 
### Behind The Voice

Cassi Gray

Smashwords Edition

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2012 by Cassi Gray

Cover Photography Copyright © 2005 by Griszka Niewiadomski

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

# CHAPTER ONE

Confusion reigned supreme in my head after hearing his voice for a second time. Spreading like wildfire through acres of Mojave dry desert, consuming all other thoughts and emotions in its path, lit only by the smallest of sparks from his perfectly enunciated words.

I had been in an incoherent daze by that point in the elevator ride, my hopes of getting out of there had been wrangled from me, strangled, and subdued beyond recognition. So the only thing left for me to do was to contemplate my duties for the day, once I finally got out of that box. I needed to plan my attack on the never ending paperwork that had surely started its relentless assault on my desk.

While work had many weapons at its disposal, like little paperclips of doom that glinted in the fluorescent lighting, I only had a small arsenal of tools that could combat that evil enemy of happiness that was the strongest on Mondays.

And as usual, my pen and staple remover would be slumbering away, tucked neatly into my drawer, with no idea of the kind of battle they were in for.

Neither did I when I broke my daze and looked up from the glowing elevator button, to finally see the snake charmer that had purred my name.

\------

It's only eight in the morning and already my feet are killing me. The searing pain that performed a full attack on my leg muscles after it was satisfied with my screaming feet, picked and poked at the nerve endings up and down my legs causing my right eye to twitch in response.

I'm convinced that a man invented high heels, or a woman who had no sensation in her feet whatsoever. Perhaps she was one of those brave individuals who walked on hot coals. Right about now I would like to _drag_ her over some hot coals.

Clenching my jaw and teeth together while hoping no one can actually see my eyelid twitching, I grin and bear it as a business man in a professional pressed suit slinks onto my elevator. The navy blue fabric that makes up his jacket and pants, were free from any kind of lint or hair imaginable, and I marveled at the time and care that it must have taken to free the dark blue ocean of threads from any intruders. I could picture him sitting on the edge of his bed with tweezers in hand, plucking carefully away at the little specks and strands. Realizing quickly that was an odd thing to picture, I shake my head gently in disagreement.

Relieved that he barely even noticed me, I clear my throat and look straight ahead again. I'm sure his head is swirling with dollar signs and numbers that would make a math professor at Harvard need to sit down due to a sudden onslaught of vertigo.

Some people could deal with numbers. They could work their magic on them, manipulate them, and understand them. I was not one of those people. Numbers were about as useful to me as these high heels would be to an amputee.

Everything in the world was numbers driven, even words. So often times I felt pretty worthless considering my aversion to the demonic digits that ruled all.

Mr. Numbers stood in front of me and to the right of the elevator door. Tablet PC in hand his eyes darted and chased the devilish digits across the mini screen. Charts and pie graphs galore popped up and disappeared like the children's game Whack-A-Mole. I suddenly had the urge to whack the tablet out of his pale and greasy little hands. Instead, I picked at my own black skirt and smoothed its cotton skin against my hips.

The elevator chimed, and the doors open to let in a woman. She looks to be in her late fifties, her brown hair snaked with glossy, copper highlights that just hiss bi-weekly, credit card melting salon job at you. She carried herself in such an authoritative way that Mr. Numbers scooted further to the right so that his shoulder was touching the wall. His eyes still transfixed on his mini, glowing screen. I on the other hand remain where I stood prior to the appearance of our new ghoulish elevator inhabitant. Spastic eye twitches and all.

Mrs. Authority backed up into me so that she can better see the news blurbs and images flash across the small monitor that was mounted in the left corner of the elevator.

Gently, but firmly I brought up my hands and crossed my arms over my stomach, which in turn bumped Mrs. Authority's back. She turned to look at me and scowled as if I had suddenly ruined her life, and by touching her, I had also given her a strain of disease that will mutate her into a nice person that everyone wanted to be around.

Never before had someone given me such a disgusted look. I returned it by rolling my eyes at her. She snorted at me and turned her beady little eyes back up to the advertisements that bounded across the monitor.

The elevator whirred along its destined path like a solemn, robotic ant and it's only purpose in life was to go up and down this metal tunnel. Obeying all calls and buttons from the Queen with only a brief rest when there was a malfunction, or the building was closed.

I was so relieved when the elevator stopped and both of my companions, unpleasant as they were, got off. I finally had the elevator back to myself. Watching the doors shut, I sighed and leaned against the wall.

Propping my head up, I looked at the monitor, and read a small news clip about some poor man whose wife had lost her marbles and used a bottle opener to stab him to death. And yes, she literally lost her prized marbles. Apparently their grandson had given them to her before he was killed in a terrible car accident. I chuckled before I realized that was in poor taste. Thankfully there was no one else to witness my terribly dark sense of humor.

It had only been a couple of minutes since reading the news clip, but it suddenly dawned on me that the elevator hadn't started moving again. Instinctively I pushed the button for my floor again, even though it remained lit from when I pushed it before.

Nothing happened. There were no whirs of mechanical life, or clicks, clanks, nothing. There was no sound whatsoever from the elevator. I now stood, in a suddenly flimsy metal box suspended ten floors above the ground.

Which was a little disconcerting.

My cursed imagination took this opportunity to give me the heebie jeebies and thrust an image of a kid stomping on an aluminum can into my mind. It convinced me in graphic detail that's what it must look like if an elevator falls ten stories to its death. Crushing in on itself, creating accordion style sides, and making a metallic popping sound on impact. All while I was in it.

It became eerily silent, so I looked around for something. I don't quite know what I was looking for, but I knew my head needed no further ammo for frightening images. I was already pushing back the pressure of panic that was seeping into the elevator through any and every available crevasse. And considering elevators weren't air tight that was a lot of crevasses.

I pushed the button again for my floor. It remained lit, just as it had before. So I pushed it again, just for good measure. But still nothing happened. The brightly glowing 14 just stared at me with its perfectly crisp lines for digits.

Numbers. Once again, they were mocking me.

I groaned and pushed it again, this time just because it felt like I was shoving my finger in its face.

Coming to the conclusion that the elevator would start moving again on its own, I took a deep breath and tried not to think about the ten story long tunnel that I was perched above, in an aluminum can. I could picture the red headed, freckle faced, little boy raising his foot up in slow motion, readying himself for the death stomp.

Head and back resting against the wall once again, I closed my eyes and the boy's malevolent, little face was transformed into a mouth full of wicked braces as he grinned down at me.
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.
CHAPTER THREE

The trace of the whisper of my name had long faded away as I sat and stared at the glowing 14 button. I was coming to terms with the fact that I was truly stuck in here, at the mercy of the man-made mechanisms and machinery of this elevator.

Why no one had come to my rescue, or why I hadn't even heard any sounds of an attempted rescue was beyond my comprehension.

Forgetting my cell phone in my car today was probably the worst mistake of my life to date. I already mentally strangled myself and kicked myself repeatedly moments ago. I even crossed the line and stomped on my own toes.

I could have watched my fingers blur into a tan haze as I texted up a flurry of letters to spell out helps and I'm stucks to any number of people in my contact list. I likely would have made an attempt at calling some, but no one answers their phones anymore.

And who am I kidding? It would have been for my mere enjoyment only, it's not like any of them could have helped me in any way.

I looked back up at the monitor hoping that there would be some new blurbs on it by now, as I had been staring at the same information for the past hour.

The ebony blackness of the monitor yawned back at me. I blinked, and blinked again, thinking that there must have been something wrong with my eyesight. The monitor was just on moments ago, keeping my sanity in check with questions, quotes and vibrant pictures. Now it was gone. There was nothing there.

I felt a strange tingling sensation spreading throughout my body. Starting in the depths of my stomach, it traced the lines of my veins under my skin, leaving the little hairs all over my body standing at attention in its wake. Making its way up to my neck, it slipped up and over my ears, where it met at the top of my head and crashed back down over my body, seeming to exit out from my feet.

I stared at my toes and half expected to see something other worldly oozing out from them and pooling up onto the carpeted floor of the elevator. I knew that if I _did_ see that happen, it would have been the physical manifestation of my sanity.

I was losing it. I needed to get a grip and focus on something, anything, since my precious news monitor had been plucked from me. So I focused on the only other thing that was more dreadful than being stuck in an elevator for an hour, ten flights up. Work.

Staring at the glowing 14 again, I was right in the middle of trying to remember if I had called a particular client or not when I heard his voice for the second time.

Cordelia.

Smashing through my thoughts like a temper tantrum throwing six year old swinging his arms and legs through his little sister's perfectly stacked blocks of A-B-Cs. It was strong enough this time that I knew for sure there was someone in the elevator with me. I knew I hadn't imagined that voice. It was too strong, and too _close_.

I looked up from the glowing button to finally see the man who must be behind all of this. I didn't have enough imagination in me to form a face to the voice, but I didn't expect what I saw.

An empty elevator.

I looked from corner to corner of the elevator, top to bottom, thinking that somehow the man was just outside of my line of vision, refusing to accept the fact that I was really losing my mind.

Cordelia.

The man's voice came again. Soothing, and strong, had there been a face and body attached to the voice I imagined he would have been quite handsome.

The elevator fell silent again and I dared to exhale the pent up breath that I had been holding in since the voice purred my name.

_Cordelia_.

This time I shot up from my seated position in the corner of the elevator and gripped the handrail that was solidly attached to the wall, unlike (I feared) my sanity.

There was no doubt about it now. Someone was speaking to me.

"Who's there?" I questioned out loud. Realizing that I sounded like a panic stricken teenager caught in a really bad horror film, I quickly added, "My name is Cordelia, and I'm stuck in this elevator. Please get the doors open so I can get out of here."

My eyes darted from one point of the elevator to another point, again searching for something, anything, while my brain attempted to straighten out what was happening.

Cordelia.

"Please!" I called out, "Can you hear me? The elevator is stuck, I can't get out."

_Yes. I can hear you_.

The voice seemed to come from nowhere and at the same time everywhere. It didn't make any sense and I immediately tried to find hidden speakers and intercoms in the walls and ceiling. I was sure there were speakers of some kind in here. There had to be.

What are you looking for?

The voice asked, his inquisitive tone hanging in the air.

Puzzled, and a little uncomfortable, I looked around and questioned, "I'm...what do you mean? You can see me?"

Yes.

"Then why aren't you helping me?" I asked, my tone becoming abnormally stern.

I am helping you.

I looked up again at the ceiling, once again expecting to see someone moving ceiling tiles and that outstretched hand begging to be gripped. I wasn't even sure if they had those escape hatches in elevators or if that was something that Hollywood made up, but at this point I didn't want to believe there was one less exit from this elevator, especially with a disembodied voice speaking to me.

I caught myself waiting for the voice to say something again so I could ask more questions about the help it was supposedly providing. When I realized with astonishment that I was hoping for the voice to continue talking, I laughed out loud.

"Oh my God, I've lost my mind," I commented to myself...and whoever else might be listening, "I've really lost it, I'm holding conversations with myself in an elevator."

Can I help you find it?

The voice asked. I furrowed my eyebrows at this question. Though it lacked any sarcasm or mocking in its tone, I couldn't figure out any other meaning to what he had said. So I decided to ignore his question, which to me seemed to be the best option.

Jokingly I asked, "If you're helping me, then turn the TV back on so I don't bore myself to death."

The dark monitor suddenly blipped to life. Wanting to ignore as long as I could the meaning of what had just happened, I ignorantly read the news and blurbs for a minute or two, until I just couldn't push back the nagging question anymore.

Sighing, I asked the air, "How did you do that? Do you have control over the monitor?"

I have control over everything.

The response sent frozen lizards scurrying down my spine, their little popsicle toes leaving icy dots of footprints behind. I shivered at the thought of what this meant.

I decided to question the voice, I was either going to call his bluff about being the master of the elevator universe, or I was going to get an answer that completely baffled me. Either way, it wasn't like I could go anywhere so I may as well play along.

"If you have control over everything, then why don't you just open the doors and let me out?" My voice took on a slight inflection of snootiness.

Because I don't want to.
CHAPTER FOUR

There was no trace of a threat in his statement, but that didn't change the fact that I instantly became chilled to the bone as if someone had dipped me into a tank of dry ice infested water and left me in a wind tunnel for a solid nine minutes.

My mind was reeling with crazy thoughts and scenarios of stalkers taking control of the elevator, of me truly losing my mind, or perhaps this was all just a dream?

A dream. Yes. That had to be it.

I pinched myself and sucked in a breath of air through my teeth at the pain. But the elevator didn't melt away and I didn't wake up interwoven in my soft sheets, happily drowning in blankets on my comfortable and warm bed.

Instead, the voice spoke to me again.

Are you in pain?

"No," I answered, questioning my sanity again.

Why did you make that sound then?

"I pinched myself." I replied.

There was a brief moment of blissful quiet. And then the voice continued to question me.

Did it hurt?

"Yes."

The voice was silent for a moment more. I looked about the elevator as if I was going to see something.

I thought you said you were not in pain?

This was just going in circles, I felt like I was trying to hold a conversation with a two year old. And I desperately needed to keep from banging my head against the wall. Although if I did that, I might pass out and then would be spared whatever might be coming.

I filed that thought under the Ponder More section in my brain. I would come back to it later.

I decided I was going to poke at the sub-zero statement that the voice said to me moments ago. I needed to know what he meant. Surely he couldn't keep me locked up in here forever. Right?

I mean there had to be people who were wondering why this elevator wasn't working, some kind of alarm going off somewhere? In this day and age elevators didn't just stop without a team of people knowing about it and attempting to fix the problem.

"Why aren't you helping me?" I asked again, only this time I was hoping for a different response.

The voice didn't answer right away.

I am helping you.

This wasn't any different of an answer then what I got before.

Becoming increasingly frustrated, I chewed at the inside of my cheek. It would seem that I need to word my questions very carefully.

"So you say. But _how_ are you helping me? Why do you want to keep me in here?"

A slightly higher pitch ended my questioning, my aggravation wearing through my cool exterior and showing itself by bleeding into my voice.

The man's voice remained quiet. I almost had this feeling like it was thinking, or contemplating what I had said.

Sighing, I stuffed my growing anger back into its cage within me and tried to form the thoughts and questions in my mind. I decided to go through a mental checklist of things the voice had said to me. It seemed calm, yet confused about simple things.

I almost felt like I was speaking to a child, and a very young one at that. But the voice didn't match that of any toddler I've ever come across. So that really only left one option.

This had to be a prank. I started to smile when I realized that it must be a hidden camera show.

"Okay," I said to the elevator, "The joke's up, I know this is a prank."

I waited for the sound of the doors opening up, or for the voice to come back on laughing, even for the apparently dead emergency phone to ring.

So I waited some more. Each passing second that nothing happened, my hopes fell ever so slightly.

What is a prank?

The question made me laugh. I couldn't help myself. The producers of the show must need to fill some time and needed a lot of material to sift through and edit, so they were going to continue the game.

Why are you laughing?

At this point there was no stopping my laughter. It bubbled up within me, and spilled out between my lips despite my clenching them together, which resulted in a sputtering type noise as if I was impersonating a motor boat. Which in turn, churned up more giggles, I couldn't keep the laughter contained now even if my life depended on it.

While I tee-heed hysterically I had this fleeting thought of delirium. I was convinced I had read somewhere that a sign of going delirious was guffawing uncontrollably.

Why are you laughing?

The man's voice continued to question me. And I responded by continuing to spit out cackling sounds.

My fit of snorting and hee-haws abruptly stopped when the elevator unexpectedly dropped at least a foot, causing me to hang briefly and then slam back onto the floor with such force that it knocked the breath, and any lingering chuckles out of me.

I lay gasping on the floor, staring out at the short and worn fibers of the carpet that I had unwillingly grown so close to.

The forceful wave of laughter had come and gone, and now nothing tickled my slightly demented funny bone. Everything was all serious again. My mind felt the need to escape and I wondered how many shoes had walked and stood on this very fabric. Where those shoes were going, and where they had come from.

Many people stated the age old adage of 'what if walls could talk', well what if shoes could talk? Shoes could go everywhere there were walls, and then some.

I'd rather listen to shoes talk than walls, but depending on the shoe and who wore it, it would need to scrape some of the gum from its sole and chew on it to freshen its breath.

Cordelia.

Still lying on the floor, I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the voice. Pushing it out of my head, and slamming the door shut behind it, but I felt it would knock again soon.

Cordelia.

I knew full well now who dropped the elevator, and I wanted no part of conversing with whoever that person was.

Cordelia.

I also knew from experience that he wasn't going to give up.

Cordelia.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Was all I could muster up for my side of the conversation.

I do not understand. I am helping you.

Despite being tossed around in this can, I smiled.

"You have an odd way of helping," before he could respond, I added, "What's your name?"

I wasn't expecting an answer. I simply asked it to try to get the talk to go into a different direction other than how I was going to die in this elevator, because this twisted man was confusing the definition of help with torture.

_Jeremy_.

I said the name silently and let my tongue toss it around in my mouth and slip out between my lips.

"Jeremy." I said out loud this time.

Yes?

I smiled again, mostly because of the innocence the voice dripped with. Perhaps this man wasn't confused after all. Perhaps he was something entirely different.

"No, I...never mind."

I lifted myself up from being sprawled out on the floor to a seated position once again. My chin was aching ever so slightly and I rubbed it, trying to test if there was a bruise or not.

Are you in pain?

"Well it doesn't feel entirely good when you drop the elevator like that." I grumbled.

Whether he couldn't hear me, or he didn't care to respond, the elevator lay in a hush. I was beginning to enjoy the quiet moments.

I stared back up at the monitor, not really sure what I should do, or could do, next.
CHAPTER FIVE

I had been watching the monitor for about thirty minutes in peace and quiet. Left alone to contemplate the advertisements, and news stories, I read about investments, insurance, office printers, and low mortgage rates. All of which were incredibly boring to me on a normal day, but today they were fascinating on a whole new level.

When it cycled back through to the beginning of which I had already seen, I looked about the elevator. Curious once again where the speakers and camera were, and even more curious about who was controlling this metal box and had my life in their hands.

On average I was pretty good at reading people. I couldn't so much as get a sentence formed about the man who was behind all of this. He seemed so innocent and naïve, but at the same time he was keeping me trapped in here for his own personal, twisted use. So really, how naïve and innocent could he be?

Maybe I was the naïve one.

Maybe this was all part of his game, the innocence that thickly lined his sentences was only a trap for me to feel sorry for him, and make him seem like the good guy.

He was a very good actor then, pretending to not know what certain things were, sounding completely baffled at other common phrases and objects.

But yet there was still this needling little voice in my head that refused to believe it was all an act. That he was truly helping me, and that my life couldn't be any safer than in his hands. This thought made me furrow my eyebrows together. What could he possibly be helping me with, other than being late to work? And I needed no help with that.

My extremely over active imagination was up to the challenge of trying to think up something that would qualify for life saving that involved being trapped in an elevator by a two year old that had the voice of a middle aged man. It fell short, and I couldn't come up with anything.

Sighing, I rested my head against the elevator wall and stared across the expanse of dull carpet at the opposite side. The dark wood was shining proudly in the glow of the lights from above. I stared at the fuzzy and washed out reflection of myself. A fleeting thought arose that I was looking at another me in a parallel universe. Somehow I had crossed into her realm and was now being held captive by a feisty, living elevator that she surely knew how to handle, if only I could ask her.

But I couldn't speak to her. She opened her mouth when I did, but her words didn't come out, only mine.

I closed my eyes and removed myself from the imaginative world of other dimensions and a wordless me.

A few more peaceful, quiet moments passed with my eyelids draped over my blue eyes. I thought I might actually be able to take a quick nap, when his voice needled through my soothing bubble of tranquility that surrounded me, and popped it.

Cordelia.

His voice was a lot more hurried this time around.

Cordelia.

He almost sounded on the verge of panicking. My eyes snapped open, and I looked around the elevator, again expecting to see someone standing there. His voice sounded so _close_ , I knew I would never get used not seeing someone else in the elevator with me.

CORDELIA.

He nearly yelled my name, and I flinched at the booming power behind it. I could feel the vibration from the wall under the bass of his voice as it passed from the wall, through my clothes, and rattled my spine.

Leaning away from the wall, I casually looked behind myself to check to make sure some strange contraption hadn't formed out of the wall and was trying to burrow into my back.

Satisfied that there only was the same glossy, dark wood behind me, as in front of me, I responded, "What?"

Please hold on.

I tilted my head and stared up at the lights above me, raising an eyebrow and lowering the other one in the universal facial expression of confusion.

"Please hold-"

My question began to form, but was immediately cut short as my voice plummeted into my stomach and hit the floor.

I felt like all of a sudden I was sitting on a very large magnet that only attracted bones. The weight, pressure and force were pulling me down on top of myself, and even though I could breathe just fine, I struggled to take air into my lungs and gasp for breath.

I was so bewildered at what had happened that I called out the disembodied voice's name. It was not out of frustration, but out of fear and needing comfort.

I was convinced I was dying. I was free falling to my death this time, no more games from Jeremy, he had let the brakes go, and these were my last moments. And I was all alone, except for his voice. I desperately wanted to hear his voice again. I needed to hear it. The yearning inside me was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Frantically it pulled on every fiber and string that compiled my muscles and tendons, pushed my blood through my veins at break-neck speed only to fill the slippery tubes with hysteria that threatened to rupture them. My heart constricted at the seemingly thicker substance as it found its path to the beating muscle, flicking at it with an evil forked tongue.

I needed to know he was still there.

The revelation of my need for his voice was almost as strong as the yearning, and that sent my frazzled mind reeling in addition to what was already physically happening to me.

How was it possible to need someone so badly, when all he was to me was a voice? When moments ago I was questioning his evil intentions?

He toyed with the strings of my elevator like a marionette manipulator might do to his misbehaving puppet. Bouncing me around within my little wooden and metal friend so carelessly at times, but then followed it up with a very real worry about causing me pain.

The mixed signals I was getting from him were worse than a teen aged girl on date night. I couldn't figure him out, and had a moment of sympathy for all boys on those momentous nights of utter confusion.

Maybe he _was_ saving my life before, saving this elevator from dropping like a bowling ball with me in it. Maybe he was controlling the brakes and now he's gone, and the brakes are gone with him, and I'm going to die.

And that's when it hit me, I didn't need to hear his voice because I missed him, I needed to hear his voice to know he was still there, and more importantly, he was still in control of the elevator.

I wouldn't allow myself to cry, for what good would that do? It wouldn't stop the elevator from dropping.

I blinked at the same time that I realized I wasn't dropping, as if my eyelids brought the realization down upon me.

The elevator was going _up._

The force was attempting to push me down through the fibers in the carpet because of the g's being caused from going _up_ at such an extreme speed.

I don't know why, but I just knew that Jeremy was still there and he was doing this to save me. He had to be. Right?

The pit that had been developing at warp speed inside my stomach was gone quicker than I could be thankful for knowing he was still there.

When the elevator finally came to a stop, which felt like an eternity, I had a moment of weightlessness, and I allowed myself to smile at the roller coaster feeling. A giggle nearly escaped, but I managed to stifle it when I heard him speak.

Are you in pain?

I don't know why he kept asking me that, and it was such an odd way to ask someone if they're okay or not. But regardless of his unusual way of speaking to me, I was thrilled to hear him. My heart fluttered in my chest like I had just received a phone call from a long time crush. Mentally I crossed my arms at myself and took that you're-in-trouble stance that moms get. I was acting like a love sick school girl and it needed to stop.

Internally I was every which way but understanding, but externally I had to keep my cool, especially with how quickly he noticed a change in my emotions due to unchecked body language.

"I'm a little rattled, but not in pain," I paused, and then tried to question him, "What happened? Why did you do that?"

Knowing full well I was not going to get an answer that was satisfying.

I needed to in order to keep you safe.

"Why are you trying to keep me safe?" Not that I didn't appreciate it, I certainly enjoyed living and didn't want to stop anytime soon.

Why wouldn't I?

His counter-question caught me off guard a little bit and I fumbled around in my head trying to form a logical reason.

"Well, because you don't even know me."

That was the only thing I could scrounge up in my discombobulated mind, and I thought it sounded logical enough.

Do I need to in order to save someone's life?

He was quick on the responses right now.

"I would think so." I replied.

Would you need to know someone in order to save them Cordelia?

His words made me fall silent as I pondered the question presented to me. Shockingly, I didn't know the answer. I felt like I would need to know who the person was that I was saving, but I didn't want to say it. It made me feel like a bad person for even thinking that.

My brain told me that I should be thinking that no one deserved to die, and that everyone deserved a second chance. But I just couldn't get the bad people out of my head that purposefully did harm to others. To say someone didn't deserve to be saved, seemed wrong.

Would you save this person?

I looked up at the monitor, somehow knowing he wanted me to look at it. There was a picture of a fairly attractive woman on it. She was laughing and the glow from her smile and cheerful brown eyes exuded happiness.

It was contagious, for I found myself smiling.

Cordelia?

"You want me to say if I'd save someone just off of looks alone?" I questioned.

Yes.

I studied the picture for another minute or two. You couldn't make out much in the background, but it appeared she was at a park of sorts. There were others dotted about in the shade of trees behind the cherub faced woman. But nothing that would help me determine if she was a bad person or not.

"This is impossible." I said, slightly exasperated.

Would you save her?

The picture remained on the monitor. She just looked so happy, and like such a nice person.

"Yes."

She took the lives of her two infant boys three days before this photo was taken.

My heart sank like he had made the elevator rocket another five stories into the air. I swallowed hard, and looked at the picture again, certain that there was some sort of stamp on her face that spelled out M-U-R-D-E-R-E-R, and I just had overlooked it.

The only thing that was stamped on her face was a blissful happiness, slight crow's feet wrinkles around her eyes, and freckles.

I felt sick to my stomach thinking about the poor little boys that must have been so scared and confused as their mother took their lives. I couldn't even begin to imagine what must have been going through their minds, the sheer terror that surely gripped them as strongly as I gripped the railing of the elevator on my first bounce within it. A white knuckled experience that I've survived through so far, but they weren't as lucky.

Oddly enough, I didn't want to hear Jeremy's voice any more. I wanted him to leave me alone.

Thankfully, he did. The elevator remained quiet and I was left to simmer and stew in my newly invented emotions.
CHAPTER SIX

I didn't have long to think about much of anything before the elevator resonated with a low rumble, followed by a gentle shake that vibrated my deep solemn thoughts until they rattled together and disintegrated.

The lights above flickered briefly as they toyed with my secret fear of a power failure while trapped in here. And the floor hummed with a soft but abrupt quiver of the metal and carpet that I now looked down at warily, half expecting it to split in the middle like a trap door and send me screaming to my death.

Knowing full well that getting to my feet would only cause me bodily harm if the elevator decided to do another Irish jig, I remained seated on the pulsating floor.

The strange experience only lasted but a few moments, and I tore my gaze from the floor up to the monitor, somehow still expecting to see the man behind the voice in the little screen. A man's face didn't stare back at me, instead the bright glass just spit out more news and blurbs as it had been robotically doing all its life.

Unaware of much grander things that it's siblings were doing, such as playing movies, or video games. It was doomed to spend an eternity continuously repeating itself with information that the average viewer couldn't have cared any less for. They only used it to pass the time that was spent in the elevator, or to avoid being spoken to from a stranger or co-worker that they cared for even less than the monitor.

I was both of those people on an average day. But today I clung to the bright images and crisp letters on that monitor like my sanity depended on it.

"Jeremy?" I called out for him.

Yes?

I let out a sigh of relief.

"What just happened?" I questioned him.

I don't know what you mean Cordelia.

"Like, a minute or two ago the elevator...vibrated and there was a strange sound and the lights flickered. Did you do something?"

It was quiet for a moment, and then he responded.

That was not me. But everything will be okay soon.

There were quite a few troubling things about his statement, and I wasn't quite sure where to begin.

"So you know what happened?"

Yes.

"What happened?"

It seemed as though I needed to spell every little thing out for him, he needed things said to him in a certain way and very frankly in order to understand my parts of the conversations. It was nerve wracking in the beginning, but I was getting used to it now.

An explosion.

If I hadn't known any better I would have insisted the elevator dropped out from underneath me again. But I could feel the cold, hard floor pushing against my body with a vengeful insistence, like it refused to be stepped on anymore and was finally pushing back.

I couldn't form any words, and even if I managed to, it felt like my tongue had swollen to a thick unusable mass in my mouth.

An explosion? Was he being serious? Although he had never joked with me before, my mind couldn't exactly give in to the reality that he was telling the truth.

How was that even possible? Things like this didn't happen to me, it happened to other people and I would read about it on the elevator monitor, make faces, laugh, or frown depending on the situation.

This couldn't be happening.

"Jeremy, I don't understand," now I was starting to sound like him, "an explosion? In this building?"

Yes.

The internal arm-wrestling match of if he was joking or not ended abruptly with those three little letters. His answer was so matter-of-factly that I was forced to come to terms that he was being very serious.

I won't let anything happen to you.

Somehow his words didn't comfort me, even though I was a hundred percent positive that he saved my life from whatever blast had happened.

I felt my strong demeanor crumble ever so slightly at the relentless needling of worry and panic.

"Jeremy, please," I almost started to plead, "You need to let me go, I need to get out here."

It's not safe yet.

"What's happening out there?" My voice cracked a little as I tried to sound firm and demanding, but the panic chipped away even more of my calming strength.

I won't let anything happen to you.

I nearly screamed out of frustration. If he was helping me, why wasn't he telling me what he was saving me from? Why was he being so secretive? What was he hiding?

I counted to twenty and managed to pick up a few of the broken off pieces of my collected self.

Jeremy remained ever so patient.

"What did you mean 'everything will be okay soon'?"

He was quiet. I could picture him going back through transcripts of our conversations to see exactly what he had said.

I mean everything will be okay soon. I'm not sure how else to say it. What is wrong now, will not be wrong in the near future.

"That was even more cryptic than usual."

I am sorry, but I don't know what 'cryptic' means.

That was the first time I had heard him apologize for anything, I was beginning to wonder if he even knew how to.

"Mysterious." I replied to the second part of what he had said.

I agree.

"What?"

I realized that he was likely responding to the word mysterious, not necessarily the context in which I had said it, "No, 'cryptic' is another word for 'mysterious'."

I found that explaining myself to him was calming, and this was the longest conversation we've had yet.

Why wouldn't you have just said 'mysterious'?

"I don't know, sometimes people say or do things differently, just to _be_ different."

Jeremy was quiet for a moment, likely pondering what I had said.

Why does everyone want to be different from each other?

"I'm not sure Jeremy, I imagine that everyone has their own reasons." I replied.

It would seem that people want to be different in all the wrong ways.

Now it was my turn to fall silent and ponder his statement.

He was right. Most people chose to be different by the clothes that they wore, the words that they used, music they listened to, books they read, but so few people tried to be different by doing the right thing, being nice to others, helping their neighbor. We were all striving to be different in society, but for what purpose other than to somehow help our own self?

I looked back at all the times that I substituted a more common word for one that made me look like I read the dictionary with my morning coffee, just so I could be different, so I could appear smarter than I actually was. In no way, shape, or form did that help anyone else.

Just trying to be different, is such a commonly used phrase when someone else questions the purpose of why someone did or said something not common or normal.

But I never really thought deep enough about the why of all of it.

I shrugged in response to my thoughts. And my stomach grumbled in response to the shrug. I patted it and looked up at the time on the monitor, it had been four hours since I had been first trapped in here.

Way past my snack time.

"I'm hungry." I stated so matter of factly.

That is not something I can help you with.

"You don't have any cookies to materialize out of thin air for me?" I teased.

No. And I don't know how to materialize anything out of thin air.

Despite the fact that he was lacking any sense of humor, I still smiled and chuckled.

"You really need to get a sense of humor." I verbally poked at him.

How do I get one?

The laughter bubbled up inside of me and spilled out between my lips.

You are laughing at me?

Getting my laughter under control quickly because I remembered what he did last time I let it go, I took a couple of deep breaths and replied, "No, I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you, it's just," I paused, "Are you being serious?"

I didn't know I was being anything other than what I am.

"That hurts my head." I half responded to him, and half to myself.

You're in pain?

"I," Pausing, I realized that this could only turn into a frustrating conversation, or something leading to another giggle fest. Continuing I said, "No. Never mind, I'm not in pain."

He was quiet once again and I wondered what he was doing. Thinking? Planning? It used to be unnerving that I didn't know what he was doing when he fell silent, now it was almost comforting. It reminded me of those moments of silence with a loved one or best friend that didn't feel awkward.

Oddly enough I felt like I was getting to know Jeremy, and despite the terrifying start of this interesting relationship, he didn't seem to be a bad guy after all.

Naïve, child-like, innocent and caring he certainly was. But dangerous, evil and malicious he was not. I was going off of my instincts on this one since I had yet to actually meet the man behind the voice, but my gut hasn't been wrong so far.

I just hoped that my gut hasn't misled me into a fatal mistake of trusting a disembodied voice.
CHAPTER SEVEN

The elevator silence led me hand in hand to the brink of sleep. Tenderly rubbing my hand as if it cared so deeply for me and this was the only salvation for my soul.

The air was soothingly warm and it only aided the silence in its mission to lead me to the edge of the slippery slope where I so easily and willingly stepped off.

Twisting and twirling in the forever blackness that was always so welcoming, I marveled at how soft my hair felt while it gently caressed my face during my descent into slumber. My golden locks tracing the lines of my cheekbones, my nose, my chin, and gently stroking my eyelids. It's cool, silken touch on my warm skin made me fall even faster into that open armed sandman, where I hugged him tightly like a long lost sibling.

I found myself in the middle of a very large crowd of people. None of them took notice of me as they bustled about their day. It was as if I was invisible.

Turning in a circle where I stood, I saw that I was in a square of sorts, shops lined the perimeter and an array of people streamed in and out of them.

Candy shops, toy shops, cafes, shoe shops, all comfortably tucked in one after the other forming a wall that surrounded the brick laden square, it felt like a tourist shopping district. It was a place I didn't recognize, but I found myself picking up on foreign accents as I looked about at those meandering around me.

Most were too preoccupied with their cell phones, children, friends, or thoughts to take notice, but my eyes immediately went to the silhouette of a man that stood on the rooftop at the northern most stretch of shops.

My initial thought was that he was going to jump, and I looked about at everyone in a hurried manner, I reached out to people who passed by, but only came up with air in my grasp.

Suddenly gripped by the hand of panic, I couldn't find my voice to scream out for help, so I continued to reach for others in a desperate attempt to get someone else to notice the man on the roof.

When I realized that I truly was invisible to those around me, I looked up at the man again in a mixed flurry of emotions that included helplessness and sorrow.

An instant calming sensation came over me, and I could feel the muscles in my body relax, my heart slowed to a normal, non-panicked beat, and I let out a pent up breath that had anyone taken notice of me, would have thought I had been punched in the stomach.

This time I paid closer attention to him. Although I couldn't make out any details about his appearance or identity, I could see that he had no intentions of jumping. He simply stood there, looking over all of us. Standing guard as if he was a sentinel sent from a higher power.

I was transfixed by him. Mesmerized by the lack of detail, and held in place by the bold contrast of the silhouette of his body against the blue sky.

Peeling my gaze away from him I scanned the square again, giving in to the increasingly nagging feeling that I was actually looking for something.

I was intently staring at the cracks in the bricks that made up the ground, drinking in the fine details of the red patchwork when the wave of panic washed over me once again. My throat tightened around a scream and I lurched forward clumsily as if I had no control over my own body anymore. My arms were outstretched and my hands clawed at the air and the people around me.

The shoppers continued to ignore me and the fear escalated into downright terror, I could feel my pores push out droplets of sweat from exertion as my heart frantically threw itself against the constraints of my rib cage. A small whimper escaped the stranglehold that fear had on my throat, and desperate again, I looked back up at the rooftop.

The moment my gaze met the inky blackness of the rooftop man's body, my terror melted away like ice cream on a hot day. Blinking in bewilderment, I stole my gaze from him and planted it on the store front below where he stood. Moments later the panic trickled back into me, and I flicked my gaze back up to the rooftop dweller where it once again receded.

I was no sooner forming the thoughts in my head when he spoke.

I can manipulate more than the elevator.

I awoke with such a start and momentum behind it that I was actually standing when I finally realized that I was back in the elevator, my hands clinging to the handrail behind me with such ferocity that my fingers ached.

I was panting as my lungs tried to suck up all the air available within the wooden prison. Feeling faint, I released my grip on the rail and slid back down to the floor.

His voice had sounded so close again, even in my dreams. It was like he had been standing right next to me in that square.

I didn't mean to frighten you.

His voice was softer this time, more apologetic, and less tapping on my ear drums with his booming tone than he had been in the dream.

I tried to ignore the fact that was presented with his statement. But it was useless.

"Apparently I can't even escape you in my dreams."

I gave you the dream.

"I don't like the implications of that Jeremy."

I am sorry.

"It's okay."

Our quick little chatter made me smile despite the strange feeling of being violated.

"So you can read my mind now?" I questioned him, halfway joking, but halfway serious.

No.

His response made me sigh with relief.

It is only another form of communication that I have. To speak to you without speaking.

I nibbled on my bottom lip as I mulled this over. Jeremy was quite the enigma.

"I don't like this new form of communication." I hoped that this wouldn't offend him.

I am sorry. I will refrain from communicating this way in the future.

"Thank you," I paused, remembering the words he had spoken in my dream and the strange roller coaster experience with emotions, as well as hours ago with the display of control over the monitor, "So what else can you control?"

I had mixed feelings about hearing the reply to this, since he had yet to give me an answer to this question that didn't instill fear within me, and cause the hair to stand up on the back of my neck. It seemed that our relationship was growing into something a little more than threatening. And I felt that I needed to know what else of me he could command without my knowledge of it happening. Friends or not.

But then there was a part of me that pushed against the need to know with a feverish determination. This was also the part of me that still refused to believe Jeremy even existed, but yet couldn't come up with a solution for his voice and actions.

Many things.

"You're being...mysterious again." I commented.

I can control emotions.

I couldn't see him to roll my eyes at him, so instead I rolled my eyes at the opposite wall of where I was sitting. I felt certain that he could see it, and that alone made me feel a little better.

"We can all control our emotions."

I do not think you understand. I can control YOUR emotions.

I thought about this for a moment, reflecting back on my dream and the crazy tidal waves of panic and calmness that kept crashing over me.

Afraid that he actually might, I still said, "Prove it."

No sooner had I finished my sentence when it happened. The feeling of happiness that enveloped me was unlike anything I had ever felt before. It lifted my spirits to a height that was dizzying. Unable to suppress the smile that spread across my face, I looked down at the ground expecting to see that I was floating because that's how _good_ I felt.

I was elated. Overjoyed. Ecstatic. It was all I could do to control myself and not scream with pure unadulterated glee because I felt like I was going to explode and send glitter, sunshine, puppies, and kittens in every direction.

Then as quickly as it happened, the heightened emotion stopped.

He certainly proved it.

I cleared my throat and wiped my hands on my skirt. My palms were sweatless, but I needed to fidget with something. I felt like I was on the brink of discovering something miraculous, peering over the edge into a realm that resembled nothing on this earth that I was familiar with.

And I wasn't scared. If anything I was excited, and my curiosity was growing with every second that I spent in this elevator with Jeremy. He was a mixed bag of other worldly antics, and I was experiencing them first hand.

"That was amazing." I said somewhat breathless.

Jeremy was quiet.

"Can you do that to everyone?" I don't know why I had to know the answer to this question.

Yes.

"That's amazing," I paused and looked down at the palm of my hands imagining if I had that kind of power, "You're amazing."

Jeremy was quiet again. This time long enough for me to look away from my hands and glance about the elevator, once again still searching for the man behind the voice.

I was on my feet before my brain could comprehend the source of the new, strange, but oddly familiar sound. It came from above, on the ceiling of the elevator, and was jarring enough that it actually resulted in the slightest bounce of my wooden and metal cage.

Quieter, intermittent and slightly muffled, tapping sounds continued above me and the elevator jounced around in response. A slight sway started and I planted my feet a little wider apart from each other to help compensate for it.

It took me a moment to figure out what was causing the noise, but when my mind finally put the pieces together and I realized what it was, my heart all but stopped.

Footsteps.
CHAPTER EIGHT

I should be excited that I was finally getting rescued from this box. The last six hours of my life had been spent in this elevator talking to a voice with otherworldly powers that went by the name of Jeremy.

I should be beside myself with relief to hear the footsteps above me as my rescuer fumbled about with metal hooks, straps, cables and locks.

Instead I was suddenly fearful, and extremely protective of Jeremy. Deep down I knew that when they opened that elusive trap door in the ceiling and pulled me out, that would be the end of Jeremy, and I wasn't sure if I was ready to let him go yet.

No. I _knew_ I wasn't ready to let him go.

"Jeremy?" I called out for him, hoping he already knew of the change in events and our little guest from above, but if not, I was going to make sure he knew.

The sounds from above quickened, and the shuffling of boots on metal drifted down to meet my ears.

"Jeremy!" I risked yelling for him, my heart stepped up its pace to match the sounds.

We have a problem Cordelia.

His statement puzzled me. I was already confused as to why I didn't want to be rescued, but for my rescue to be a problem? That was even more baffling.

"I think someone's trying to rescue me." I found myself pointing up at the ceiling.

This might hurt.

There are several points in one's life when a statement, or word, can't bring any good to you. This was one of those points in my life. It was like the infamous I'll-be-right-back in horror movies. They never came back, those four words destining them to a horrific and bloody date with a chainsaw, knife, or other life-consuming means of destruction.

So I knew the three little words that still floated about the elevator, mingling with the clanking and shuffling sounds from above were sure to usher in a series of events that would likely end up with me being seriously injured.

I clutched the handrail with both hands in white knuckled anticipation.

I won't let anything happen to you.

My only weapon was to hope and pray that Jeremy actually meant what he said. This wasn't the first time he said this to me, and I had an inkling that it wouldn't be the last time.

I shut my eyes with such force that I thought my eyelids would end up curling up and over themselves. My fingers ached from my death grip on the handrail, and I held in my breath as if whatever was about to happen next would result in the loss of air around me, and I would need that breath to survive the aftermath.

But nothing happened.

The muffled sounds from above continued to lazily drift down like leaves in the fall, where my ears could kick them up and dance in their soft and fragile bodies.

I opened one eye at first, cautiously, and then I let my other eye open. My grip relaxed on the handrail and I opened my mouth to ask Jeremy what was happening when it finally happened.

A yelp escaped my mouth and I nearly bit my tongue clean off as I clamped my mouth shut to not let out anymore screams, squeals, or other embarrassing sounds.

The quick drop and sudden stop of the elevator wasn't enough to make me lose my balance and crash to the floor like before, but I heard above me that it was enough to catch my rescuer off guard as they slammed down onto the top of the elevator.

A string of foul words arose and mixed with more sounds of rubber on metal as I imagined the rescuer trying to get back to his feet. I knew Jeremy wasn't done, so I grabbed for the handrail again and held on for dear life.

The immediate drop the elevator took this time wasn't as short as before, but the stop at the end was just as jarring.

My rescuer landed hard on the ceiling in a different location this time. More blush inducing language sputtered out of his mouth and I could hear him scrambling about up there. No doubt trying to get a hold of something that would ensure he didn't go toppling over the side of the car.

I was curious about what would be going through his mind right about now. He was likely thinking the elevator was malfunctioning and he was told it would be dangerous to come out here, but I'm guessing no one had any idea how dangerous it truly would be. It was one thing to deal with a malfunctioning elevator, and something completely different to deal with an elevator being controlled to purposefully fling you off of it.

The scraping of the rescuer's boots on the metal above as he found his footing again was accompanied with a sigh, had he said one word instead, it would have been 'finally'. I shook my head in disagreement at his sigh because from experience, I knew Jeremy's shenanigans were not over, and I didn't loosen up my grip on the handrail.

The elevator shot upwards at least three flights and the rescuer was smashed back onto the ceiling. This time no words or sounds escaped his lips as he fought to stay on the elevator.

When the metal car reached Jeremy's desired location the brakes instantly locked up, and then immediately released, causing the elevator to plummet five stories. The result of the simulated roller coaster ride was the rescuer screaming and me gritting my teeth as hard as my eyes were shut, which was another eyelid curling moment.

Shockingly enough, I realized that at no point did I think about what would happen to the rescuer during all of this. But if I had, I would not have imagined a death resulting in my selfishness. I thought surely that Jeremy would bounce him around some and the man would simply give up and be on his way. But upon hearing him scream I snapped out of it, wanting Jeremy to myself was not worth the weight of this man's death on my conscience. I would just have to let him go, regardless of how much that tore at me.

"Jeremy!" I screamed, "Jeremy stop! You're going to kill him!"

I started to panic for this man's life. He was someone's son, grandson, maybe even someone's father, and Jeremy was going to shake him off the elevator like he was merely that annoying tiny spider that hung from your arm while you were outside enjoying a summer day.

In response to my plea, the elevator brakes squealed the metal box to a stop. The elevator steadied itself, but I could feel the tension in its structure. It seemed to quiver with the exertion of holding still. I looked cautiously around me expecting to see beads of sweat pop up out of the walls, and above me I heard the whimper of the man.

My eyebrows knit themselves together as I thought that no man should have to make such a pitiful sound.

"Jeremy, please." I begged.

I was completely ashamed at my utter lack of selflessness earlier, and would beat myself up over it as soon as this fiasco was over with. Jeremy was a wonder, and to be able to share even the amount of time that I did with him was something I would never forget. He was quite the experience. But it was time that I let that go, let him go, and allow myself to be rescued.

As if he read my thoughts, despite his denying that he could, Jeremy's voice filled the air.

Cordelia, he is not here to rescue you. He is here with bad intentions.

Now I'm not a genius, but I'm certainly not dumb, and within the brief seconds that I stole to ponder his statement, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how he might know that, and more importantly, why someone would be on the roof of this elevator with bad intentions.

I wasn't anybody important. And I enjoyed that aspect of my life. It was a quiet life, people left me alone, and I went about my business wrapped up in my own little world. So to think that some strange man had risked his life to come down into this building's elevator shaft, to cause me harm, well, that just didn't make any sense. So the only logical explanation was that he was really here to help me, and perhaps Jeremy just wasn't ready to let me go.

Touching as that was, I couldn't allow him to kill another human because of it. Because of me.

"No, Jeremy, he's here to rescue me, please-" My sentence was cut short by the rescuer's fear cracked voice.

"Hello?" he called out.

Under normal circumstances, I could tell that he would have a burly voice. Thick and gruff, I pictured him with a medium length shaggy beard, his equally long and ragged hair poking out from under a hat, its ends pointing in every which way like a blind man might as he tried to pin point a specific sound within a room. Donning the typical attire of a mountain man, he would have gentle brown eyes that would make the rest of his appearance seem hostile in comparison.

Instead, under these very non-normal circumstances his voice was thin, strained, and quite the opposite of a mountain man.

As if the voice conflicted man couldn't hear me, I cupped my hands around my mouth and spoke louder, "Yes! I'm here. I'm okay! Are you here to get me out?"

The man was quiet a moment, likely thinking about his next hunting trip, whether that be bears or coffee shops was beyond me. I assumed he hadn't heard me though, so I sucked in a deeper breath to allow myself to speak louder.

"I'm...yes. Yes. I'm here to get you out." The man's voice called back to me. The strain from earlier seemed a little less apparent, and some of the gruffness had scratched through.

It wasn't so much his words that I found peculiar, but the tone and the _way_ that he spoke to me. I was reminded of when someone was confused about a situation at hand, but didn't want anyone else to realize it, so they hid it by way of agreeing. There was a certain air about the way they spoke that gave them away though.

This man was confused about me being in the elevator, and even more confused about a rescue attempt. Like I said, I'm not a genius, but it wouldn't take one to put two and two together in this scenario.

He was not here to rescue me.

"Hello?" The man called back down to me.

I shook my head 'no'. My emotions were bouncing around as much as he was on the roof moments ago. After a few heightened moments of anxiety, confusion, giddiness, and rage, they finally settled down onto relaxed fear. I was fearful of him, and what might happen to him, but I was also trusting in Jeremy and that he had my best interests in mind. And when push came to shove on survival, I was not going to be the one to be pushed. I had to look out for myself, and although that meant condemning a stranger to death, it was suddenly a weight I was willing to carry if that meant I was alive to carry it.

I closed my eyes gently this time as I absorbed my decision, prayed for forgiveness and hoped it would be quick.

Jeremy must have seen my change of heart for the elevator suddenly started rising and lowering in jerky movements bringing to mind those grade B movies of a possessed person trying to fight a demonic presence that was taking control of their body.

It only took a couple of times before the man started bouncing around above like one of those colorful, little rubber balls on concrete. And that's when the drops and rises of the elevator became severe. Jeremy would let the car fall, jerk it back up twice, let it fall again, bring it back up, only to drop it quickly three more times. There was no pattern. He clearly didn't want the man being able to guess at what he was going to do.

The man was no longer able to hold on. I scrunched up my face, and closed my eyes even tighter than before. I found out quickly that thinking I was prepared for it, and actually hearing it happen were polar opposites.

I fought back screams when I heard the man yelling for help and pleading with me to make it stop. His terrified voice coupled with the slamming of his body against the ceiling moving closer and closer to the edge, was enough to make me start humming my favorite song in a feeble attempt to escape his horror stricken mercy begging.

I knew what was coming, and it sent chills throughout my body in limb shaking, electric waves.

My body shakes didn't stop when the man's screaming did. It was so abrupt. Piercing my subconscious as I heard it pass the car and continue below me. Cut off only by the mechanical workings at the bottom of the elevator shaft that eagerly raced up to meet the man who tumbled headlong into its cold arms.
CHAPTER NINE

The elevator was eerily unmoving and silent compared to before. Jeremy left the monitor on, but I couldn't watch it. I only blankly stared at the carpet just past my still bare feet. My high heels were in a small pile in the furthest corner from me. They had danced around across the floor like a ghost who had too many cocktails when her favorite song came on.

Deep inside myself, I was surrounded by thoughts and emotions that I never imagined I would have. I was responsible for the death of that man. He died by my hands as surely as he died by Jeremy's. I could have stopped it, and a small voice told me that I should have stopped it. But I just couldn't shake off the sticky feeling from the bottom of my stomach that something was wrong, and to let him into the elevator with me would have led to a death of someone other than him.

I also wasn't sure how affective Jeremy's protection could have been had the man actually made it into the elevator with me. The only option he would have had was to drop the elevator and kill us both.

And then there was the question of _why_.

Why was there a man on top of this elevator without any inclination of getting me out?

Why was he confused about me being in here?

Why had he lied to me about being here to rescue me?

There were too many questions, and now I wouldn't ever know the answers. I just had to believe that it was the right thing to do. If there is ever a right time to kill another person, it's when your own life is in danger. And while he never admitted to his dark reason for being up there, I knew in my heart that it wasn't to have a cupcake party.

Jeremy had fallen silent after the man's screams were slammed from his body during impact. I could never tell what he was doing or thinking before this, so I was at even more of a loss now.

I began to wonder if Jeremy even knew what he did. Did he have any remorse? Did he enjoy it?

I snatched that last question from my thoughts and shoved it into closet that held all my other terrible thoughts that made my stomach lurch in response. But unlike all my other terrible thoughts, that just lay dormant within their dark closet, this one scratched at the door to my conscience. Rattling the knob and tapping incessantly at my core until I let it back out.

I couldn't escape it.

"Jeremy?" I asked the air. Not entirely sure that he was even still with me, although I knew I would be the first to know if he wasn't.

Cordelia?

I couldn't tell that he had just killed a man by judging the tone of his voice. I wasn't sure if this was a good sign or not. He was pretty hard to judge just by his voice to begin with.

"He's dead, isn't he."

Yes.

Somehow knowing and hearing are two different things. I knew he was dead. There was no way a person could have survived that. But hearing a confirmation cemented the grim reality of it.

"Am I ever going to get out of here?" I asked him.

It was bad enough being trapped in this box alone, but now I would be sharing this space with a spirit of a man that I had a hand in killing. That was not something that I could handle so easily.

It's almost time Cordelia, I will be leaving you shortly and you will be safe.

There weren't words in my vocabulary to allow me to explain it, but even though I couldn't see him, I knew that he had separated himself from here and was off doing whatever it was that he did while he was 'gone'.

Using a mental index finger, I poked at the air with my mind, trying to find the weakness in a bubble of normality, sure that if I could pop it, I would find Jeremy.

I didn't want him to leave. I had spent all day with him, and learned so many things about him, but knew that I had only learned just a fraction of the enigma that was Jeremy.

Safe. It was a word that I never really held much stock in before. I will be safe soon, he told me. But wasn't I already safe with him? He sure seemed to prove himself handy in that department. But yet, that just brought up a whole new set of questions.

I barely noticed that the elevator had started moving again. It was descending, and at its normal steady pace. I'm not sure what triggered it inside me, but my heart leapt for joy and thumped against the back of my throat. I found myself touching my neck half expecting to feel the beating muscle lodged within. Instead I just felt the soft skin of my bare neck.

I was descending. At a normal pace. My brain finally caught up to my subconscious and heart. I was descending at a normal pace! I was finally going to get out of here! Jeremy once again delivered on his promise. My heart swelled at the thought of him.

Pushing away from the wall and handrail which I had grown so close to, I felt like I would now need to send it a Christmas card, I smiled so hard my face started to ache. I clutched at my own hands and my entire body was vibrating with excitement.

I was finally going to be free!

"Jeremy!" I called out, I just couldn't help myself.

"Jeremy!" I called again, a little louder this time. I knew he could hear me. He could always hear me.

The elevator continued to drift down floor by floor, back on its usual path. My smile faltered, and began to slowly droop as if it was trying to keep pace.

"Jeremy?" I asked again, this time quieter and with a lot less excitement.

He couldn't be gone. He was here. He had to be.

"Jeremy?" My voice was just a whisper now as I asked the elevator for the voice I had grown just as close to.

The only response was the soft whir of the lines and cables moving effortlessly through their intricate pulley systems, righting the path of the metal box from its renegade day.

My eyes darted up to the all-knowing monitor, but at some point the lively screen had gone black again. I blinked at it and waited for it to spring back to life. Nothing happened. I fought back the feeling that many so frequently deemed a bad omen.

And then his words came back to me gently, like a soft flowing waterfall into a babbling creek, they melded together to form his last sentence, "It's almost time Cordelia, I will be leaving you shortly and you will be safe." I could still here his voice softly touch my eardrums and my heart skipped a beat.

My watery blue eyes were still fixed on the inky blackness of the screen and I pushed against the omen with all my might. I beat against its rock solid chest and screamed incoherent babble at it in a futile attempt to make it not true. But it was.

He was gone.

I put my face in my hands and fought back the tears, this was an emotional moment for me. But not for the reasons I thought I would be emotional for.

I wasn't trying to suck back tears by taking deep breaths because I was overjoyed to be free of this elevator. I was deeply saddened that Jeremy was gone. I knew that he had kept me safe, and that without him, I likely wouldn't be alive right now, and if I was, I would be wishing I wasn't.

I couldn't pinpoint the exact moment in the day that I had become so attached to Jeremy. It wasn't a pleasant beginning with him, but at some point, I had learned to love his innocent ways, and now I missed him.

The elevator came to a stop, and I realized with a growing dread that I was at the lobby. I looked solemnly around me at the walls and carpet that witnessed many things today. While, I would see this elevator many more times in the future, it would never look or feel the same to me after today. When those doors finally opened, that would be the end of my little adventure, and I would be faced with the reality of truly losing Jeremy forever. At least still within the confines of these walls I could call out to him and hope that he would return.

Sighing heavily to anything that might be listening, I heard the doors begin to pull apart, and I felt my dread swell into an overwhelming wave, lapping at my fragile emotional stability.

This was it. Once these doors finished opening, he was really gone and his memory would end up fading into the background of my mind where it would end up morphing into something that I would convince myself I had made up.

Before I allowed that future its moment to take hold, I whispered to him one last time, "Goodbye Jeremy."

The growing opening of the doorway revealed a lobby that I was not familiar with, and the tsunami of dread transformed into horror as it crashed down on top of me, shattering any hopes of leaving the elevator alive.

Gone were the glimmering walls of glass. Only jagged teeth protruding from the frames snarled down in a frozen open mouthed snap at any who dared to pass through. My eyes sunk to the floor along with my heart as I traced pieces of debris, glass, and blood across the once beautifully polished marble floor.

The round desk made from exquisite rosewood that stood as a dark but welcoming beacon across from the large glass doors remained, but now it looked as though it had been the primary shield for not just one, but many troops in a war. Bullet holes punctured it in random patterns across its exotic face, with gouges among them like they were underlining the obvious statement of violence that had taken place. Scattered about the top of the once spotless desktop, glass from the windows and doors lay in pieces and shards, like wounded soldiers awaiting a doctor.

Jeremy was gone. And I was anything but safe as I stared at the men who had appeared in the elevator door opening with their guns pointed directly at me.
CHAPTER TEN

As if I thought Jeremy was still watching me, and not wanting to disappoint him, I didn't cower into the corner of the elevator and whimper in damsel in distress fashion. I didn't put my hands up in front of my face like that would somehow prevent the bullets from ripping apart my suddenly paper Mache like skin. There was no need, and it would be pointless to do so anyway.

Instead I raised my head to look down my nose at them, squared my shoulders, set my jaw and focused on the men, rather than the quarter sized black holes that were hovering at the ends of long barrels.

Long barrels that were pointed, unwaveringly, at me.

If there was ever a time that I really did miss Jeremy and wanted him to harm someone, now was the time. I refrained from calling out to him this time because I knew he wasn't there. I could _feel_ he wasn't here to save me anymore. I was on my own now.

Me and my wrinkled clothes, disheveled hair and twitching nostrils as I desperately fought the urge to giggle. I knew that if I let lose the laughter, I would also be freeing the madness that was no longer tip-toeing around my shaky house of sanity. It was full on beating the front door down with bone jarring slams.

There was no getting out of this one.

The guns were trained on me with a steadiness that implicated professionals. That only made my house of sanity shudder under the relentless onslaught of delirium. As the men peered in at me, my walls began to crack and my chest began to rise and fall in quick bursts, I felt my stomach twitch with the release of the laughter before I actually heard the maddening sound escape my lips.

If anything, I prayed they would think I was crazy and keep moving, I was no threat to them, so I let the laughter continue, not that I could have stopped it at this point anyway.

Thank God Jeremy wasn't here after all.

One of the men crossed the threshold and moved into the space with me, in such a fluid-like manner that it made me think I had imagined it, and then another one followed.

Crying and screams drifted on the air into the elevator and I tilted my head up and to the side as if to catch the sounds better with my ear. There were people in pain, and judging by the wails and the condition of the lobby, there were people that were dead as well.

"Ma'am?" The man closest to me was calling to me. His gun was lowered now and he studied my face with his vibrantly green eyes. They were set perfectly on his slightly tanned face. A few golden brown wisps of hair peeped out at me with wide-eyed fascination from under his black military style helmet.

I took a step back from him, my bubbling giggle fest subsiding. With the lunacy filled intruder withdrawing from within me, I was able to sweep up some remnants of logical thinking and look closer at this man, and then the others.

They all wore identical midnight black clothes, with the only skin showing, being their vastly different faces. Brown eyes, blue, and green all stared back at me with I thought to be cautious concern. Hugging their equally size varying torsos were what looked like black padded vests, heavy duty pockets with Velcro lids decorated the outside of these vests. All of the other's hair color were hidden from under the same black, cloth covered military style helmets.

At this point all of their guns were pointed to the ground, and I could now see a word written across their chest.

SWAT

Those defining bold white letters were covered by their raised guns when I had first seen the men moments before. I blinked at the letters, and finally let my body relax. I slumped to such a degree the green-eyed man closest to me reached out to lend his support.

I thanked him by smiling at him and took hold of his gloved hand. He had a strong, and firm grip as his fingers wrapped around my hand, he pulled me closer to him and watched with intent eyes as I stepped, to make sure I was stable.

"Are you okay?" He asked me. His voice was warm and caring, nothing spectacular like one would dream her savior would have, or like Jeremy's, but I still smiled at the concern that had leaked into his tone. He was a protector of the innocent, so it was his job and duty, but he seemed to be taking it above and beyond what was expected of him. And I appreciated it like no other.

"I'm fine," I paused and listened to the drifting sounds of what I thought a warzone would sound like, "What happened?"

Mr. Green Eyes' steady gaze wavered ever so slightly, he looked back at his comrades, who began to look at the ground, fiddle with their uniforms, or look behind them with great despair at the lobby.

"I can answer her questions."

We all turned to look at the newcomer. He was a tall man, with jet black hair and deep brown eyes that scanned each one of us with a cold and calculating manner. He held himself in such a way that I immediately knew he was someone of great importance. Outfitted in a graphite gray business suit, with a stark white shirt, and black tie, he looked in at me with such a darkly lined, suspicious curiosity that I wanted to hold onto the hand of Green Eyes and ask him to walk with me like a father might do for his daughter's first day of school.

His presence itself didn't make me uncomfortable, but I certainly wasn't willing to take his hand when he outstretched it, like I did Mr. Green Eyes.

Following this new man, battered high heels in tow, I glanced back and watched as the SWAT team members dispersed, allowing myself one last glimpse of the one with the eyes that I would remember forever. He stopped, turned to face me, and lifted the corners of his mouth in a small smile that made the evening seem brighter despite the events that had unfolded.

I turned my attention back to the task at hand, and realized that the graphite suit wrapped man had stopped in front of me just a few feet away. He was in the doorway of one of the conference rooms that was situated further back from the horror stricken lobby. He motioned for me to pass him, and proceed into the room. I obliged and took a seat at the table.

While he closed the door behind him, I looked around at the room and realized that it hadn't been touched by the chaos that had consumed the lobby, which allowed me to relax a little.

"So tell me, what's your name?" He asked me as he sat down. I noticed now how large this man was. He was sitting across the table from me, but I had to look up to meet his fixed stare.

"My name is Cordelia."

"I wish we could have met under different circumstances Cordelia, but my name is Detective Halloway," he extended his long arm, and offered his hand to me again, "Detective Mark Halloway."

When I didn't move to take him up on his hand shake offer, he reeled his arm back in and sat back in his chair. We stared at each other for a few quiet moments. He tapped on the tabletop with a pen that must have materialized out of thin air because I hadn't noticed him pull it out of any pockets.

"I'm sure you want to know what happened."

"Yes." I responded before he could get the period on the end of his statement.

He smiled at me, with a crooked, but endearing smile.

"Alright, fair enough. The building was attacked," He studied my face before he continued, "By what I believe to be a group of extremists hell bent on convincing the non-extremists that civilization is collapsing."

"Why would they attack this building?"

He ignored my question, and continued with his theory of who, and why, the building was attacked.

"A perfect way to show that civilization is crumbling is to take down one of the building blocks, the economy," he paused briefly to allow me to reflect on understanding of the 'why' for attacking this building in particular, "By setting off an explosion in a major bank, they had high hopes of pushing that building block over. As if the economy struggling wasn't good enough for them, they wanted to give it another push."

After seven years of working in the same building, I all but forgot about the biggest bank in our nation that swallowed up the entire bottom floor. That would certainly explain the bomb-going-off look of the glass walls and marble floors in the lobby, but that didn't account for the bullet holes that toyed with telling a different story.

"What about the bullet holes?" I asked, not sure if I would get ignored again or not.

"Naturally, when there's a terrorist attack, we respond."

"So you killed them all?" I wasn't surprised by my question, anyone who could do such a thing to innocent people would get no compassion from me. I suddenly thought about the picture of the murderous woman that Jeremy showed me. Clearly the happy and innocent faces of those that these people killed meant nothing to them, so why should I care about them?

Rather than answering my question, he responded with a question of his own.

"Tell me Cordelia, where have you been all day?"

"In the elevator." I had no reason to lie to this man, unless he asked me if I was talking to a disembodied voice name Jeremy, then I would test his human lie detecting skills.

"The entire time?"

"Yes, I was trapped in there. Why didn't anyone try to get me out?" I raised my voice at him, a hint of anger and distraught stabbed through my tone.

"We didn't know there was anyone in that elevator, all of the other cars were recalled to the lobby floor..." his voice trailed off as he remembered something.

"You should be thankful yours malfunctioned and wasn't recalled, those that were in the other elevators were killed the moment the doors opened. The extremists shot first, and didn't ask questions later."

I held fast to my strength that I regained ever since stepping out of the elevator, for the room tipped to one side and my stomach and other organs flopped along with it. Instinctively my hands balled up into fists on my lap, scrunching up the wrinkled cloth of my black skirt. I fought back tears with every ounce of determined self-control that I could kick up, I did not want to cry in front of this man. I would reserve that right for when I was alone.

The memory of the man on top of my elevator rushed back to me with blinding power, I sucked in air as a hurried breath while I heard his descending scream all over again. If he wasn't someone to rescue me, who was he?

"There was a man, when I was trapped in the elevator, I heard him on the roof," I paused, it was my turn to allow him time to reflect on something I was saying, "He must have lost his footing, because I heard him screaming as he fell. If he wasn't one of your men..." I let my voice trail off, sure that the detective was a smart man and knew what I was asking, without me having to ask it.

His faced had changed from a grim bearer of bad news, to a man who had just heard a piece of news that solved a miniature puzzle in his head. Something clicked inside him as that piece snapped into place in-between its snuggly fitting neighbors. The expression lasted only a moment, and then his business face was back on.

I had a feeling I just witnessed a rare occurrence.

"He was not one of our men. He must have been one of the extremists."

This didn't make any sense to me. I still had no idea why that man was on the roof of my elevator.

"Why was he up there?"

Detective Halloway shrugged, and I felt like a shadow would be cast upon me with the lumbering movement of his broad shoulders rising and falling.

"I'm a detective, miss, not a terrorist. I don't know why they do what they do."

"I'm sure they would claim _you_ are the terrorist."

His eyes narrowed at me and the room felt ten degrees cooler, realizing my badly chosen words I added, "What with their agenda of taking down the government and causing the collapse of civilization, I'm sure they dislike law enforcement and all."

I exhaled a breath of relief when the door to the room opened and Mr. Green Eyes poked his helmet laden head in at us. He looked straight at Halloway and addressed him as sir.

"We've got another problem," he hesitated because of me, "We have a live one in another room," turning his stern gaze to me, I watched it soften as he flicked another one of those smiles my way, he nodded and added, "Ma'am."

And then he was gone.

Detective Halloway stood up, "Well, miss, it looks like you've been spared further questioning for now."

He nodded at me in the same manner as Green Eyes and motioned toward the door with one of his giant hands, permitting me access to leave.

It didn't take me long to scoot my chair out, stand up and leave the room. In a whirl of black, blonde, tan and white I moved past the detective into the hallway.

I heard his voice call out after me, "Cordelia, if you could please leave your contact information with my partner, he's standing outside, so I can follow-up with you regarding the man who fell, I would greatly appreciate it."

Now that was clever. He had no intentions of discussing the falling man with me any further, but he also knew that I couldn't fight the curiosity of an opportunity to learn more. Even if I knew there was no such opportunity.

I left my contact information with his partner.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

After being questioned by Detective Halloway, I was accosted by men and women who insisted with dogged determination that I be sat in an ambulance and whisked off to the hospital for a head to toe check-up. I gently refused at first, but lost my lady-like charm after the tenth invitation. I thought of myself to be a patient person, especially after the day I had, but enough was enough.

I had looked around briefly for the Green Eyed man, but found that Detective Halloway's partner was eyeing me with the same suspicious curiosity, so I smiled at the emergency personnel who approached me, and continued on my way.

By the time I got home, the sun had set long ago. It moved from this land to cast its glow and warmth on another land far away. I missed it. It had the ability to chase away the ever increasing chill that was slowly enveloping me. No amount of hot tea, coffee or hot chocolate could push it back into the depths of sadness from which it crawled out of.

I still missed Jeremy, I thought about him often, and wished desperately that I could thank him for saving my life. I also wanted to ask him why me. Why did he choose me out of the others in the other elevators? I wasn't anyone special.

My mind still flitted back to the SWAT member with green eyes. I didn't know much about him, I didn't even know his name, but those eyes I would never forget, along with his completely unabashed show of concern for me. I wanted to thank him too, but knew I would never get the chance to.

Two men in my life that were there so briefly, yet made such an impact on me that I knew I would never be the same. And I would never be able to tell them so, along with my mother, any news of a man that made me sigh and she'd be ordering wedding invitations.

I allowed myself to sink further into the little hole of cushions and pillows that I created in the corner of my couch. The TV remained off because I had enough chatter within my head, I didn't need anymore, and I had on only a small tabletop lamp next to my couch. It cast a bubble of warm glow around this corner of my living room and I was centered in its golden bath surrounded by mountains of softness.

My cell phone gently vibrated the couch next to me, not wanting to pick it up, I leaned over the corner of a pillow to catch a glimpse of who was calling me.

Right on cue, it was my mother.

I sighed, and sank back into my little haven, I would call her later, again. I had already spoken to her at least five times since I had gotten home, telling her every little detail so she could analyze it and spin her own resolution to the situation. I knew she had been worried about me, especially while reading news blurbs and blogs all day trying to follow the action.

But I needed a break. I also happened to leave out the little part about Jeremy, and the falling man. I just told her I slept all day while I was in there.

The phone stopped buzzing like a stuck bee next to me, content, I shifted inside my valley of pillows to make an attempt at getting further into the couch when the TV sprang to life.

I leapt out of my cushioned sanctuary and scattered pillows about the room in the process, leaving my living room to look like the aftermath of a dorm room pillow fight, minus the dorm attendants, and the dorm room. My living room was much cleaner.

Panting, I eased myself back down onto the couch and started to laugh, I must have pushed a button on a remote wedged into a cushion somewhere, in my tries at burrowing into the couch further. I plunged my hands in-between cushions to try to find the remote, but came up with pennies, dried food crumbs and fortunes from my favorite take-out joint. But the remote, I didn't find. I took mental note to vacuum under my cushions the next time I wanted to compare my living room to a dorm room.

Shrugging my shoulders I sat back and paid the attention to my TV that it deserved.

The news. Great. Like I needed any more coverage about the terrorist attack on my work building.

I was about to get up and change the channel, despite the arguments from my tired muscles and the persuasive hugging of my couch, when the news caster switched to a follow-up interview of a story that had broken earlier this morning, and was developing slowly throughout the day within the shadow of the attack.

I let my muscles and couch win this battle since this segment wouldn't be about the miniature war within the lobby of my work. I allowed myself to melt back into the welcoming softness.

The on-scene reporter was standing in a cone of bright, white light being cast by the camera crew's equipment further off screen. He held an old fashioned looking microphone that I raised my eyebrows at, surely they could have found one of the newer microphones for him, the style that you see clipped onto the reporter so they have the freedom to flap their arms and hands around to show enthusiasm in whatever they're reporting about.

"...standing here with the owner of the property. Who says that the rock came from the sky. We've been following this story all day and bringing you the first footage of the rock and the story as it develops, before anyone else."

I blinked at the screen as they showed pictures and footage from earlier in the day, when the sun was still present to cast it's light down onto us and chase back all the shadows. I recalled seeing a blurb about this rock found in a field during my early moments of being trapped in the elevator. The rock was the same in color and texture as every other normal rock, there really wasn't anything spectacular about it, other than it was in a field, and it didn't belong there. It reminded me of seeing pictures of giant boulders precariously perched in places that made you think, "Now how did _that_ get there."

"Now if you recall, and those of you who haven't been watching, we've played the earlier footage of the rock in the daylight, this stone looked like any other ordinary rock. Except that it's quite large. The owner of the property parked his full size truck next to it so that we could see the scale of the rock."

A picture flashed on the screen of a red Ford F150 pick-up parked at what I could guess to be two car lengths away from the now massive boulder. The reporter was right, you couldn't get a good idea of how large the rock was, unless something of normal size was next to it. It was monstrous. At least as tall as a small office building, say maybe three stories tall, and about as big around at its widest point as a regular sized house.

"Good, there, that was the picture from earlier. Now if you look behind us now," the camera zoomed out away from the reporter and tired looking property owner and focused on the looming boulder in the background. It was silhouetted by the dark night sky with the assistance of the rising moon. You could make out its egg-like shape in the darkness, the stony, but smooth edge creating a crisp, distinct line against the star speckled sky. It looked like a giant egg shoved into the ground, with one end pointing towards the moon and guardian stars, while the other end made its best impression of an ostrich.

"If you look back there now, you might have to zoom in," he told the camera man, who obeyed, "If you look very closely, you can see a faint glow coming from the base of the stone."

I was on my feet, inches from my TV and squinting at it before I realized that I was.

But there it was a faint, but noticeable unearthly bluish, white glow that seemed to be emanating from inside the rock itself. It ebbed and flowed like waves were sloshing around within it. It was stronger at the bottom for sure, where the stone had plunged into the earth, but looking even closer at it, you could see that it faded the further up the rock you looked. But it was there. And it was not normal.

I suddenly felt as though I was on the verge of discovering something incredible. My heart quickened its pace, tapping gently against the confines of my rib cage at first, but building in speed and force. My breath caught in my throat of which I was convinced was working against me by shrinking my airways to cut off the much needed air.

I could feel the eye opening discovery just on the outside of my reach of comprehension, and my brain continued to weave through its maze of thoughts, determined to come to the end, the mind blowing revelation that was just...right...there.

"So I'm standing here with the owner of the property again, and it's been a long day for all of us, but he's agreed to answer a few more questions for those of you at home who have posted questions on our website."

The cameraman forced me to stare back at the reporter and the very tired looking man standing next to him. I felt myself becoming frustrated, I didn't care about the property owner, or the reporter, I wanted to look at that rock again. Why were they focusing on the owner? Did they not care about the glowing stone that was blotting out the night sky behind them? Did they forget that rocks don't glow here on Earth?

Several things happened all at once. I didn't have enough wits left in me after today to sort them all out one by one. Instead, I just took notice of the blaringly obvious.

The banner below the property owner boxed in his name, little, white letters floating in a red background.

Jeremy Ruthers.

I couldn't breathe, I stepped backwards trying to get away from the TV and the man whose voice sounded oh-so familiar, even though I had never seen him before in my life.

"You're questions are all the same now, it's not going to matter how I word it, I saw what I saw, and that rock right there," he turned and pointed back at it, "that right there, is proof. I know that no one will believe me on what I saw coming _out_ of it, it wouldn't let me take any pictures of it, but it doesn't change the fact that...I saw what I saw."

He looked confident, but defeated as he finished his statement. I took another step back away from the TV as my heel found the missing remote, that I remembered nearly too late that I left it there earlier in the night from when I sat on the floor eating my warmed chocolate lava cake. Not wanting to crush the malicious thing, I yelped and stumbled backwards, landing with a bounce onto my couch which tossed the remaining pillows and cushions askew in their feeble attempt to launch off the couch and join their brethren on the floor. My cell phone flew up into the air higher than the pillows, its own attempt not so feeble as it thumped to the carpeted floor.

All of this happened simultaneously to a rearranging within me. A realization forming that wasn't missing any pieces of the puzzle, it just needed time and a gentle nudge to shift into place.

I never asked him _what_ he was.

Jeremy was mysterious and elusive in his answers, but the thought never even crossed my mind that he was that way because he didn't know any other way to be. Humans have a broad range of emotions and knowledge. And I already gathered that he was not human, which meant that he did not have the capacity to act like a human.

I remained how I landed, sprawled out on my couch and bore a hole into Jeremy Ruthers on the TV, as the reporter rambled on about reports, neighbors, and agents showing up.

He looked exhausted, his brown hair was pointing in every which way, and his eyes were downcast and weary as his day was coming to a close. There was no way he could have controlled my elevator while doing interviews all day. That would have been impossible. Literally impossible.

The rearranging within me stopped, and settled into place over my mind. My mouth slowly opened to form a perfect 'O' with my lips. I began to pick through my epiphany, like it was a magazine full of the most interesting and rarest things in the world, as the reporter thanked everyone for watching, and a commercial flicked on about preparing the perfect home cooked meal for your family, through an app on your phone.

Jeremy Ruthers saw something come _out_ of the rock. While he had no proof of this, I could see that he was tired of explaining everything over and over. He must have had contact with it, because he said that it wouldn't let him take pictures of it. It all flowed through my mind as easily as my day to day grind at work, Jeremy, _my_ Jeremy was from that glowing rock. He knew no other names than the name of the first human that he had contact with, so he modeled his voice and his name after the property owner who came to take pictures of him.

Jeremy Ruthers.

I started to laugh. Nothing else seemed right to do at the moment. An alien, or whatever he was, had come to Earth to save me. It was ludicrous. Outlandish. But it happened. And I missed him.

My phone had another stuck bee moment and flapped its wings against the floor at my feet, groaning out loud because I was suddenly reminded that I needed to pick up the phone and talk to my mother at some point.

I reached for the buzzing brick, pushing the button to unlock the screen, I stared blankly at it. And then my gaze lifted to the TV again.

The remote was never in the couch cushions.

I looked back down at my brightly glowing phone. It was not a phone call from my mother, but a text message. The sender was Unknown, but the message itself was not:

_I won't let anything happen to you_.

The End

## About The Author

CASSI GRAY lives with her husband, and their rambunctious yellow lab under the gloomy skies of Western Washington where she aspires to write entertaining novels and short stories for all. With her unique and creative style of writing she brings to life objects, places and characters like never before.

Behind The Voice is her first novella and she hopes you enjoy it just as much as she did writing it.

## Discover Other Titles By Cassi Gray

BEHIND THE VOICE is the first novella in her first series. Keep watching for the second book in the BEHIND THE VOICE series and be sure to connect with the author to let her know how much you enjoyed her first published book.

## Connect With The Author

Twitter: <https://twitter.com/CassiGray09>

Email: CassiGray09@gmail.com

Facebook:  Cassi Gray

Blog: Coming Soon!

