The Staircase

INT. THE STAIRCASE OF A BLOCK OF FLATS – NIGHT

An empty, windowless staircase of a block of flats is shown from the top of a flight of stairs. Around the corner of the stairwell, footsteps can be heard trudging upwards, getting closer.

Guy emerges from around the corner, dishevelled and weary, ascending the staircase. He steadies himself on the handrail and pauses to catch his breath.

GUY (V.O.): I’ve been climbing these stairs for so long. I can’t remember how I started… when was it? Where was it? Where does it lead? I don’t know.

He resumes and climbs the steps. The landing at the top, like every landing on the staircase, has four doors – two facing the stairs and one at either end facing each other. The staircase continues, as it always does, around the corner of the stairwell.

INT. THE STAIRCASE OF A GOTHIC MANSION – CONTINUOUS

Guy sees that the new flight of stairs above him are those of a gothic mansion.

GUY (V.O.): Always different, always the same.

He walks past a large ornately framed mirror on the wall of the stairs. He has no reflection.

He stops at an oil painting of a woman in a cloak. The surface of the portrait is behind glass. He touches the pane of glass and lingers there.

GUY (V.O.): Mirrors without reflections, paintings that stare into your soul...

A piercing shriek is heard in the distance from farther down the staircase. Guy is afraid and resumes his climb with urgency.

INT. THE STAIRCASE OF AN OFFICE BLOCK – CONTINUOUS

He climbs a flight of stairs two steps at a time.

INT. THE STAIRCASE OF A SUBURBAN HOME – CONTINUOUS

He begins walking up the next flight of stairs, this time the stairwell is decorated like a suburban home.

GUY (V.O.): I’ve tried countless doors along the way. Some just lead to hallways with more doors, others to stranger places. But they always bring me back here. To the endless steps.

He approaches the door on the left-end of the landing. He puts his ear to the door, then opens it with a gentle push. Only pitch-black nothingness is visible within.

GUY (V.O.): I need to rest, find food, or drink. The staircase isn’t safe. (looking down the staircase) The creature...

Guy steps through the door, disappearing from view. Silence.

The faint, distant sound of footsteps can be heard on the staircase resuming somewhere unseen.

GUY (V.O.): Some doors open easily; others remain forever closed. The untried ones... they haunt me the most.

CUT TO BLACK.

INT. THE STAIRCASE OF A HOTEL – NIGHT

Around the corner of the stairwell, laboured footsteps can be heard. Guy emerges from around the corner, looking exhausted. He is breathing heavily and moving more slowly than before, weighed down by fatigue.

Suddenly, a piercing shriek echoes through the staircase. The creature is closer than ever.

Guy lumbers up the stairs and opens a door. Darkness envelops the other side, filled with indistinct, whispering voices.

He shuts the door and tries another. It is locked. Guy turns around to see the creature, a terrifying silhouetted apparition, looming at the bottom of the stairs.

Desperately, he tries another door. It is also locked. The creature approaches.

INT. THE STAIRCASE OF A CASTLE – NIGHT

Guy runs away up the next flight of stairs, a stone staircase of a medieval castle.

At the hallway, Guy pushes against a heavy wooden door. It shudders open slowly under pressure. He crams inside and rams the door shut behind him.

INT. DARK CAVE – CONTINUOUS

Guy is in a dark cave, dimly lit by daylight filtering through a distant cavemouth. The creature’s shriek reverberates loudly on the other side of the door.

Guy moves towards the daylight, navigating through puddles of seawater and clambering over rocks.

EXT. DESOLATE BEACH – CONTINUOUS

Emerging onto a deserted pebbly beach beside a cliff, Guy pauses to catch his breath. The waves crash against the shore.

He trudges along the desolate, windswept shore. He passes a top hat, spinning in the surf.

Further along, he notices a knife, its blade embedded in the wet sand. He pauses, looking at it, then moves on.

A dog appears, running energetically along the beach. It dashes past Guy without a glance, bounding off into the distance.

In the near distance a man emerges from the sea wearing a drenched suit. The pale, middle-aged man stands in front of Guy, water dripping from his clothes.

PALE MAN: Do you know the way?

GUY: No.

PALE MAN: It’s all the way down. Back the way you came.

The Pale Man’s unblinking gaze is fixed on Guy. Guy, unnerved, walks around him. The Pale Man remains rigid on the spot, his gaze unmoved.

The sky begins to darken with the setting sun and approach of night. Guy reaches the end of the beach and finds a cliff path. He climbs it, with tired steps.

EXT. CLIFF TOP – LATER

Guy stands on a rock at the cliff’s edge, looking down at the churning sea below. The wind howls around him, a lonely sound in the gathering darkness.

He scans the horizon. The vastness stretches before him, an endless expanse of water and sky.

GUY (V.O.): I muse on this rock, yet everything changes and remains the same.

FADE OUT.

EXT. CLIFF TOP – NIGHT

The sun dips below the horizon, leaving Guy under a blanket of stars. He stands motionless, his silhouette etched against the night sky.

Out of the darkness, the Pale Man reappears behind Guy.

PALE MAN: (sneering) Are you alright?

GUY: I… I just want to be left alone.

The Pale Man’s smile widens unnaturally, revealing sharp, menacing teeth. Its hands are claws, positioned upright to attack. Bursting into blue flames, it hovers up off the ground, ready to descend upon its prey.

Guy is terrified and cowers in fear. He closes his eyes tightly, expecting the inevitable.

When he opens them, the predator is screaming as it plummets down the cliff. He peers over the edge as the screams stop on the jagged rocks in the waves below. In the monster’s place on the cliff top stands a beautiful woman in a hooded cloak. She remains silent and still, gazing out to sea, the moonlight casting a soft glow around her.

Guy sits and watches the horizon with her. Overcome with tiredness, he falls asleep.

EXT. CLIFF TOP – DAWN

Guy wakes. As the first light of dawn breaks, the woman in a cloak fades into the rising sun.

FADE OUT.

EXT. CLIFF PATH – MORNING

Guy descends from the cliff, his steps leading him to a small town nestled by the sea.

INT. CORNER SHOP – CONTINUOUS

Guy enters a corner shop. He browses the shelves, picking up a bottle of water and several sandwiches. At the counter, he presents a card from his pocket, but the cashier shakes his head.

CASHIER: No, we don’t accept this.

Guy is extremely hungry and thirsty; he flees out of the shop with the provisions.

CASHIER: Stop!

EXT. TOWN STREET – CONTINUOUS

Guy runs onto the street and into the road, not noticing an approaching car. There’s a screech of brakes, and he’s knocked to the ground.

Guy looks up, severely dazed and injured, and sees Lexi looking down at him.

LEXI: Help is on its way. Hang in there, Guy.

Guy loses consciousness.

INT. AMBULANCE – LATER

Guy lies in an ambulance, speeding towards the hospital.

INT. HOSPITAL CORRIDOR – LATER

Guy is wheeled through a hospital corridor on a trolley. Nurses and doctors pass by in a blur.

He is wheeled through a door into a stairwell.

INT. THE STAIRCASE OF A HOSPITAL – CONTINUOUS

He is left on the landing of the staircase, alone and confused. The door shuts behind him with a definitive click.

The staircase is silent, save for the sound of Guy’s laboured breathing.

A door creaks open and eight-year-old Emma steps through.

EMMA: Daddy? Everything will be okay.

GUY: Em… Emma…

EMMA: You need to pass on now.

GUY: I’m sorry… I...

EMMA: I know.

GUY: I miss you, so much.

EMMA: We all miss you, daddy.

Emma hands Guy a small cuddly toy of a penguin, then skips back through the door, disappearing from sight as the doors shuts.

A shriek from the creature echoes up the staircase. Guy, badly injured on the trolley, hears the creature approaching.

In a burst of desperation, he climbs out of the trolley and in great pain crawls to the nearest door, pounding on it with his remaining strength.

The creature appears around the stairwell, its presence more terrifying than ever.

The door swings open, revealing a crash test dummy seated in a chair, surrounded by darkness, illuminated only by a single spotlight from above.

CRASH TEST DUMMY: “What is the meaning of life” is the 404th most asked question of the Great Oracle’s Database.

The spotlight turns off and the dummy vanishes into the dark.

As the creature closes in on Guy, a sudden, blinding light bursts out from the room. Purple-gloved hands reach out and pull Guy through the door.

The door, marked “113”, slams shut behind him.