First Person Read Free

point to see for miles. I have never stepped
inside the tower, but I imagine myself up there in renovated splendour,
surveying the land with bakelite binoculars, visualising aeroplanes taking off
and landing. I picture the sounds of spitfires and tornadoes and bombers in my
mind, as I stretch out my senses into the chilly air, listening out for any
real sounds. I remember I have not heard any birds since I got off the bus.
Suddenly I stop.
    I have heard
something. I am sure of it, though I cannot be certain if I imagined it, or
whether it was real. It was very faint, as if distant, or muffled, or below
ground. It is something I have not heard for many years. The sound of it is
like a shadow on an x-ray; something ominous and unknown. I feel lost,
frightened, and alone. I am reminded of the smell of disinfectant on a hospital
ward floor. I have heard a voice and I have heard this voice before. It sounds
thin, and frightened. “Help! Help!” It is unmistakable. I am no more than
sixteen metres from the doorway into the control tower. I can see the doorway.
Rusted hinges on a rotted doorframe mark where a wooden door would have been.
Beyond that, there are concrete steps that lead both up and down. The stairs up
twist round to where I cannot see them. The stairs down lead to darkness.
“Help! Help!” The voice is coming from where the darkness is.
    Blood rushes in
my ears like the sound of a train rushing through a tunnel. Shivers wave down
my neck and body. I have not breathed for moments but, when I do, I am pressed
suddenly into action. I launch myself forward. Compelled to propel myself ever
faster, it will take me less than fifteen strides to reach the doorway. Darting
towards the opening, a startled young boy seems to shimmer and appear in front
of me. Puzzled, I wonder where he appeared from, but I hear the voice again,
“Help! Help!”, and I dart inside the doorway, giving the boy not a second look.
I take the first few steps down and I am swallowed up by darkness.
    Behind me, I can
feel the remnants of the afternoon winter sun. Dimly aware of it, as if I am in
a tunnel, I feel the light getting smaller as I descend. I slow my progress,
unable to see ahead in the dark. Holding each hand out against the wall, I feel
it damp and slimy. I hear dripping water somewhere ahead of me. I do not hear
the voice.
    Terrified of the
dark, I keep moving. I want to throw up, scream, and run back up the stairs,
but I must keep moving. I force myself to concentrate. Step after step I keep
going down. The stairs twist around like a square spiral. I am dizzy and
disorientated. It is utterly dark. Fighting the urge to flee, I feel my breath
becoming more intense. My chest heaves and my nostrils flare, my jaw clamps
shut. It is as if I am on the edge of a cliff looking over, pushed back from
falling only by a high wind, as I lean over to get a good view of the rocks.
Finally I am at the bottom. I can hear nothing, see nothing.
    “Hello?” I call
out. “Is there anyone here? Are you hurt?”
    I step forward
on the basement floor. My hands reach feebly out to make sure I do not bump
into something. My feet shuffle along the slimy cement floor. Suddenly,
inevitably, I slip and stumble. As if in slow motion I feel myself fall into
what feels like a pool of icy water. It engulfs me, and when my head comes up,
I gasp for air, shocked by the blast of freezing, fetid, water. It is only as I
grasp around the edge of the cement floor I realise my right leg has become
caught in something metal. I imagine this basement floor laid with iron bars to
strengthen the concrete, crumbling under years of neglect, and filling with
trickling rainwater.
    Warmth at my leg
tells me the twisted iron wreckage has ripped my trousers and pierced my skin,
and the warm sensation is blood leaking from a wound. I cannot free my leg from
the metal holding it in place. I can only flounder in the water as my body
temperature drops. My fingers become weak and numb as