Joe staggered over step 96 and fell flat on his face on a new landing, which was now adorned with a fountain shaped like a unicorn, this time the water was being ejected from the horn of the creature. Joe crawled over to bathe in the stream, soaking himself, his pack and his clothes. The water felt like a cool breeze and to his aching limbs was a great balm. He reared up onto his knees to bask in the water hitting his face like a man undergoing baptism. Finally clean, Joe understood he could not proceed further without serious rest. He had been attempting the stairway for multiple hours and deep fatigue had set in.

Taking stock of the area, Joe placed his pack beneath his damp hair and closed his eyes. ‘What happened to Mary I wonder, is she on a separate staircase?’ He looked back from whence he came. ‘Was it the sphere that the greasebag tossed or was it due to the room we were in? If it’s the room the grunts should have been sent here too.’ Joe turned his head back to facing the murk above and rubbed his temples. ‘I know so little of what’s going on, I can only take it as it comes. So many questions yet I have no answers. Scientifically, this makes as much sense as this Unicorn spewing water.’ He looked at his arms outlined by his damp shirt. ‘And to top it off, somehow my arms are getting bigger when I’m only using my legs to climb.’ Squeezing his eyes shut, he instinctively thought about how his new physique would likely impress Julia, the emotion of which he crushed immediately.

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A few hours later, Joe woke feeling a great deal refreshed. He withdrew a couple of energy bars to snack on, which he washed down with some more unicorn water. ‘Hmph, I didn’t notice earlier but this water seems to glow a fraction more than the swan water. An increased potency of some sort?’ Joe held his breath to try and get a sense of his body, but he felt practically the same, except for an urge for action. ‘Seems the water energises perhaps’.

He turned back to the next steps in the darkness and took a deep breath. “Onwards” he spoke to the darkness.