Hours after hours went by.
Days too had definitely passed but he kept walking, nearly falling a few times.
Each time he looked back to see how far he had come, his heart skipped a beat in fear that he might fall.
Of all the things that could happen to him in here, that was the one he feared the most.
Damon dreaded the thought of falling and having to start his climb all over again.
Just then, he caught a glimpse of something ahead of him.
It was a cloud floating up ahead.
The mere sight of something other than stairs and the colour of white made Damon's pallid countenance to light up with a faint flame of hope ignited inside of him.
He chuckled. At least now there was something to motivate him to keep going a little faster than he was doing.
Even though he hadn't confirmed it, Damon forced himself to believe that the floating cloud marked the end of his tedious ascension.
The sudden appearance of the cloud brought him hope and boosted his resolve with a small rush of adrenaline.
His heart was filled to the brim with motivation to reach the top now that he has seen a reason to.
The more steps he ran up, the better and closer his view of the cloud became.
After running up more steps, he not only saw the cloud but a door as well.
A door stood beneath the cloud.
Certainly that was it!
That was his exit!
Damon smiled for the first time since arriving at the First Stairway.
The faint fire of hope inside him grew from a struggling, malnourished flame to conflagration of hope.
But in the next few seconds, Damon's entire struggle flashed before his eyes as that hope was almost quenched.
His massive fire almost died out in an instant when Damon lurched and fell off from the side of the stairway.
The height he had climbed was hundreds or even a few thousands of meters high.
A fall was instant death or on a light scale, a return to square one.
Everything played in slow motion yet could not be interrupted or stopped.
'What... the... hell,' he said in his mind as his body descended from the side of the stairs aiming at a ground he couldn't even see from where he was standing.
.
.
.
Damon was not hallucinating nor was his mind playing tricks on him.
The cloud was real and so was the door.
The two of them marked the exit from the First Stairway and also the entrance into the Second Floor of the Crimson Spire.
The door was long and mud brown and stood between two grey clouds that floated atop of it and at its bottom.
The door and grey clouds marked the end of the First Stairway and that was where Damon wished to reach.
Was it just going to end like that?
All his efforts shattered by a mere fall?
Damon's eyes opened wide and his arms moved under the control of his instincts.
His hands succeeded in reaching and hanging on to a step and he clung to it as if his life depended on it... which it actually did.
The player's body dangled in the air like a cloth dancing to the touches of the free wind.
He gnashed his teeth and struggled to pull himself up but lacked the strength to do so.
He was tired out and only strength was not going to redeem him.
He had seen a glimmer of hope.
"I must get out of here," he swore to himself in a determined voice.
With his newfound resolution, Damon reached for the steps and placed his other hand there to pull himself up.
He struggled against exhaustion and finally came up victorious.
Damon breathed loudly a few times before looking up again… the cloud was no longer in sight.
He held his head in despair.
He wanted to scream his brain out but he was so weak that he did not bother.
The distance did not seem to shrink.
Damon had dropped down flights of stairs during his fall. That was basically hours of climbing, perhaps even days, he didn't know for sure… he couldn't estimate.
His luck really did run out after the Riddle Game and fate was dealing with him right now.
Damon was clothed in a cloak of crippling despair as he found himself now feeling desolate.
His mind was blank and slowly, he was becoming an empty shell of himself.
.
.
.
A name and a face suddenly flashed through his mind that caused him to spring up after a while.
The name 'Beth' and the face of his beautiful sister.
Damon remembered his sister, the very reason he became a player in the first place.
She was the sole purpose for which he underwent this torment in the first place.
How could he fail now? Now that he had a chance of meeting her again.
The memories of their happy sibling times played in his head.
He saw his brother Nathan laughing and mocking everyone with his sarcastic remarks. He saw Beth being the mother that they didn't have anymore.
The good times he treasured the most became the fuel that helped give him a little push towards his goal.
But what will such memories do for him against the suffocating despair and creeping fear he was experiencing?