In this glade, in the middle of the forest with the rotting remains of a small cabin around it, Terrance knew what these stairs had once been. When the cabin was whole, they had led to a root cellar and storm shelter, like the one beneath his family's trailer. The one where he hid if he could get there in time.
That one had worked for awhile and let him escape. Escape from the other kids' taunts and his mother's scolds and his father's fists. It had been all of the things that this one was not when he was hiding. But they had found him. They knew to look for him now, under the trailer with the boxes of old clothes and broken furniture.
And so this time, he had gone to the forest. Alone. Away. And had found these stairs that were not any of the things he dreamed about.
At least, not yet.
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