I crept forwards into the basement.
Uncertainty seeped through my veins.
Something was forming inside me. Coagulating in my bloodstream. Pressure massing in my sinuses and behind my eyes. The sensation was even more intense and acute than the pain and pressure I’d experienced before I’d whited out earlier.
It felt almost primal.
I took another step past the end of the staircase, my pulse hammering in my temples, the room fanning open dizzyingly to my right.
A scarred old workbench was butted up against the wall. There were some sagging cardboard boxes tucked away beneath it. To the left was a large plastic tub containing most of our decorating gear. Through the opaque plastic I could see the ghostly outlines of paint trays and rollers, plastic sheets, sandpaper, rolls of masking tape and paintbrushes.
Above the table was a pegboard neatly hung with a variety of DIY tools. I’d seen the pegboard in Sam’s photos and I’d used nearly all of the tools at one time or another. Some of them – like the Phillips screwdriver with the black and yellow handle or the extendable tape measure – were so familiar to me that I could feel the weight of them in my hand.
To the right of the workbench, tucked away in the corner of the room, was a shower curtain.