Going up, Going Down

“AAH!”

The floor beneath me lurches. The elevator comes to a screeching halt. The lights flicker out. People around me scream in terror as the elevator shakes in place.

The lights are out, but it’s not completely dark. Outside the back window of the elevator, the sun taunts us, slowly slipping down the sky. An eerie crimson light floods the elevator as the sun peeks from behind a cloud.

All around me is the chaos and terror and screams of people. I can feel the control around me slip out of my hands, like a wet bar of soap. Slipping and sliding all around the floor beneath me. There’s no control, nothing I can do. 

I feel a wave of cold dread spread over me. I clutch my stomach, my arms starting to shiver.

Deep breaths, Trevi, I tell myself. Deep breaths. I slowly push my way out of the small group of people and back myself into a corner in the elevator. Deep breaths.

It’s no use. The dread and panic, the idea of no control, sweeps over me over and over, like the pushing and pulling of waves in the ocean. Ice cold waves. I can feel cold sweat dripping down my neck, and I start to shiver harder.

Breathing is becoming more and more difficult. My breaths come in short gasps. My throat is closing up, unable to let out the sickening scream building up inside me. It churns around in my stomach, like a ship in a storm, making me nauseous. 

Around me, people came to their senses. Their realization of what just happened is finally sinking it. We’re stuck, stranded, in an elevator. 

Many people pull out their phones trying to get a signal out to their loved ones, to anyone. I have nothing to do. What little light we had from outside is slowly dwindling. The light is almost gone. 

On top of being stuck in this small space, with all these people, the light will be gone soon. We’ll be in the dark. A choked sob escapes from my lips, and I slide down onto the floor, curling up into a tight ball.

***

“Okay everyone, listen up.” A voice booms over the small crowd of people. Everyone settles into a tense silence. Someone has taken charge.

“This is a scary experience for all of us, but remember, we aren’t completely stranded…” 

Whoever this is, this Mystery Man obviously knows what he’s doing. That doesn’t stop the darkness as it consumes me. The sun has set, and it’s night. If I weren’t numb with fear, the stars would’ve been a beautiful sight.

A beam of light is shed around me. Someone (probably the Mystery Man) has turned on their phone flashlight and is shining it around. Mystery Man is going around, making sure everyone is okay. He probably won’t see me. I curl up as tight as I can, trying to meld into the corner behind me.

***

“Can you hear us?” The whisper of a voice echoes above. They must have brought the elevator technician people. Someone called. We would be set free. 

Calm yourself. We’ll be out of here soon enough. But nothing I can say to myself helps. It doesn’t change the fact that something could go terribly wrong at any moment, that it was still pitch black outside. That I was sweating and shivering and there was nothing I could do.

With a buzz and a flicker, the lights come back on. I can only really see the legs around me. I’m too paralyzed to move or do anything else at all. I can see a few of the legs give a little jump at the lights, which are now fully illuminating the small space around us.

The room lurches, and everyone sways a bit. With it, my stomach tumbles, still doing it’s somersaults and backflips and all manner of gymnastics.

After a while, we reach our destination. It’s only the next floor up, but the time between the floors seemed like forever. As we rise, I can feel each second counted by my heartbeat, steadily, slowly, raising. Faster and faster. I can feel myself shaking harder, the vibrations reverberating deep in my bones. 

As the doors shutter open, another pair of legs enter. The owner of the legs addresses us all, about safety and blah blah blah.

I’m staring at the patterned carpet underneath my feet. My shirt has come untucked from my pants and has completely soaked through.

Legs around me start to rush out, breathing in the apartment air with relief and joy. I desperately want to do the same, to get out of the horrible place that I’ve been anchored in, but I can’t get my body to move.

***

Outside, I hear the firemen making sure everyone’s okay. There’s probably an elevator technician, too. I saw this happen, once before. I don’t want to relive the memory now. At least then I was outside the elevator.

In my peripheral vision, I can see the bunches of legs leaving, probably taking the stairs to wherever they need to be. They probably would be shutting down the elevator for maintenance and safety or whatever until they deemed it ok to run again.

“Excuse me?” A tall man has squatted down, leaning his head to look at me. “Are you alright, miss?” 

I can’t get the words out. I wish I could tell him that I wasn’t okay. That I can’t move, can’t speak, and can barely breathe. There’s nothing I can do, and besides, he would think I’m weak. He probably already does, with me sitting here on the floor, blanketed in my misery. 

I can barely muster my head to nod a brisk up and down. I can feel my jaw quivering, and my heart beating fast and loud inside my head. 

I can’t let him see that I’m breaking down, but it’s pretty obvious at this point, I’m sure. I can feel my eyes start to brim with the long-overdue tears of panic and stress.

The man offers me his hand.

“Is this your floor?” I muster another nod. “Why don’t I take you to your apartment?”

There’s nothing I can do. I beg my arm to reach out, take his hand. But I can’t. I can’t move, I can’t speak. I’m frozen and I’m numb.

Without a moment's hesitation, the man reaches out and scoops me into his arms. My brain catches up, and I realize that this must have been the Mystery Man who was taking charge before. Against his chest, I can feel my quickly beating heart against his, slow and steady. 

“M- my…” I can’t get the words out, but somehow he understands. He reaches down, with me still in his arms, and picks up my bag off of the floor. I can’t see from my angle, but I’ll bet there’s a puddle of sweat from where I was sitting.

If there is, he doesn’t say anything. I can barely move my head to look into his eyes, now noticing the numbness coursing through my veins as he holds me against him. 

Up close, his eyes are a golden-brown, illuminated by the yellow hallway lights. They’re’ focused ahead, in the distance, at our destination. Not on me.

He must be pretty strong, being able to carry me and my bag down the hall (I’ve got an old, bulky laptop in there, plus all of my papers and work stuff.).

“Where's your apartment?” I reach out my shaking arm to point at the one at the end of the hall. It takes almost all of my strength.

He laughs.

“What a coincidence! Your apartment is right next to mine!” 

It is? How come I’ve never seen him before? 

“You’re probably wondering why you haven’t seen me, huh?” I work down at the fire department, and I’ve been taking lots of night shifts, all that stuff. It’s my first night back.” He chuckles. “I was able to get a hold of my buddies there, so they were able to come quickly and help us out of that elevator. They had to get a technician first, of course. Good thing they did too.”

That must’ve been why he took charge so quickly. He knew what to do, what the protocol was, and all that.

He reaches into his pocket and takes out a set of keys. As he fumbles with them, I see that the set is almost identical to mine.

“Here we are, home sweet home.” He gestures around. What I can see of the apartment looks almost identical to mine. A few touches here and there to distinguish and personalize, of course, but it’s essentially the same. The same layout, the same basic furniture, I guess neither one of us has bothered to do much redecorating.

“Well, I assume you won’t be able to get back to your apartment?” I would like to get back to my apartment, but I’m shivering like crazy right now. I can feel the after-effects of my attack slowly starting to set in. Exhaustion settles into the pit of my stomach, joining the nausea.

“I’m Blake, by the way. I would ask your name, but you don’t seem in much of a condition to talk right now, huh?” He sets me down on his couch.

“I understand that what you’re going through is super scary and super real. I’m here if you need me, that’s my job. I’m going to get you a blanket. You just rest up, okay?”

There’s nothing too fancy about the apartment like I said. It’s almost identical to mine. The same basic couch, table, and TV setup. From what I can see, he’s got plant around the house as well. I just have work stuff (mostly). I also have a dog, which makes everything a lot more fur-covered.

“Okay, here ya go!” Blake comes from behind me and fans out a large blanket. He helps me as I reach to pull the blanket around my shaking body.

“I guess you don’t feel like eating?” I shake my head no. I feel quite nauseous right now.

“I understand that your attack seems to be coming to an end,” He crouches down beside me. “But I know that you’re still in a very fragile state. I can’t see him because he’s behind me, but I can feel as he pulls my hair out of my face. It leaves a sticky trail of sweat in its wake.

“I’ve been trained by the very best to understand and handle these situations.” He pauses. “Plus, my brother is a psychologist.” He gives a little laugh.

“Let me know if there’s anything you need. I’ll be right here.”

Indeed he was. I knew that only a few steps away was the kitchen, where I could hear him preparing his dinner. I was so exhausted from the day that before I knew it, I was asleep.

***

Waking up, I’m confused. Why am I on my couch? And where was Pom? He was usually there to wake me up in the morning. 

Then all of last night comes back to me. The elevator, the panic attack, and Blake. I was in his apartment (this explained all the extra plants). Beside me, on the floor, was Blake. He had nothing with him but a pillow under his head. 

I guess he was probably hot. The heat had been running all night, seeing as the blankets around me were strewn at the end of the couch and I was soaked with sweat. Not the kind of cold sweat that I had from the panic attack, but the kind you get on a hot summer’s day. 

He had suffered through that for me. 

Not wanting to wake him up, I tiptoe to turn the AC on and scribble a note on a stray piece of paper, letting him know I was back in my apartment, and I was ok.

A knock comes from the door.

“Hey!” Blake gives me a small wave as I answer. I’m completely showered, in new clothes, and even a little hungry. My appetite isn’t completely back, of course, and I’m still a little wiped from last night, but I’m overall feeling better.

Blake hands me my work bag. I had completely forgotten it! To be honest, I don’t even know where he put it when we entered his apartment. I guess I was pretty out of it.

“Thanks,” I say sheepishly, taking the bag from his hands.

“Hope you’re feeling okay.”

“Yeah. Luckily I don’t have work today.”

“By the way, you never told me your name?”

“Oh! Right, haha. I’m Trevi. It’s nice to officially meet you!” I stick out my hand, and Blake gives a firm handshake.

“Well then, Trevi, would you like to hang out?”

“I feel bad, I’ve been a total burden to you these past hours.” I look at my feet. “And I’m not into all that romantic stuff or anything.”

“No, no, of course not!” Blake laughed, his face going slightly red. “Just as friends. I understand.”

“Oh, okay. “ I look down at my comfort clothes. An old sweatshirt and pants. “Let me get into more publicly suited clothes, and then we can go.”