The Elevator Ride

Elizabeth rushed into the enormous building and ran to the elevator. She was late, so damn late. She had no idea if they would even see her at this point, but since she was here she figured she might as well show up.

         Naturally, her appointment was on the thirty second floor, and the elevator was on the fortieth, so she had to wait another five minutes. Finally, the stupid thing arrived and she was able to board. There was no one else on the elevator, which was fine by her because she needed a few minutes to get herself together.

         The elevator ride was taking freaking forever! She watched the numbers change. Thirteen, fourteen, seventeen. Suddenly, there was a huge lurch, a slight drop, and the lights went out. 

         “Oh, shit!” exclaimed Elizabeth out loud. “Now what?”

         She grabbed the emergency phone, but received no answer. She tried her cell phone – no signal. Well, she thought, I can at least use the flashlight. She turned on the flashlight and noticed that she only had twenty five percent on her phone. It was then that she realized she had forgotten to charge the damn thing last night.

         Her only hope at this point was that someone would get the elevator going before her battery died. She tried the emergency phone – still nothing. She remembered something she had read or heard about an emergency phone not working if the power were out in an entire building, so she guessed maybe that was the case.

         She checked her battery again. Down to twenty percent. Stupid flashlight sure burns a lot of juice, she thought. She decided that she better turn it off for a little while. After a few minutes in the pitch black dark, she thought she heard something in the elevator with her. She knew that was crazy, but then she thought that maybe a rat or something had gotten in through the elevator shaft.

         Quickly she turned her flashlight back on. There was nothing there – of course there wasn’t. She watched as her battery dropped to eighteen percent. Was the elevator smaller now than before? She knew that wasn’t possible, yet it seemed to her that it was somehow smaller.

         She decided to walk it out and measure. That way, if she felt that way again, she could just walk it again and prove to herself that it wasn’t closing in on her. She walked it out, and counted four steps in one direction and four in the other. Okay, she thought, four by four. She again turned off the light, noting that she was now down to sixteen percent.

         She tried sitting down for a little bit. No point in standing. Naturally, she sat in some gum that was on the floor. She pulled a tissue from her purse and reluctantly turned the light back on to clean it up. By the time she was done, she had been stuck in the elevator for half an hour and was down to thirteen percent.

         She decided to do a blind inventory of her purse. Sitting in the dark, she began pulling things from her purse and guessing at what some of the items were. A lipstick, her wallet, her sunglasses in a glass case, her car keys, her lost id, a maxed out credit card. She wondered if she could actually organize her wallet and purse in the dark.

         Suddenly, she heard a scratching noise. There it was again! Oh, damn, maybe there really was a rat. In the dark, she imagined that she could see it creeping back and forth in the shaft, trying to get in. She looked longingly at her phone. It had now been an hour and she was now down to eleven percent. She chanced it anyway and turned on the light.

         Shining it at the top of the elevator, she thought for a second that she saw something. It had been her imagination – at least this time. She wouldn’t have light for much longer, but she decided she wanted it on for as long as possible. 

         She watched the percentage bar drop to eight percent, then five, then watched the phone shut down. She placed it carefully in her purse, then sat hugging her knees to her chest. She now had no way of knowing how long she had been in here, and no way of seeing anything.

         She sat there, trying to count the seconds to make minutes, but she kept losing track of where she was. Again, she felt as though the walls were closing in on her. She stood in the dark and began to walk it off. After a couple of steps, she tripped over her purse, screamed, and fell into the wall. This had her convinced that the elevator was now somehow smaller. 

         She had been in the elevator for two hours when she began to wonder if she would run out of oxygen. This caused her to panic and she began sweating profusely and feeling as though she couldn’t breathe. After about fifteen minutes of this, she began beating on the elevator doors and screaming. She did this until one of her hands was bleeding and her voice became hoarse.

         By the third hour, she was convinced that someone was in the elevator with her. After three and a half hours, she had convinced herself that it was Death himself that was in the elevator and that they were having a conversation. 

         By the fourth hour, she laid down, curled up in the fetal position, and begged Death to take her. She was convinced at this point that she was suffocating, and she didn’t want to suffer. 

         After four and a half hours, she attempted to crawl up the walls to the elevator shaft. This behavior continued until she fell. Upon falling she sprained her ankle and broke her wrist. Now she was scared, claustrophobic, and in major pain. She dug through her purse and found a bottle of Tylenol. She dry swallowed four.

         She began a limping pace back and forth in the elevator, holding her wrist to her chest. She was talking to all the people that she imagined were in the elevator with her. She spoke to her father, who had died of heart failure when she was thirteen. Her grandmother, who died of old age when she was ten. She even talked to her little sister, who at the age of five was run down in the street by a drunk driver at nine o’clock in the morning. Elizabeth had been eleven at the time.

         After six hours, the lights suddenly came on and the elevator began to move. When the doors opened on the thirty second floor, she was again in fetal position. Her psychiatrist's secretary that found her said her hair was standing on end and had all turned white.