Prompt: Write a story that starts in the basement and ends on the roof.

You really know that it's the end when you wake up tied to a chair.

I'd been preparing for this day for a long time, I just never thought it would be this soon.

Oh, well. When life throws you a curveball make apple juice, or something like that.

Surprisingly, there aren't any gloating baddies or torture devices around me. Guess the movies had it wrong. Even the chair is normal, not electric or anything. Not like I'd know, though. I have a PhD in biochemistry, not electronics.

That was a joke. As if I'd have a PhD.

Anyways, I wake up tied to a chair - a simple, normal chair, bound with simple, normal ropes. About the most stereotypical hostage/torture situation you could imagine, like the Platonic form of all of the hostage/torture situations that ever occurred ever. Or was it Aristotle?

I guess it doesn't matter now, because I'm going to be dead at the end of this.

Hey, it's cool. I knew what I was getting into. This is just the end of the means. Besides, everyone has their time. Sometimes people's time doesn't come soon enough, though.

I assume I'm in the basement, which makes the whole stereotypical thing ramp up about two hundred percent. Who keeps their hostages in a basement anymore? So last year.

True of any action movie, the ropes are loose! How wondrously convenient. I wiggle my way out of the bonds and stand up, examining the basement carefully. There's a furnace on one side (seriously, are we in Home Alone?) and a few shelves stacked with preserves that look like they haven't been opened since Ye Olde Medieval Ages. Other than my chair and a window, the basement is bare. And, shocker, the window is barred!

So the only way to move on is up the rickety wooden stairs to the ground floor. Still reminded of Home Alone, I make sure the steps are tar-free before I ascend.

The ground floor is ripped straight from Poltergeist or Oculus or one of those dumb horror movies. Eerie greenish light, creaky staircases, flickering lanterns hung from rusted nails, you get the idea. The only thing it doesn't have is a squadron of ghosts haunting the rooms. But a horse without a leg is still a horse, said Plato. I can live without ghosts.

Was that a pun? At least I can go out in a blaze of epic witticism.

Maybe I should find a weapon, to ward off any supernatural attackers, even though I know it's stupid. There's only one person here, and he's waiting for me.

I ascend the creaky stairs, leaving deep imprints in the dust that coats the stairs. I wonder how he got to the roof - probably rented a private jet and flew it up to the top. Of course he would, the stereotypical bad guy. He does what he wants.

Well, why can't I do what I want, either? I wonder where the kitchen is. Maybe I can make mac-n-cheese or something.

I'd just be delaying my fate, though. I accepted that a long time ago.

Once I reach the top of the stairs I see an organ. An actual, honest-to-goodness organ, playing a creepy tune by itself. Gasp. It's a player organ, I assume. If he really wants to kill me he's going to drown me in stereotypical horror movie crap. Perfect. I'm tempted to play Chopsticks or Heart and Soul on the organ, but force myself to keep moving. After all, no horror movie person ever stopped to play the organ. Then again, they all died. Maybe playing the organ is some kind of key.

The hallways branch out to my left and right, and I head to the left. Every horror movie instinct inside of me screams, but right is right! Do I care? Nah. Whatever.

The hallways has smoke drifting around in it - real smoke. I try to think up some logical backstory to this element.

Old man Jeffery haunts these parts, son. He smoked cigars and died of lung cancer. Stupid realistic horror movie deaths! Why doesn't he haunt a tobacco farm or something?

I would go in the rooms, but odds are they're riddled with deadly traps or masked mass-murderers. I rattle one of the doorknobs just for fun. Or they're locked. That too.

At the end of the hall is another staircase. I don't feel the need to go check the other hallway. It probably has spider webs or something equally as cliché. These stairs are as noisy as the first, and I purposefully stomp as I walk up them. Better let him know I'm coming. There's no real need to creep around.

The organ music stops abruptly as I stand on the third floor. Gosh, what a coincidence! I almost wish I had a horror movie heroine accompanying me so that she could say stupid stuff like that and amuse me before I die. Do a Fred Weasley and go out laughing, sounds about right. I'd choose it over begging for mercy and rank it under a daring escape by Apparition or dueling.

There are more rooms in this hall, too, and sometimes the doors swing open as I walk past them. My imaginary heroine screams, then peeks into the room and is promptly gutted by a ghost. I keep walking. If he wants to play games with me, I'll follow my own rules.

There's another freaking organ in the middle of this floor, booming out some somber tune, and I smash my fist into the keys. Enough already. Let's just finish this.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth floors are exactly the same, with stupid organs, opening doors, and a canned ghostly moan that makes me crack up laughing. Who does he think I am, an idiot? Probably trying to get the most out of my valiant heroic death that will be imprinted in the minds of society for generations. You know, or not. On the sixth floor I even stop to play 'Mary Had A Little Lamb' on the organ, because why not? If he can taunt me I can taunt him.

Finally the seventh floor leads up to the roof. So this is it, my final resting place. This is where I die.

Apparently melodramatic stereotypes rub off on you. This is the story of how I died...

I swing open the door with a bang and see his silhouette against a sky fractured with lightning, imposing and dominant and markedly evil.

"Professor Byrne." I shout over the howling wind, and he turns to me and smiles, a golden tooth glittering in his grin. Byrne looks exactly like a mad scientist turned to the Dark Side, minus lightsaber. His tufty white hair is tossed by this wind, scowling eyebrows lowered over his gleaming electric blue eyes, and his hands, encased in yellow plastic gloves, already preparing for my finale.

"So glad you could make it!" He cackles, throwing back his head.

"What can I say? I'm punctual."

"Good, good." Byrne stalks closer to me, his face frozen in that sadistic grin. "I think we're going to have lots of fun."

I almost gag on overused bad guy lines. Yer killing me, Smalls.

"I want you to finish this yourself." He gestures to the railing around the roof. "Killing you would be incredibly simple. Just one shot and you're gone. Poof." His fingers make a starburst gesture, symbolizing my end. "But that wouldn't be any fun, would it?"

"Naw. Gotta have a little spark, a little glamor."

"I'm glad you understand." Byrne comes even closer, tapping his long chin with his gloved fingers. "So how do I put an end to such a nuisance?"

"Nuisance? Me? Byrne, you do me wrong." I put a hand to my chest, acting offended. In reality, I could care less. Byrne is an idiot and everything he does proves it.

"So let's see you finish what you started. Go to the railing."

"Sure." I stride easily over to the railing, hands in pockets, feigning nonchalance.

"How are you going to get out of this one?" Byrne croons, bending over to look at the ground below us, seventy feet below us and very, very solid.

"I dunno. TARDIS? That's what River did. Or maybe a DeLorean? Doc, Doc, come in, Doc!"

"Nothing can save you now." Byrne sneers, lips pulling up again, revealing another gold tooth. His stained lab coat snaps in the wind.

"Guess not. See you on the other side." I take a breath, willing everything I know goodbye, and leap over the railing and fall, fall, fall...

The inflatable cushion knocks the breath out of me and the director shouts, "CUT!"

When I look up the director is scowling down at me, megaphone in my face. "For God's sake, will you stop being a smartmouth and just film the movie for once?"