Saint Nick On The Ninth Floor [Wraith]
Down in the stairwell nobody uses, past the peeling EXIT sign and the one bulb that hums like it’s chewing on its own nerves,
There’s a door you don’t remember in the fire plan, painted the color of dried blood and bad decisions, warped at the curves.
It’s marked with a brass plaque that never seems to gather dust, letters worn by hands that shook when they reached,“Delivery Access – Sublevel Holidays,” it says, which is the sort of thing you assume is a joke until the walls start to leech.
You find it late one December after another party that wasn’t really a party, just coworkers in ugly sweaters comparing debt,
You’re half a bottle past wise on spiked eggnog, hands cold, cheeks hot, mind buzzing like a broken socket, easy to upset.
The elevator sign says “Out of Order,” the usual lie, so you take the stairs, counting landings until the numbers stop making sense,
Miss your floor by one, or ten, or forever, stumble onto that red door breathing slow, frame pulsing like something lives in the dents.
Against your better judgment—though let’s be honest, that judge retired years ago—you knock, because humans always do that in stories where they shouldn’t,
The metal is warm to the touch, heartbeat-warm, as if someone on the other side is standing too close, listening for who couldn’tResist the urge to see behind the curtain, under the world, past the cheap wrapping paper you’ve been told is all there is,
The door swings inward without protest, exhaling a draft that smells like cinnamon, coal, and the exact moment a promise fizz.
The hallway beyond is wrong for a basement—high ceiling, rich dark something on the walls that isn’t quite wood,
It slopes downward in a lazy spiral, studded with flickering lanterns that drip wax far too red to be any good.
You follow the curve because there’s no cell signal and no exit and no way you’re climbing back up drunk when down is easier,
Footsteps echo in a way that suggests you’re not alone, though every time you spin around the hall stares back, emptier and weirder.
At the bottom you find the workshop, if you can call it that—more like a loading dock for nightmares dressed in festive drag,
Rows of crates stamped with familiar companies’ logos, only the names are twisted half a letter off, like a glitch in the tag.
Conveyor belts run slow under wreaths made of thorny vines and broken toys,
The air is thick with gingerbread smoke, burnt sugar, wet stone, and the distant chorus of disobedient joys.
And then he walks in, from a doorway carved out of solid shadow, blacker than any night your eyes have ever failed in,
Red coat hanging heavy off broad shoulders, fur trim darkened with old soot and something stickier, smile carved into his skin.
He’s taller than any mall Santa, older than every cartoon version, boots leaving small scorch marks with each easy step,
Beard not snowy but streaked with ash, eyes not twinkling but glowing low like coals banked in a grate that’s never slept.
You know it’s him anyway—the way the room bends to him, the way the bells on his belt ring once without being touched,
The way the air tightens in your lungs, full of every list you wrote as a kid, every “If you’re good” prompt and “Don’t say too much.”He tosses a sack over one shoulder, not the soft kind, this one made of stitched-together something that used to bruise when hit,
It wriggles occasionally, ever so slightly, as if the contents object to being classified as “gift.”
“Welcome to the ninth floor,” he says, voice like smoke inhaled too deep,“You came early. Most folks don’t wander down here till after they’ve had years of not sleeping, counting sheep.”You try to crack a joke about building code or HR, but the words stick to your tongue like candy cane shards,
He chuckles anyway, as if he heard the thought, teeth a shade too sharp for any greeting card.
“That nice list nonsense? Marketing,” he explains, strolling past crates labeled with the names of sins and apps and pharmaceuticals,“They send me the overflow cases now. Folks who asked for one thing, got another, never returned it, learned to act like that’s just how fate schedules.”He hauls open a crate marked RETURNS and pulls out a gleaming object that looks almost like a toy gun until you see the fine print on the barrel,
It shoots little darts labeled “Not Good Enough,” each one pre-loaded with whatever word your worst teacher used as a carol.
Another crate holds phones that only get signal when someone is about to disappoint you, rings bright and cheery,
He calls them “Hope Hooks,” says the line always drops just as you start to open up, leaves you raw and weary.
There’s a stack of snow globes that replay your worst decision in clear, glitter-lit loops whenever you shake them,
He palms one, sees your face inside, glances at you over the glass, asks, “That night in June? You still taste that?” You look away, throat stem.
He doesn’t climb into chimneys, you realize—he climbs into people, into habits, into late-night impulses wrapped in free shipping and sugar-coated lies,
Every cursed gift up here has already been delivered; he’s just running quality checks, tightening screws, sharpening edges, customizing alibis.
The Hell part isn’t the fire—not yet, not here—it’s the way every object seems designed to fit exactly into someone’s weakness like a key,
A scale that only goes up when you look at it, a bottle that refills whenever you say “never again,” a mirror that adds ten pounds and subtracts ten years of glee.
“So what do you give the ones who’ve had enough?” you ask, surprised when your voice actually works,“The ones who stopped writing lists, stopped baking cookies, stopped pretending this season doesn’t bring out their worst quirks.”He studies you the way a butcher studies a cut, not cruel but appraising,
Then he reaches into the sack and pulls out something that doesn’t glow, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t burn on raising.
It’s a small box, plain cardboard, no bow, just your name scrawled in a slanted hand you don’t quite recognize,
He presses it into your palm, heavy for its size, weight prickling nerves up and down your arm like static in disguise.“Go on,” he says, stepping back, giving you space like a gentleman on a doomed date,
You peel the tape, open the lid, half-expecting teeth, spiders, a punchline about coming too late.
Inside there’s only a single object: a key, dull metal, worn at the teeth from countless hesitations,
On the tag attached it says, “EXIT – FOR WHEN YOU MEAN IT,” in ink that seems to pulse with your own reservations.
You look up to ask what door it fits, but he’s already moving, loading cursed toys onto the belt for dispatch above,“Any lock,” he calls over his shoulder, “as long as you’re willing to walk through. It doesn’t work on cages you secretly love.”
Around you, imps in work aprons hustle, stamping shipping labels on boxes marked with every vice and comfort you know too well,
Somewhere far overhead, a child tosses in their sleep as a new game console slides into place on a shelf, glowing like a new star in their personal hell.
Saint Nick of the ninth floor swings himself into a sleigh that looks like it was welded from shopping carts and barbed wire,
Instead of reindeer he’s got eight skeletal things with eyes like headlights and hooves that spark fire.
As he cracks the whip—no leather, this one’s braided receipts and broken promises—the air shivers,
The whole dock tilts and he’s rising, through the ceiling, through the stories, through the cracks where loneliness slivers.
You clutch the key, knuckles white, feeling the building tremble as he rides through vents and elevator shafts and bedroom windows,
Dropping just the right poison in the stockings of everyone who still thinks they’re only getting clothes.
When you finally stumble back up the twisted staircase to your own floor’s dim fluorescent hum, the red door gone as if it never was,
You find glitter on your shoes and ash on your sleeves and a faint smell of cinnamon clinging to your buzz.
On your kitchen table sits a second box, twin to the one in your hand, but this one is empty, lid flung wide,
Beside it, the front door hangs half-open, cold night air pouring in like a dare, like a tide.
Somewhere down the hall you hear your neighbor’s keys jangle, hear them stop, hear a lock click twice,
Maybe they got a box too, maybe theirs held something else—a chance, a habit, a price.
You close the door—not yet, not tonight—but you keep the key in your pocket, fingers tracing its notches like a map,
And every time you’re about to buy yourself another little wrapped disaster, you feel the metal bite and pull your hand off the trap.
Up above, the sky is full of ordinary stars no one’s naming after miracles,
Down below, the ninth floor workshop hums through another season of transactions, half cynical, half clinical.
Between them, you sit on your couch with a plain box and a key,
Caught between the kid who left milk and cookies and the adult who knows some gifts come with interest fees.