THE STAIRCASE CODE: Through theMirror Darkly

01

My brother disappeared strangely two years ago.

Until tonight, when I received a text message from my brother who has been missing for two years:「Don't go up that staircase in the house.」

I was shocked and puzzled.

Because my home has always been the kind of ordinary flat house, not at all the leaping floor, the home is even no stairs.

I quickly dialed my brother's phone, I want to know where my brother in the past two years in the end.

Since my brother was still alive, why didn't he come home?

I have too many questions in my mind to ask my brother, but the phone was never answered.

My brother disappeared again after sending this text message.

My parents were seldom home at night, and since I was a child, they hardly ever cared about my brother and me.

My father often beat and scolded my brother and me when we were young, and I remember the worst time when my brother's hand was broken by my father in order to protect me.

The young one endured the pain but stood in front of me without saying a word.

After my brother disappeared, it was like I was crazy to search for him.

My parents didn't care about my brother at all, they didn't even bother to go to the police station to report the case.

Just as I was about to leave the house to go to the police station to show this text message to the police, I stopped dead in my tracks.

A staircase had unexpectedly appeared in my living room.

This dark red staircase extended straight into the darkness, and I couldn't even see what was actually up there.

At that moment, my cell phone vibrated like crazy, full of texts from my brother:

「Don't go up!」

「Don't go up there!」

The staircase gave me a creepy feeling.

Every cell in my body was screaming that I couldn't go up there.

But just then, I saw a doll roll down the stairs.

The bear doll rolled right up to my feet, its dark eyes looking straight at me.

My heart was beating fast.

I knew this doll very well.

This doll is very familiar to me, it was a birthday gift to my brother that I sewed with my own hands.

After my brother disappeared, this doll also disappeared.

I trembled as I picked up the bear doll.

Suddenly, I saw something inside the doll's stomach.

I touched it with my hand -

It was a note:

「Lucy, help me, hurry up the stairs, I'm stuck up there.」

The handwriting on the note was very familiar to me.

It was my brother's handwriting.

But at the same time, my cell phone was vibrating like crazy.

I received dozens of text messages from my brother.

「Don't go up!」

「Don't go up that staircase!」

For a moment, I froze.

Should I believe the words on the note, or should I believe the text message?

But one thing was confirmed, and that was that my brother was most likely on top of the stairs.

I hesitated for a moment, but I still stepped onto the first step without hesitation.

I want to find my brother.

At this moment, my heartbeat exploded to its fastest.

First stanza.

Second knuckle.

I took the stairs one step at a time and eventually came to the last set of steps.

At this moment, my pupils contracted violently.

Because in front of me was the exact same construction as the layout of my house.

The exact same living room, and even the table was set with half of my leftover apple.

For a moment, I thought that the staircase I had just been on was nothing more than my hallucination.

I turned my head, and the dark red staircase had disappeared, as if it had never existed.

Was it really my hallucination?

Just as I was relaxing, the door to my parents' room opened with a creak.

My mother, who was supposed to be working overtime, came out of the room.

She walked out in her pajamas, yawning, and frowned when she saw me standing there dumbfounded.

「Lucy, what are you doing standing here in the middle of the night without sleeping?」

My mother looked at me with an impatient face in her pajamas.

I quickly explained that I wasn't.

I was just about to ask my mother why she was at home when a cold feeling ran straight up from the soles of my feet to my head.

Something was wrong!

A strong feeling of something being wrong sent chills down my spine.

I scrutinized my mother's face.

Finally I realized why I felt something was wrong.

Mother's face was opposite.

To be precise, the left and right faces were opposite.

The left side of my mother's face originally had a very obvious black mole, but now the mole appeared on the right side of her face.

I realized a creepy thing -

I might not be in the original home.