Shoot, did it say "Space" to sprint all this time?! Thanks for letting me know!
Yeah, on sound and guidance of what you're doing, I did run out of time. It is possible to "finish" the game, but in classic point and click fashion you have to intuit what madness the developer was under to use objects correctly (I'm assuming you don't mean physically stuck). The stairs specifically give you access to a cave in (what was supposed to be) the inverted world that can be accessed by the checkerboard thing.
Thanks for the feedback and for checking it out!