You're Going Down the Stairs

DESIGNATION: A-1357

THREAT LEVEL: RUST

Who put those stairs there?

— Victim

A-1357, known to some as "You're Going Down the Stairs" is an anomalous set of stairs that appears suddenly before its unwitting victims, even if, logically, there should be no stairs there.

Anomaly Description

A-1357 appears suddenly and without warning, directly in one's way so that they have little chance of adjusting their gait to avoid it. It can appear on any wall, floor, and other structure that previously did not have stairs. When it appears, it changes to match its new environment, sharing the same image as the walls, floors, and ceilings of the adjacent room. If it appears beside a room with green wallpaper, white carpet, and a drop-tile ceiling— it too will have green wallpaper, white carpet, and a drop-tile ceiling. There is one primary difference between A-1357 and any stairs that may appear in the same building— the anomaly's steps are crooked, and misaligned. This only increases the danger presented by falling.
When it appears, A-1357 may either connect to an extant part of the same structure, or to the outside. Once one has encountered A-1357, they are likely to encounter it again— until they fall, at which point they are likely to never encounter the anomaly again. Sometimes, for reasons as of yet unknown to the ACF's researchers, A-1357 appears as if to favor particular victims— and hunts them down repeatedly. Some even die after repeated encounters.

The Stair Zone

Rarely, A-1357 can appear on part of a structure that cannot lead anywhere, such as the bottom floor, or a wall set against a cliff. When this happens, the stairs will lead to a strange, non-euclidean space known as A-1357-1 or the Stair Zone. If a victim enters A-1357-1, the initial instance of A-1357 they had wandered in on will shortly disappear— and the victim will fall until landing on another set of stairs. Within the Stair Zone is a seemingly infinite knot of interconnected stairs that appear and disappear as new victims take, fall on, or ignore instances of A-1357.
Few have managed to escape, and those that do never trust stairs again.

Anomaly Containment Procedures

There are currently no known ways to contain A-1357, the best one can do is memorize the locations of any stairs in their vicinity or take the elevator instead.

Logs for A-1357

Experiment #1357-3
Date: 2018/04/5
Head researcher: S. Catte
Anomaly: A-1357
Description: I have little time to write this, as an instance of A-1357 has suddenly appeared before me, and I mu-afkwafgwkaufgwyfgwayfwgwyifgwyifhawfwlfhigkehiehflkbdufyegbfjwkbg
Result: Despite my fall, I was able to discover that ljnekjbgwhfvwhgv fkhb wkhfvbwhkfvwahfwvjhgwfvjkvwjfvawiufwgakufvwufgvwu

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