The basment

I walked down the old, worn stairs into one of the rooms of my basement. The corridor was narrow, and an ancient lamp hanging from the ceiling shone with its last remaining strength. The walls were damp and stained, cold to the touch, and I hated this place. The unease in my head felt stronger than usual today. When I stepped onto the last stair, my foot twisted and I fell forward. With a sharp pain in my head, I pulled myself up in front of a door, brushed the dust and dirt from my clothes, and pressed the handle. The door creaked open, and the smell of mold and stagnation hit me immediately. Inside was a large, dimly lit room packed with old, forgotten objects. For a moment I forgot why I had come here at all. I wandered among them—things that had once served a purpose, now reduced to silent shapes in the gloom. Two objects caught my attention. On a table lay a blackened square. When I picked it up, it was soft and flexible. I opened it and found many white sheets of thin fabric inside. I had no idea what its purpose was. Beside it lay another object—thin, elongated, ending in a dark tip. I took both and stuffed them into the pocket of my torn trousers. I left the room, climbed the stairs, turned left down a corridor, and entered my room. It wasn’t large, but it was mine. Over time, I had gathered various items from my wanderings through the basement and brought them here, giving them names and meanings. In one corner stood a bed with a blanket. Opposite it were a table and a chair, and on the table rested a bottle used to store water collected from springs scattered throughout the corridors and rooms. Today’s discovery fascinated me more than anything before. I placed both objects on the table, opened the square again, and picked up the thin object, deciding to call it a pencil. I turned it over in my fingers, trying to understand what it was meant for, but I couldn’t. Just as I was about to give up, I placed the pencil against the white surface. The tip left a mark. I froze, then pulled the pencil again, and another mark appeared—a line. A realization struck me. If lines could represent corridors, then four connected lines could represent a room. I felt something unfamiliar rise inside me—excitement, control. I could map the basement. I could trace where I had been and ensure I would always find my way back, because getting lost was dangerous. Some corridors were wrong. In some rooms, strange rectangles emitted more light than any lamp ever could. In others, the darkness was so complete I couldn’t see my own hands. And there were Them. I drew today’s path: the stairs, the storage room, the left turn, another corridor, my room. Sleepiness crept over me, and when the lamp began to flicker, I decided it was time to rest. I locked the door twice and pulled the chain tight, as I always did. When the lamp in my room went out, all the lamps went out, and total darkness followed. Darkness belonged to Them. I was already in bed when the light faded, and sleep took me quickly. I dreamed I stood in a vast room with an impossibly high ceiling, blue and endless. There was no visible source of light, yet everything was illuminated. Beneath my feet stretched a soft green carpet. Nothing else was visible until I looked into the distance and saw Them moving toward me. They moved slowly at first, but when I ran, they ran too—faster and faster, as if trying to force me awake. I woke gasping, soaked in sweat. The lamp was still on. A new day of wandering awaited me. I dressed, grabbed my bottle, and left my room, taking the square and the pencil with me as I headed toward the nearest spring, carefully recording every turn. The spring room was irregular and enormous. A waterfall crashed down near the entrance, foaming as it met the lake below, and the water was warm. I swam for a long time. Afterward, I dressed, filled my bottle, and turned back, pulling out the map. Right turn. Left turn. A long corridor. My room should have been at the end, but instead there was a wall. I ran my hand over its rough surface, unable to believe it, because I had followed the map exactly. Then I noticed something I hadn’t drawn: one corridor on the map was crossed out with a thick line. When I looked up again, the wall was gone, replaced by large metal doors—cold, silent, waiting. Panic washed over me. I had felt powerful when I found the map, as if the world finally obeyed me, but now I felt small and meaningless, like a rat darting through shadows. The doors had been there even when the wall was, inviting me. I turned and ran, through corridor after corridor, until my lungs burned. When I finally stopped, I knew immediately that I was lost. The map no longer made sense; the lines twisted and overlapped in impossible ways, though I was certain I hadn’t touched it. Then the lamp above me began to flicker, slowly and relentlessly, until it went out and darkness fell—and darkness belonged to Them. I stood alone, shaking, until I felt something new: a deep, aching loneliness, a longing for another human presence, absurd since I believed I was the only person who lived here. My hand burned, the square slipped from my fingers and fell to the floor, glowing with an intense white light. When I picked it up, it no longer burned. When I opened it, the drawing had changed. No longer lines and shapes, but something vast and familiar: an endless ceiling, and beneath it countless box-like structures, and between them people—hundreds, thousands—every face clear, fear filling their eyes as they stared upward at something terrible falling from the sky. One figure was pointing toward the metal doors, and above them a single word was written: BASEMENT.