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“No,” I say. “Something…seismic. Personal. It’s going to shift your life in a way that you don’t expect.”
“Something good?”
I try to focus on the feeling I’m getting from her, but it’s obscure. Muddled. “I don’t know,” I say. “You have mixed feelings about it. It’s a big deal, though.”
“That’s so generic.”
“Wait, shh. I’m getting more.”
“You are?”
“Yeah,” I say. “It starts with…something scary. Something that throws you off balance.”
She removes her hand. “Dom, respectfully, I think this is bullsh–”
I reach for her once more, my fingers wrapped around her palm. “No,” I say. “It starts with an accident. Something that has you fear for your life.”
“Okay, well…”
I’m sure she’s about to say something snarky, but she trails off…because the elevator starts to shake.
Alana
Thisisnothow I expected to die.
That’s all I can think of when the elevator starts moving again. It moves back and forth, back and forth, over and over again, until it thrusts me into Dom’s arms. We’re still sitting on the floor, and while my instinct is to get up and try to find a way to escape, I know that there’s nothing I can do.
We’re stuck in this fucking elevator for as long as it keeps shaking. At least we’re not way up. When the elevator finally fails and plunges us down, at least we won’t have enough momentum to fly up and hit our heads on the ceiling and die. I don’t know how we’re going to get out of this, and I also don’t know exactly how we’re going to die, but I do know that if we don’t get out of here and another aftershock happens, we’re shit out of luck.
I only notice that the earthquake is over when all I can hear is the sound of my heartbeat and the sound of our quickened breathing. That’s when I realize that Dom has his arms wrapped around my waist and is holding me tight.
“It’s okay,” he says into my ear, his breath tickling me. “It’s…it’s okay. It’s over now.”
I turn to look at him. “Is that going to happen again?” I ask as I try to swallow down the knot in my throat.
“I don’t know,” he replies. “I mean, that felt…out of the ordinary in terms of intensity. You’re not hurt, are you?”
I move away from him. He lets me go without saying anything. I kneel down and turn to face him, which isn’t my most graceful movement, but whatever. “Not hurt. Just shaken. Are you hurt?”
“No. Also just shaken,” he says softly. He grabs my hands and inches his face close to mine. “Listen to me. That could happen again. The electricity should’ve come back by now, but it hasn’t. We need to get out of here.”
“I know, but how?”
“I haven’t figured it out yet. But we can’t stay here in case there’s another failure. The generator should’ve come on by now…”
The last part, he says more to himself than to me. He’s right, of course. The generator should’ve come on by now. We shouldn’t still be trapped in this elevator. But we are, and I have no fucking idea what we’re supposed to be doing here. “We should call for help,” I say. “Maybe your phone can still call 911? Or whatever the equivalent is here.”
“Sure. I can try,” he says. He grabs his phone and dials 123 on his phone. The phone beeps for a second and the call ends. I swallow when the call ends. I’m so dizzy, I feel like I’m going to faint. He stuffs his phone back in his pocket and sighs. “Okay, listen. We’re going to have to ask for help, but obviously, that’s not going to work.”
“So we should just scream?”
“I don’t have any better ideas. Do you?”
I shake my head, standing up and walking over to the door. “Help!” I say. “Help us! We’re in here!”
Dom knocks hard on the doors. “Someone! Anyone! Can you hear us?”
“Help! Hello?”
