The elevator came to a lurching stop at what seemed, impossibly, to be the 13th floor. John felt his world spin around him, but then for a second, sanity gained a foothold. Maybe there was a problem with the display, it was just showing the wrong number. Maybe it was just the 12th floor after all. And so he waited with bated breath, as the elevator steadied itself and the door began to slide open..
It was dark. Pitch black. Not a sound. Yet there was a heaviness in the air that was palpable. The place was rank of a a deathly stillness. Maybe he was in the lift maintenance room or something like that. That would explain the extra floor. Then, just as if to rob him of his assuring conclusions, there was a slight rustle followed by the sound of something dropping. He snapped his head in that direction. Then it was followed by another rustle, and it about a second the whole place came alive with a flurry of invisible activity. John hastened to press the button to shut the door, but the door wouldn't budge. He took out his lighter, and tried to flick it on, trying to see where he was. With a snap the light jumped to life and he beheld the floor.
At first he couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, but when he looked down, he staggered backwards in shock. The whole floor was flooded with rats, rats of all sizes, all equally aggressive and all of them making a beeline for the elevator. Red eyes and a deafening collective squeal rising from their midst. Bug-eyed, he pressed the button again, and this time the doors slowly made their way shut, but not before two of the rats quickly jumped in with him. He looked at them for a second, then blindly tried to stomp them, all the while spasming from disgust. He never even realized the lift was making its way down on its own. His mind was consumed by the rats.
John Hanks had always had a deep-seated phobia of rats.
He stomped the two rats until they moved no more. Then, right in front of his eyes, they disintegrated to a white powder and blew away into oblivion. He didn't know what was happening, but he was sure he was losing his grip on reason. The elevator stopped at floor 6, which he then noticed for the first time. Glad that he was back again on a floor where he knew people were still there, almost bursting with relief, he bolted out of the elevator as soon as the doors opened, searching for the first person he could find and tell him what had happened. But the entire floor was devoid of people. All he found was empty room after empty room. Then suddenly he yelped, and clutched the nearest door frame.
The entire ground beneath his feet had vanished, and he seemed to be floating in air. He was high, high up and he couldn't make head or tail of his situation.
He was gripped by a sudden wave of nausea; he didn't float miles high in the air on a daily basis. He vomited violently, but funnily, the salesman in him asserted itself even at that odd moment, and he made sure the vomit stayed clear of his shirt. The absurdity of his action startled and he burst out in laughter. Not the robust, joyous laughter, but the laughter of deranged mind, beset with terror. He rocked on his heels, still steadily standing on nothing and let the laughter ebb, letting it all out.
Still holding onto any frame he could reach, he slowly made his way back to the elevator. Something told him that like the last time, he would find refuge there. Just as he neared the doors however, he felt gravity making a magical reappearance. But it was building up slowly, his legs slowly beginning to sag from under him. He made desperate dash to safety, legs feeling like they were in quicksand. Just as he felt everything give way under way, he had miraculously made to the asylum of those four enclosed walls of the elevator, he hurriedly pressed the 'close door' button and by now having a faint idea of what would happen, waited for it to happen. And just like that, the elevator now made its way to the basement floor, the deepest and darkest level. John had always known what his fears were, heights and rats were two of three. Some part of him had silently accepted the surreality of the situation, and-would you believe it-was actually predicting what the basement would hold. His third and deepest fear...
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