Nerefa

The night before last, I visited an alien planet. There were no plants and no breathable atmosphere. The ground was covered in gray sand (which had the appearance of ash).

There was no life outside, but civilization existed within an indoor city. Because indoor space was limited, the city was very compact with buildings being closed together and no roads for wide vehicles.

It resembled a shopping mall, but with more businesses and residential buildings all packed together.

Because this planet wasn't naturally habitable, it had no native life. The economy was sustained mostly through tourism.

I explored the city for a bit, then turned into my dragon to explore outside in the uninhabitable parts. Eventually woke up in the morning.

The following night (last night), I came back to this planet and applied for the local college. I’m not sure what I'll be studying yet, but I took a bus to the campus and enrolled, so I'm a student now!

The admissions office directed me to a grassy indoor field, which had a large spiraling staircase smack-dab in the center of it. The staircase looked like it was once heavily polished and adorned with artwork, but it was now an archaic relic that had been restored.

This was where I would be taking a test. The admissions office told me to climb the stairs as high as I could to test my eligibility for classes. Weird, but alright. I followed the instructions and started going up the stairs. At first, it was just stairs, nothing peculiar. Maybe the test was at the top, I figured.

Then, as I got higher, creatures started emerging from nooks and crannies. They attacked me.
There were spiders, rats, bats, bugs, and other critters I had to fend off. It was mostly just an annoyance and I jogged my way through them.
As I went up further, more creatures came at me. Bigger ones. Tigers, wolves, alligators. This was more challenging, but I got through them, too.
Then I encountered human soldiers with military grade weapons. They attacked me on sight and I had to use my dragon to shield myself and get past.

I began to realize this was the test. Every student who climbed this stairway would face these increasingly difficult challenges.
For a while after passing the soldier level, I wondered what the next one would be... and I walked with more caution, looking around every corner.

The next trial wouldn't be around any corners, though. Instead, it was in my head. I heard a voice.
The higher I went, the louder and clearer the voice became. It cackled and taunted me demonically, threatening me with the trials ahead. It told me that it knew my greatest fears, and that's what I would soon face.
Knowing this is a dream, I don't doubt it. I seriously thought about going back, but decided that the voice in my head wasn't a deal breaker.
I continued up the stairway, ignoring it.

Eventually, the voice faded as I ascended beyond it.

But it was true that much worse things were higher up. The creatures that came for me next were supernatural. Zombies, ghosts, demons, and hallucinations of blood and other horror that personally disturbs me. However, I had already mentally prepared for it thanks to the warnings. I was determined to keep going and ascended past the supernatural scares. 


After getting past all of that, I stopped and looked up to try and see the top of the staircase.
There was no visible end. It seemed to go on infinitely, actually.
The stairs disappeared into gray fog in the sky.

I saw a glimpse of the stairway reaching into space and past the boundary of the universe.
This terrified me more than any other horror, so I stopped and jumped down from the stairway, declaring that I was done with the test. That's as far as I went!