You are standing at the bottom of these stairs looking up.
Why have you come down them and what is waiting for you at the top?
Alternatively, what is behind you at the bottom?
Write about your situation without telling the reader exactly where you are or what is at the top of the stairs – or behind you. Use descriptive language to convey a picture that the reader can build up in their own mind. Make them use their imagination.
Use sparing language and make your reader feel the chill in their bones – whether it is the chill of air temperature or fear.
Remember; it is often what you cannot see that is the most vivid. Hitchcock used this to great effect. He rarely showed violence, he left you to imagine it. Think Psychoand the shower curtain scene.
Abandoned and decaying spaces fascinate us for all sorts of reasons. It might be the imagined history of the place or even knowledge of it before it fell into disrepair.
We can imagine the place is full of ghosts, but it will certainly be full of memories echoing down the corridors.