Shaun looked down the darkened corridor, the one leading to the main dining area, and the bubble lifts. They were pretty awesome to the art loving boy, coz they were ‘damn cool’, two lifts going up twenty floors. Peering up and trying to catch sight of the ceiling, he only saw darkness, as if the walls lead up to a sort of endless reverse pit of doom. Getting that image out of his mind, he quickly moved along, hearing his friends’ footsteps behind him.

‘Ya think the lift still works?’ said Vi from behind, his voice barely a whisper, as if the darkness demanded absolute silence from the youths.

‘These stuff usually have an emergency power supply of sorts, I think,’ Shaun stared at the lifts, noticing the emergency lights. ‘Yeah, see.’ He pointed it out, quickening his pace.

‘Guys? Don’t you guys feel its weird that there isn’t a single person about?’ piped in Kev, he wasn’t looking too well. ‘I mean, the staff usually cleans up or hangs around here at this hour.’ Shaun noted his worried voice, the boy had caught the eye of a young waitress, she was quite a pretty sight and no doubt the focus of Kev’s thoughts right now.

‘Probably some sorta holiday, or their maintaining the power supply?’ stated Shaun as much as he asked. He wasn’t really convinced though. The darkness was unnatural to him, and he had a really bad feeling that this wasn’t any maintenance or outage. He kept it to himself though.

They had reached the lifts by then, Vi punched the up button, the doors swiveled open. Looking to the others, he shrugged and stepped in. When they were all inside, he pushed the button for the fourteenth floor and stepped back. The lift began its silent, smooth journey upwards. Shaun was staring out the lift, he enjoyed doing that, even under the circumstances, he always liked views like this. Kev picked at his lips of to the side, a sign that the boy was mulling over something, the waitress most probably. Vi joined Shaun at the glass, he looked to Shaun, the boy was lost in his own thoughts by then.

All of a sudden, the lift grinded to a halt and jerked wildly, as if it had hit something. Shaun’s face bumped hard into the glass, Vi managed to brace himself in time, Kev on the other hand drew blood on his lips. The three shared similar emotions though, shock etched in their faces when they came to. The night had tensed the boys pass any notion of normalcy and this unwelcome jerk to their nerves had hit. Shaun, calming first, attempted to look up the glass front, trying to spot what had caused the problem, seeing none he proceeded to the door. He had at least noticed that they were nearly level with the floor they had reached, the seventh. It had snagged with something there.

‘Pry it?’ Shaun asked to the others, his hand already reaching for the doors. On their nods, he slipped his hands into the crack and pulled sideways.
Leaving his big friend to the physicalities, he turned to Kev, checking on him. Looking back, he seemed fine, though favouring the part where he had wounded his lips, a shaky smile perked up, relieving Vi of any worries. The door gave way and with a grunt, Shaun heaved it all the way. Putting a hand to tell them to wait, he stepped out. Always the first to check on any danger.

Outside, Shaun scanned the open corridor and noticed nothing strange, then looking back to the lift, he caught sight of something. Looking closer, he saw eyes staring back at him, upside down. The eyes of a woman, her head popping out the upper lip of the lift exit. The top of her torso was showing out the crack and it looked totally crushed and bloodied. h\Half her face was totally gone, revealing a good deal of her gums and teeth, a macabre sideways grin. The rest of her body was out of sight but obviously the reason for the stopped lift. The woman was dead, stiff, stone cold out. Shaun took all this in in the split second before his mind registered the horror of the scene.

‘HOLY CLUSTERFUCK!’ came a high pitched shriek as he fell over backwards, tripping over his own feet. He fell hard on his buttocks but his eyes never left the sight, he quaked in absolute terror on the spot.

Vi rushed to his side, fearing that his friend had acquired an injury of some sort. Kev followed but instead of checking Shaun for any injuries he followed the direction of his terrified eyes. No jaw could gape wider, he was stunned and stood there, unable to fully react to the sight before him. By then, Vi had made sure that Shaun was pretty much unscathed and glanced behind to make sure Kev was still there. He caught sight of it too.

They were as sprinters off the starting block, Vi and Kev dragging Shaun by the armpits as they bolted down the corridor, Shaun backpedalling furiously to keep up. All three were screaming at the top of their lungs, probably breaking some sound and speed barriers to boot.