He was falling. He reeled, stomach lurching, attempting to regain his bearings while below him certain death was screaming toward him on wind greased tracks. He screamed loud and breathless as he plummeted through the too-thin air and then�

There was a sudden, dull pain as he hit the sidewalk and then there was nothing.

He was just a crumpled heap of broken appendages in the distant below. Inelegantly dead, limbs in spider-like disarray. Blood pooled from under his still corpse far below the grimy window where he stood now. He drew a deep, rattling breath and gently leaned his shaking back against his crumbling apartment wall. He could faintly hear the sounds of the crowd that was gathering to gawk at his moral remains in the street below.

He slid to his knees, carefully� carefully� tottering across the chemical linoleum, willing it not to collapse under his weight. He slithered past the disused television set to the jarring splinterwood door. He creaked it open cautiously�

The hallway beyond was heavy with shadow and virulent crimson carpet invisibly smeared with his blood. The stairs lurked at the end of the dark hallway like a winding serpent waiting for its prey to come within striking distance. Flickering florescent light glinted palely off steps worn bone-smooth by lifetimes of footsteps.

He boldly slithered past the tombstone doors of the other tenants toward the gaping serpent's mouth. The only escape from this towering pinnacle of death�

But he was too incautious and it had him in his teeth. He was falling again�

He was tumbling head over heels over head and every collision with the glossy-pale steps sent all new agonies searing through every joint and nerve. There was an audible snap as his neck struck a stair edge at an unnatural angle. He blacked out from the pain for an instant, then was rudely awoken by the next flight of granite razors searing his tortured flesh. After an aeon of agonizing descent he finally rolled to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. His neighbors had already started to leave their rooms, curious about what had caused all the bumping and howling.

He tried to shut out the cries of shock and horror as he backed away from the stairs, back into his room. Back, back, back where the coiled predator could not reach him. Back against the wall, but the wall crumbled at his weight and he fell backwards fell fell fell into the street below. He stammered forward again, scrabbling for solid ground, but the grimy linoleum was peeling back peeling back peeling�and there was nowhere to stand. He was falling he was�

It was a full week before the body was discovered.