“Why me?” she thought as she threw a pebble and silently watched it skip over the smooth, clean lake. The pebble hit the water so gently, but enough to make a ripple. As she started on her way back home, she went the usual way: walk the cornfield, follow the winding path of looming oak trees of at least a thousand years old, jump the skipping stones that led to the gravel parking lot, pass the gas station, enter the broken fencing, and then inside the big green, leafy fern. She walked inside the small, beige, cottage-like house with high hopes of happiness. The warming smell of freshly baked cookies lingered around, filling up every corner and crevice. She hopped up the stairs, making a point not to step on the creaky one. The sixth stair from the bottom.
She sat peacefully in her room enjoying the quiet whispering of the wind. Staring out of the crystal clear glass window, she wondered. Night came, under her covers, she hoped for something more. As she slowly sat up, the window called. The whispering turned to howling and whistling. Slowly and carefully she slipped out of her comforter. Tip-toeing on the old noisy hardwood floors, down the stairs, wondering what was going on. Too caught up in her thoughts to be conscientious of her actions, she stepped on the stair. The sixth one from the bottom. She fell.
“What happened?” she thought as she gained consciousness. Her eyes slowly opened, blurry at first, confused as to which way was up or down. Head aching, and eyesight whirring, she couldn’t set a thought in her mind straight enough to stand up. She wobbled unsteadily as she gathered the strength to get on her feet. As soon as she could see clearly, she started to walk. She swore she was hallucinating. Extravagant swirls of bright colors stamped onto the red-orange ground. Everywhere she looked she found big, bell-shaped, silver ornament-looking objects hanging from sparkling ribbon.
“Where am I?” she thought as she walked around in endless circles of swirls and sparkles surrounding her every move. She thought that maybe she hit her head too hard, or was dreaming. She pinched herself. “Nope, I’m definitely awake.” she thought to herself as she started walking on the bright, swirled path. The path curved around here and there, and led her along sharp turns, forks in the road, and up and down steep, and bumpy hills.
Finally, she came to a house. It was a small house, like her own. Everything looked pretty similar, except the house was made out of gingerbread. This was like a fantasy world. “I must be dreaming!” she exclaimed staring at the small candy house, trying to piece it all together. She figured she could walk inside to find out more. She carefully pushed open the small door. Crumbs dropped to the floor in silence, and she worried the door would break off its sugary hinges. The floor surprisingly, was also made out of gingerbread. She snooped around the house some more, and came upon a stair case. She touched her foot on the first stair to make sure that it would not fall through. She very cautiously continued up the staircase to see where it led. Barely half way up, the stair started to break. She jumped all the way back to the bottom for fear of falling all the way through, not wanting to know what lie beyond.
Something seemed a bit peculiar about this house. It started to feel more and more familiar the longer she lingered around. She took a moment to think, and caught herself smelling the air. It smelled like freshly baked cookies. Every corner, and every crevice.
Momentarily forgetting about the familiarness of the house, she decided to try the stairs again. Making a mental note to avoid the broken stair. Stair number one, stair number two, three, four, five. The cracked stair. Stair number six. The sixth stair from the bottom. Completely distracted from this realization, and losing her train of thought, again, she fell. Aware of what was happening this time, she looked around and tried to see what was going on, and where she was falling. It was pitch black until she reached a point in her plummeting when everything was neon yellow. Coating over the eye-burning yellow, were never-ending swirls of color. It was too much for her eyes to take in at once. She started to feel dizzy and numb. She instantly lost consciousness. Suddenly, she awoke with great pain. She was tucked into her comforter, enjoying the quiet whispering of the wind. “Maybe it was all a dream,” her thoughts wandered, and before she knew it herself, she was asleep.
Underneath the sixth stair from the bottom, the bright colors and vacuum of multicolored swirls faded, and the cracks in the stair turned back to their pitch black state, and remained that way until the stair was to be misused again.