Fear(story)

Steps, unending steps: It was all common, here, this dream, he had seen it every night through the past week, and it was the same one: Steps, unending steps, as he climbed one to another to another, but the dream ended before he ever reached anywhere. This night was a variation. Of his determination to end this dream he wouldn't wake till he reached the end. This night he slept only to see that dream, to know where the steps led.

The wife saw him go to bed early, she could clearly mark: Of his fits of insanity this was different, he was disturbed, he had secluded himself the entire week, and today he took to sleeping in another room. She sat on the sofa beside the bed and sighed as she stared upon the pristine sleepers face. He looked in peace, his breath was controlled to a soft hum on  grunting whisper, his eyelids still with no dreamy movements as such. Yet she was worried, It was a big sacrifice on her part, a lot of hardwork and plenty of wasted years to have her husband cured of his fantasy, he now, as she hoped, had lived with her on the same world of imagination that constituted social reality- the probability that made run on what we call human society, starting with the number line. But a weeks stress showed her fatigue, she was worried and lacked sleep, she decided not to sleep, she loved him, she adored him, she wanted to be with him, through it all as she decided to keep watch; The night took a thunderous turn, The little hill where there cottage was shook, as the sky growled in night rage, and flashed the most devilish of glimpses that words should restrain to respect, the rain slashed on the thached tin roof: "Drruum! Grrum! drruung! grruung!", a candle she lit as the power was cut. As that yellow light reflected his face, his eyelids flickered, his eyeballs seemed moved rapidly: She spotted the distubance on his pristine face and shifted to his bed to stroke his hair.

There were steps unending steps, as he started his climb.  The steps seemed unending as the fog flowing down the hill slope he was climbing shaded to retard his sight to white empty darkness, He climbed the wet hilly steps, each step a bit more tiring, and each step to a series of another vanishing to fog again. He climbed as his road cut through the innumerous ferns that the slope bodied, the flowers, the daisies, the wild morning glories gloomed with the weather as he moved on. He stopped to rest and admire the honeysuckle growing in between the pines and looked down from where he left, in sight was now invisible. He took a deep breath and moved again, he had to reach, where? he did not know, he walked till he reached a fall; Cold pure water, the best to taste the sweetest. He took a sip that seemingly breathed life into his tired limbs and he continued his climb; He saw the slope end and smiled. Amidst the forest this view was strange, a ground of grass and flowery edges, the prettiest of ferns as he stepped on the edge: The view was dynamic, it was a cliff whose base was not in sight, ahead a series of hills criss crossed in rivers that flowed down valleys the criss crosses created. The clouds made waterfalls on green walls that at a distance turned a shade to blue and mixed in the sky. He took in with a deep breath all the air his lungs could store, raised his hands wide and protruded his chest, and sighed out with releif: a voice, someone called his name, a voice familiar, warm but cold in cry, a female voice called his name, shrill that even in its soft whisper tone echoed through the hills. He turned to seek the speaker, like an apparation from shadow to flesh she stood , smiled, his wife, and then her smile faded, she reached out her hand and screamed to stop, the land from where he stood cracked and he fell: to wake up with a scream.

His wife was dere smiling at him, stroking his hair and wiping his sweat. It was morning, a Sunday morning: The wife told him to  freshen up, she wished to go on a picnic, this sunshine was rare; He did her will as he too wanted the same on that bright weather that gleamed through the shining landscape. Together the couple moved uphill, it had been so long since they walked those ways, together, hand in hand: they talked and laughed and all differences faded as they walked , crossed the old hospital that was in ruins now, reached an edge, the old rock to sit and admired the magnificence that lay ahead. Lets go to the forest, and in mutual agreement they climbed furthur up to from where the pine trees crowned the hill. Here was when the dilemma came, there was a road that no townsfolk ever took, famed to be notoriously haunted, and this was were the wife suggested they should go.
"I've never been this part, lets go please", to which the man agreed, as he thought that even though he was here since childhood, he never visited this place. They took the darker turn.
Indeed people had reason to fear this place, the pine trees had curled overhead and as dense was the forest that night was day, not the slightest sunlight touched the ground, any sane man had reason to be scared here. About half a mile the road mixed into ferns and grass, till there was none to tred. Here was where they would have sat but a flight of steps caught the mans eyes and he hypnotically started climbing. The wife followed trying to stop him, he payed no heed and climbed the steps faster and faster till he was almost running, the wife behind him. He reached the top and stared with awe at the ground just out of his dreams, the voice followed the wife appeared, and she too amazed came near the cliff; The man now was sweating in fear as he saw what was to come, He froze and then hysterically screamed, the sound of which startled the wife as she slipped and fell.