As one hand reaches over your back to feel at what it was that has so … invaded you, the other dives into first your left pocket, then your jacket pocket. In your pants pocket, there is a single, worn coin, it’s once-ridged edge rubbed to near smoothness. In your jacket … you feel around, slightly awkwardly with your non-dominant hand … you feel something, you grasp it, pull it out-
Pocket lint.
As you gingerly rub your hand over the lump, it seems to trail down your entire back. Involuntarily, a shiver of mixed curiosity and revulsion convulses down your spine.
Then it twitches, and, equally involuntarily, but in a different, horrifying way … your hand flies away from it.
The doors are definitely not high up enough to swim underneath, though set into the center of each is a glass window pane, which is blocked from the other side by a layer of … it looks soft … mold. More mold.
Do you still wish to continue up the stairs?