Chapter 14 A Fright in the Elevator

• The entire day passed by without a hitch, but as Diane was about to get off work, Stella came over and slammed a pile of documents onto her desk.
• “I’ll be needing these tomorrow morning, so stay back tonight and take care of it,” said Stella bossily as she acted all business-like. Diane knew that Stella was deliberately pushing her around, but it was difficult to say no under such circumstances—she was using work as an excuse, and it sounded quite logical as well.
• “Well then, happy working! I’m leaving. Norman booked us a table at a new Japanese restaurant tonight to celebrate my promotion; he’ll be arriving soon, so you should go back to work. I’ll leave you to it.”
• She held her handbag in one hand and sauntered away as she swayed her hips pompously—her waist was no longer as slim as it was before.
• Meanwhile, Diane aggressively flipped open the topmost file on the stack of documents as she willed herself to swallow her anger. After that, time passed by steadily as she worked on the pile of papers; she only finished arranging all the documents and hit ‘send’ on her email at 10.00PM. Then, she shut down the computer at once.
• The building had been empty since hours ago; even though the lights were still on in the office, she couldn’t help but feel afraid since she was alone. Diane sprinted to the elevator as quickly as possible and noticed a sign propped up in front of it—it turned out that one of the elevators was on maintenance. Nonetheless, she didn’t think much of it and pressed the button on the unit that was working. Before long, the cabin arrived at her floor.
• The metal doors closed as soon as she stepped inside. After she selected the ground floor, it started moving right away.
• After a long day, she leaned against the wall of the elevator in relief. Before she could settle down, though, the cabin jolted all of a sudden. Diane was taken by surprise and her heart jumped in horror. She was still stunned when something even scarier happened the next second—the doors opened abruptly to the dark elevator shaft.
• “Ah…”
• The elevator was still descending even with its doors open. Diane was utterly horrified; she stared wide-eyed into the abyss, her hands holding tight onto the handlebar behind her.
• The following 10 seconds or so were crazy, for the doors opened and closed continuously without warning. Not only that, the elevator was shaking non-stop as well. Diane closed her eyes in terror and screamed at the top of her lungs, whereas her legs were limp like jelly as she stood there. Just then, the elevator came to a sudden halt and she fell on her butt after losing her balance.
• She didn’t know where she was anymore—the doors were now closed and all the buttons were lit up on the panel. Obviously, the elevator had broken down.
• The surroundings soon quietened down; after a long time, Diane finally stood up shakily as she supported herself by clinging onto the handlebar. She looked at the control panel and tried to call for help using the emergency button but to no avail. In the end, she could only take out her phone.
• Just as she was about to call the police, her phone rang at the same time.
• This number… She couldn’t recall who it was; she was in a rush to call the police, so she declined the call without a second thought.
• After making a report, the same number from before was calling her again.
• “Hello?”
• Diane finally answered. She was still quivering in fear, so her voice was naturally shaky.
• “Where are you? Why aren’t you home?”
• A cold questioning voice rang sharply in her ear. Diane jolted in surprise—she suddenly remembered that she was married. Although her partner hadn’t shown his face in more than a week, he was still her husband.
• “I… I was working overtime and now I’m stuck in the elevator.”
• The line went silent for a moment before he replied indifferently, “Call the security office or the police.”
• Beep, beep, beep…
• Then, he hung up without even offering her any words of comfort.
• Why would he be worried about me? What was I expecting?
• Diane knocked on her head with her phone and leaned limply against the wall as she waited for help to arrive.
• After some time, the security guard on duty came and told her that he couldn’t fix the lift; following that was yet another 30 minutes of waiting for the fire department. Meanwhile, Diane was about to run out of breath in the narrow and enclosed space; when she finally made it out after the fire department successfully pried the metal doors open, her vision went blurry as soon as she stepped outside.
• In her state of borderline consciousness, she could vaguely make out a figure who was rushing toward her.