She still had the faint hope that the prank had lasted long enough. That the door would swing open again at any moment. That someone would pull her back into the warmth, indoors, and chase her down the halls amid peals of laughter. But the door stayed shut.
And Mouse was alone in the open.
She stood there and shivered, though the cold was only partly to blame for that. It seemed like someone was tightening a strap around her chest, she could hardly breathe. Her stomach wanted to turn inside out. Everything about her trembled and shook, her voice failed her. The tears froze on her cheeks, were thawed by ones flowing after, and solidified anew.
It was so dark that she could only with difficulty make out the top step of the iron stairwell. But in any case, it was unthinkable for her to set foot on it. She could not. The emptiness of the outside world hardened around her like a resin, held her fast, let her stiffen into motionlessness. Her muscles cramped and refused to obey her.
She did not know how long she stood there like that.
As she finally overcame her paralysis, and very, very carefully placed a foot on the top step, it was as though she had to break through an icy armor that had laid itself around her body. She stood standing once again, grabbed hold of the coat and pulled it on. It was much too big, a garment for a grown-up. The hem dragged on the ground, and her hands disappeared deep in the dangling sleeves.
Her movements were so shaky that she nearly slipped and fell. Again she had to hold fast to the icy railing, and even through the cloth of the coat, the cold was gruesome. She had spent her whole life in the heated rooms of the hotel. Only now did it become clear to her that she had not known at all what true cold meant.
Her gaze searched the sky, but there, too, was only blackness and millions of damp-heavy snowflakes that fell noiselessly to the ground. Down looked like up to her, everything dark, everything empty, everything frighteningly wide and boundless.
Her eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom, and now she saw that the stairs were situated in a narrow alley. A brick wall rose into the sky right across from the back wall of the hotel, high up to God knew where.
With her back to the wall, she began her descent. One step after the other. Not even the terrible cold could bring her to go faster. She had greater and greater difficulty drawing breath. The panic nested in her ribcage, threw out tentacles that laid themselves over her muscles and imposed their own motions, like the threads of a puppeteer’s marionette.
Stumbling, she moved down the stairway into the depths. Four stories could be an endless abyss, when they led through ice cold darkness with snow driving about. But it was neither the blackness nor the height that affected Mouse so. It was the awareness of being outside. In the open. She had often spoken with Kukushka about her fear of the outside world, but not even he knew an explanation for it. Something in my head, she had thought then. Now, though, now that it was so wide, she thought no more. In her mind was only emptiness, just like the sky above her.
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