking.
Held my breath.
And whispered, "Hello?"
The footsteps paused.
Then…
They laughed.
Not a voice.
More like air being squeezed through damp lungs.
No words.
Just delight.
Then silence.
I checked my phone.
No signal.
Of course.
But the time was wrong.
Not slow.
Ahead.
Three hours had passed.
I'd only walked for twenty minutes.
Then I saw the plaque.
Half-hidden behind a light fixture:
"LEVEL NULLCONTAINMENT ACCESS ONLYDO NOT INTERACT"
Below it, a faded sticker:
"First tenant, last mistake."
I touched the wall next to it.
Warm.
Vibrating.
The same vibration I'd felt in Room 0B.
Different part of the building.
Same presence.
This stairwell wasn't for transport.
It was a looped cage.
Not for people.
But for something that walked forever.
And waited for someone to walk with it.
I started walking backwards.
Step by step.
Still facing upward.
The lights dimmed.
But the geometry twisted again.
Now the stairs sloped sideways.
Gravity shifted like the building was rolling on its side.
I nearly fell, but caught the railing.
And suddenly, I wasn't in a stairwell anymore.
I was standing in a circular room made entirely of stairs.
Like an Escher painting come to life.
Every wall was a staircase.
All leading nowhere.
All occupied.
By shadows.
Each one sitting on a stair.
Not moving.
Just waiting.
They looked like tenants.
Some in robes.
Some in modern clothes.
Some featureless.
All trapped in motionless descent.
One of them looked at me.
No face.
Just a mask shaped like a lease agreement.
The mouth section was signed in blood.
He opened it, revealing not a tongue but a key.
Then he pointed upward.
Toward a flight of stairs that twisted into the ceiling.
I climbed.
Each step echoed with names.
Spoken aloud in my head.
"Tenant 19B – Defaulted.Tenant 4D – Dissolved.Tenant 0A – Rewritten."
And finally:
"Tenant 3C – Status: Active Proxy."
That was me.
At the top: a door.
Painted red.
Carved with the same contract symbols I'd seen in Room 0B.
I touched the knob.
Cold.
It didn't open.
But something behind it whispered:
"You've seen enough."
"This stairwell doesn't lead down or up."
"It leads back."
Suddenly, I was back on the second-floor landing.
Door to 2A on my left.
Stairs to 3C on my right.
Just like nothing had happened.
Except now, the staircase was shorter.
Simpler.
Almost normal.
But when I turned around, the red door was still there.
At the base of the landing wall.
No handle.
No frame.
Just paint.
And when I looked away… it was gone.
I ran to my unit.
Locked the door.
Wrote down everything.
And then I heard it again.
That same laughter.
From the stairwell outside.
Followed by the scratching of something climbing up.
I checked the hallway camera.
It looped.
The footage replayed the same two seconds, over and over.
Until the final loop showed someone watching me through the peephole.
Someone with a red-painted face.
Then the screen went black.
I know now:
The stairwell wasn't a path.
It was a test.
To see who notices the loop.
And who lets it in.
I passed… for now.
But the next tenant might not.