Born Again Ch. 01: The Doorway

Once at the bottom, I could hear the echo of my last few steps in the darkness. And it was sheer darkness, with only the area right next to the end of the staircase dimly lit, and beyond that - just black void. The echo kept reverberating back and forth, and it felt like I was in a cavern. I did not have a flashlight and although I had my mobile phone - still clipped to the waistband of my panties under my dress - I did not have the presence of mind to think about it at the time. So I did the next best thing, as I blindly felt the wall on the right of the staircase, to no avail. I then turned to the wall on the left side of the staircase, feeling around, until I felt it - a switch, a regular one, and my index finger rested on it. I hesitated, and I pondered for a few seconds. Switching the lights on now, if the switch was for any lights at all, was the point of no return. I would have seen whatever was in Mr. Kane's secret basement, and what was seen could not be unseen.

But, I reasoned with myself, who is going to know? I will just switch on the light, look around briefly to satisfy my nagging curiosity, switch it off again, and head back up, where I will decide what to do about the doorway. I will just say I did not dare go through the doorway, certainly a believable lie given my timid and shy nature.

And that was it. The switched clicked, and I was surprised - not by the light, but by the lack of it. Nothing happened for a couple of seconds, then I started seeing very dim, very small lights around the "room". It was like it was surrounded by a small army of fireflies, but the lights slowly became brighter, and started flickering. I looked at the closest light, and I realised it was a candle, and the light on top of it was its own flame. Wait a minute, I thought to myself, but I switched on an electrical switch. How could that light up candles? As I was thinking that, I was moving towards the light, just a couple of feet away, putting my face up close and personal, until I realised it was, after all, an electrical light, but it was so well engineered that unless you look at it from inches away, you couldn't really tell the difference between the light and a real candle flame. It was amazing, I thought to myself, as I watched the flame quiver, flicker occasionally, get longer, then shorter, and even sway to one side or the other occasionally like a little breeze had just blown over the candle.

I sighed, raising both eyebrows. Rich men and their little toys, I thought to myself. And with that I turned around, and that is when I gasped as I realised the enormity of this "room". This "room" was no room at all. It was just plain enormous. It must be at least twenty times the size of my little apartment, I thought. The flickering electric flames surrounded the entire room, with a light every three feet or so, mounted on the surrounding wall. There were more such electric flames spread around the central area of the room, so that no area of the huge room was left unlit. Still, with all these lights everywhere, the overall lighting was still lower than one would expect in a normal room, but just enough for one to make out the contents of the room and find one's way around.

I could make out a series of weird items of furniture. Very weird, in fact. I could not make heads or tails of anything at first. I looked at my watch, a bulky not so nice watch I always wore to work simply because it was waterproof. It was ten minutes to five. Not that I had anywhere to go, nor was I afraid that Mr. Kane would come home as he had clearly said it would be Sunday evening when he will be back, but I did not much fancy the idea of walking home in the dark. Still, I thought, I had plenty of time to walk around and have a quick look. It was summer and I was not expecting it to start getting dark before half past eight.

My mind made up, I made my first few steps into what would be the beginning of a new life...