Behind The Voice

CHAPTER TWO

  I had my eyes closed for what I thought was only a brief moment before I opened them again, hoping that somehow the elevator would have silently started moving.

  It didn't.

  I was beginning to feel like a bird in a cage that was dangling above the mouth of a very large, and very hungry cat. The little delicate thumping of my heart made even more fragile just by the sound of the cat’s rough tongue across it’s lips in sweet anticipation of my fall.

  Sighing again I looked back at the monitor and read an advertisement for an internet company who wanted to hear my opinion on the material playing on the monitor in the elevator. Although I doubted they wanted to hear my opinion on the elevator ride at this point in time, colorful and thoughtful news stories aside.

  The ad was quickly replaced with a local news story of some strange rock that was found in a local farmer's land. There was a reader's poll on what it could be, and John from ‘Your Backyard' commented that it was a giant piece of petrified cow poop. I chuckled because it was only slightly funny.

  Then Sarah from ‘Unknown' location commented that it was an alien and we were all doomed. This made me roll my eyes again. Anything strange and abnormal was always something paranormal, or a gray skinned alien. It could never just be a piece of petrified cow poop.

  The news story was replaced once again by another tidbit of information. This one was letting me know that the average single person was likely to meet their next date in a coffee shop.

  I wondered about elevators. And how likely Mrs. Authority was to meet her next date in any place where men were, alive or not. She wasn't the most charming of people. And I certainly couldn't picture her batting her spider leg eyelashes at a man.

  The thought made me gag a little, which was quickly sucked back down my throat as I gasped at the blood curdling, screeching metal on metal sound. The noise poured into the elevator, scratching its ragged fingernails against the chalkboard of my mind, wiping away any thoughts I had in the process.

  Instinctively I gripped the warm, wooden handrail that snaked its way from wall to wall in the elevator.

  At first I thought it was my imagination and I was going delirious from being caged in here for however long it had been now. Then the metal squealing sound came again. A noise that had it been anything alive would signify to anyone within ear shot, a painful and slow death.

  The elevator dropped quickly after the assault on my ears, and far enough, that my knees buckled and I fell to the floor in a mess of blonde hair, nicely manicured nails, and a now-wrinkled black skirt.

  The only positive about my tangled predicament was that the elevator drop had managed to smack my heels off, I could almost hear the sigh of relief from my burning feet.

  Had there been anyone else in the elevator I would have promptly gotten back onto my feet and straightened out my hair and clothes. But since I was the only soul on board during this fiasco, I instead remained lumped together on the floor and dared to blink my eyes. I thought for sure if I moved it would upset the flimsy balance of the elevator and I would go plummeting to my death.

  It was at this time that I suddenly realized I hadn't tried the emergency phone that's in every elevator. I was so reliant on someone saving me immediately, and not being the next news blurb about an elevator plummeting to its destruction, and a lone girl being crushed in the collapse of metal, that the thought didn't even occur to me to try to save myself.

  The elevator dropped again so quickly I remained floating in air for a brief period of time before crashing back onto the floor. I let out a meek yelp and scrambled to the corner of the elevator with the phone, leaving my heels to fend for themselves.

  Quickly opening the little hatch door I fumbled the red phone out and put it to my ear.

  Waiting what seemed like at least an eternity for a voice on the other end. I pulled the receiver away and stared at it, willing it to contact the other person who was surely waiting patiently on the other end at some elevator emergency desk.

  He must have been on lunch break because after putting the phone back to my ear, no sound hugged my eardrums. The line was completely dead. There wasn't even a hiss and crackle of static, or the whisper of white noise.

  Some ethereal being must have wrapped its icy arms around me to try to comfort me, for my body was shaking with a silent shiver, and a cold chill caressed my skin, leaving that just-plucked look in its wake.

  Defeated, I hung the phone up and hugged myself, in part to comfort myself, but also to warm myself up a little, and chase away that frigid being.

  Knowing there was nothing I could do about the elevator dropping at this point, I remained seated on the floor and stared up at the monitor once again. It becoming my only tie to the outside world and an ever important one as it successfully kept my mind off the chasm that I was dangling over.

  A small smile managed to ink its way across my stony face when pictures of baby animals started scrolling across the screen. I realized it was almost spring. Which must have prompted the cute pictures from the monitor Gods, surely they felt the need to share the heart-warming furry photos with us as they realized it was almost spring as well.

  Captions scrolled across the bottom of the screen now, littered with hash tags and capitol letters that would look like a monkey got a hold of someone’s keyboard to anyone over the age of twenty.

  Sighing again I closed my eyes and rested my head against the elevator wall.

  Cordelia.

  My eyelids flicked open so quickly that I thought for sure they would get stuck in the open position and I would never be able to blink them back down again. I already had a dry eye problem, and having perma-open eyes would definitely aggravate that.

  Knowing full well that there was no one else in the elevator with me, I looked up.

  I expected to see my knight in shining armor peering in through the ceiling tiles above, a handsome smile spread across his face and an outstretched hand beckoning me to grasp it. I didn't question how he knew my name. Or how there was no other sound before the whisper of my name. No shuffling or scraping sounds that would accompany a tile being moved. I wanted to be rescued from this can before it decided to play another round of hop-scotch with me bouncing around inside it.

  I did question though why there was no knight's face looking down upon me from above. Why the ceiling tiles and lights remained unmoved.

  And why I wasn't going to be rescued after all.