2 Peter.

The whirring around them had been going on for quite a long time. It sounded as though they were in an elevator, but the movement was so smooth that he could not tell whether they were being carried up or down or even to the side. Once again, as they had done several times in the past hour, his hands moved involuntarily to reach up and push the blindfold away from his eyes; and once again they were stopped by the cord that bound his wrists. But he did not struggle against the cord. Peter never struggled.

After a time the whirring stopped. The cord was removed, and he was pushed gently forward. Quick, efficient hands untied his blindfold and pulled it off. The door behind him slid shut, the whirring began, faded away, and he was alone. For a moment he could not see, quickly closing his eyes against the white glare. He closed them again just as quickly, suddenly dizzy, after his first clear look at where he was. It was very cautiously that he opened them for the third time.

All he could see were stairs. The high, narrow landing on which he stood seemed to be the only flat place there was, and above and below him, growing smaller in the distance, were only flights of steps. Without railings they rose and fell at alarming angles, forking, occasionally spiraling, rising briefly together only to veer apart again, crossing above and below one another, connected at rare intervals by thin bridges spanning deep gulfs. Nothing supported them; the glossy white material from which they were made seemed to be strong enough to arch alone across great distances. They were not outdoors, the all-pervasive yet indirect glare came from artificial light, but he could see no walls, floor, or ceiling. Only stairs.

It was terrifying. The vast spaces on all sides of him, the precariousness of his position were enough to make his sight dim and the blood rush from his head. And the stairs, twisting around him in senseless complexity, endless, going nowhere, dizzied him, sending him stumbling backwards against—He spun around, stopping himself just in time from plunging into the gleaming white void behind him. There was nothing there but empty space, and more stairs. But the elevator—there had to be a wall for the elevator to move in! But there was nothing. It must have been some sort of electronic bucket on a chain. Shaking, he sank to his knees at the base of a flight of steps leading up from the landing. He wrapped his arms around himself and dropped his head onto his chest, closing his eyes, and tried his best not to move, or to think.

Why had they put him here? It must be some kind of punishment, but what had he done wrong? They had been strange to him recently, he began to realize, going over the past week in his mind. The lingering looks he had noticed, as though he were ill; little extra gestures of concern, like the second piece of pie he had been given at lunch yesterday. While they had been happening he hadn't seen any significance to them, but now, putting them all together, a pattern began to emerge. But it was not a pattern that should have led to punishment; it was more as though they knew he was about to undergo a dangerous operation.

But it didn't make sense. This wasn't a hospital, and it was punishment. It was horrible here. Even though his eyes were tightly shut he could not lose the feeling of where he was. The smallness and the vulnerability of his perch made his skin prickle and his head begin to spin again. No! he tried to tell himself, Think about something else, think about being in bed, under the covers. But before he could do that the other thought came, even more terrifying: How long am I going to be here? Involuntarily he moaned. Maybe it isn't just going to be for a few minutes or hours; maybe I'll be here for days; maybe forever.

He couldn't bear it. Even an hour in this place would drive him mad. But maybe … maybe there was a way out, maybe he could escape.

Slowly he opened his eyes. Very carefully he moved his head around, without getting up, and looked up the steps behind him. If he was going to find a way out, he might as well start there. But they were so narrow, vanishing up into whiteness, so steep, so high, and there were no railings. No, he couldn't go up them; he couldn't go down either. What if he should get dizzy again, and slip, or take the wrong step? No, it was safer to stay here, and wait. Perhaps something would happen; perhaps they had made a mistake, and someone would come and get him out. He closed his eyes again, pressing himself against the stairs.