Only a few more hours.

I sipped my extra-creamy, lukewarm coffee at my desk. The workday seemed to be passing by more slowly than usual. Being an intern at J&J Enterprises was boring, to say the least, but it paid better than any of my previous retail jobs. It also required more time on the computer and less human interaction, which was how I liked it.

I'd been working for the company for the last few months while trying to complete my senior year college courses online. It worked for me. It wasn't that I was anti-social, I'd just learned enough from life to know that I'd rather tough it out on my own.

"Hey Emily, can you make sixty copies of this for me? Thanks," Richard, my fellow intern, said as he walked by, leaving another document on my already cluttered desk.

"Sure thing, Dick," I mumbled under my breath. Even though we were both at the same bottom-rung level in the company, Richard seemed to be convinced that I was his assistant.

Sighing, I put down my coffee and reached for the page. I had to partly stand up from my chair to reach the far corner of my desk where it was placed. As I did, I miscalculated where I was putting my coffee down and ended up dropping the half-full mug right in my lap. It immediately soaked my dress pants.

"Shit," I hissed as the mug fell to the carpet, splashing the rest of the coffee on my heels. It just added insult to the injury, but at least my coffee had gone cold.

Yanking open my desk drawer, I grabbed a fist full of napkins and started blotting at my pants. Of course, Richard had to come walking back at that moment.

"Oh. Spilled your coffee? That sucks," he snickered as he passed.

Thanks for the commentary. Dick.

I rolled my eyes and leaned down to pick up my mug. I was honestly a bit disappointed it hadn't broken. It was pink with a kitten on it and text that said "HAVE A PURRRFECT MORNING!" in bold letters. My older sister had given it to me when I'd gotten my internship, thinking it would be funny.

Sighing, I wiped the mug clean and blotted at the tan carpet, hoping the new stain would blend in with the pattern. I threw the wet napkins in the trash bin under my desk and decided to excuse myself to the bathroom.

My floor's office space was large and my walk of shame was past the majority of the cubicle-filled room. I shuffled hastily towards the entrance of the room, feeling the coffee soaked pants sticking to my thighs. Out in the hall, I veered left and practically ran into the ladies' room. I went straight to the sink, soaking some paper towels with water in hopes of getting the coffee out. Luckily, the pants were black, but smelling like stale coffee was not my first choice of how to get through the rest of the day.

I bent down to slip off my heels and my hair slipped in front of my face, sticking to my lip-gloss. Sputtering, I tried blowing the long blond hairs out of my face only to accidentally inhale and end up with a mouth full of strands.

This is not going well.

Normally, I really liked my hair. It was dark blonde and very thick. I liked to keep it long, but it was an absolute pain to take care of and it frequently got in my face.

I moved my hair back over my shoulder and slid off my shoes, wiping them down with more wet paper towels. After they looked clean enough, I slipped them back on and straightened myself up.

My cheeks were flushed and the hair by my waist stood up with static. I glanced down at my powder blue blouse and let out a groan of frustration. A few drops of coffee had settled into the fabric, leaving stains that I knew would never come out.

With an exasperated huff, I washed my hands and took more paper towels in an attempt to soak up the water from my now uncomfortably damp pants. After wasting more paper towels than I was sure was environmentally friendly, I left the bathroom. I hurried back to my desk and grabbed the document Richard had cursed me with.

"Emily," Cheryl whispered from the cubicle next to mine. Peeking around the faux wall that separated our desks, Cheryl pushed her glasses up her nose and gave me a kind smile. "The copy machine on this floor is broken, you should go to the third floor. The one on that floor is never busy."

She slipped back out of view before I could thank her. The middle-aged woman liked to be a mother hen to us interns. It was very sweet in a way, but I'd figured out most of the office's tricks after a week. I simply didn't have the heart to tell her.

I picked up the document and headed towards the elevator. The copy machine on the sixth floor broke frequently enough that I wouldn't have even bothered to check it anyway. I entered the elevator with three other busy-bee workers and pressed the third-floor button. It seemed that it was just not going to be my day because, between the fourth and third floors, the elevator stopped with a jolt.

My companions let out sounds of alarm. A thirty-something woman with pristine hair shrieked in panic. She looked like something out of a catalog in her trendy skirt-suit and impeccable jewelry. The crow's-feet at the corners of her eyes were the only indication of her age.

"What happened?" a thin middle-aged man with a receding hairline asked from beside me. I thought his name might have been Paul, but I wasn't sure. I only recognized him from seeing him in the break room from time to time.

"Elevator stopped," answered my last companion. All I noticed about the man was that he had a bit of a beer gut and that he was somewhat closer to my age. The guy stood closest to the buttons and glowered at them as if they'd put us in this predicament.

Thank you, captain obvious.

"What do you mean stopped?" the woman shrieked again, much too loudly for the small, enclosed space.

"I mean we're stuck," beer-gut man stated, proceeding to press all of the buttons.

"You know, pressing all the buttons isn't going to help. Just press that button there," Paul said, pointing to the red button at the bottom of the panel.

Beer-gut man pressed the open-door button a few more times for good measure before pushing the emergency button. Speaking into the intercom, he informed the emergency services of our situation.

"Sit tight, we are sending someone over right away. You should be out in no time," the voice on the intercom assured us.

"How long will it take?" the woman asked no one in particular, her hands fluttering to her chest. I noticed her breathing was beginning to get rapid and I wondered if she was claustrophobic.

"Long," beer-gut man grunted. His attitude suggested he was completely oblivious to the frail nerves of the woman next to him. "It'll probably take hours."

Paul at least seemed to notice the woman's deteriorating mental state. He gave her a gentle smile and tried to relax his own stiff frame.

"It shouldn't take that long," he soothed. "You heard the guy on the intercom, he said people will be here soon."

---

Three hours.

Looking down at my phone the text stated that it was 1:16 PM. That meant that I'd been stuck in the elevator for three miserable hours.

My pants had finally dried, but were stiff and uncomfortable as I sat cross-legged on the elevator floor playing with my phone. Paul, the kind middle-aged man sat across from me. He had spent the last forty-five minutes doing breathing exercises with Diana in a new attempt to keep her calm. I couldn't help but think that this would be a great beginning to a love story for those two.

Nick was a whole other story. Beer-gut man seemed to only get more agitated with each passing hour. He sat in front of the elevator panel pressing buttons occasionally and muttering to himself.

For some reason, we'd heard nothing from the intercom since the first time we had spoken to them. It had worked Diana up into a fit, but I figured that whoever sat on the other side of that emergency line must have better things to do than talk to a bunch of agitated, bored, and now kind of hungry office workers. However, after checking the time, I was also starting to wonder if elevator repairs normally took this long.

"That's it!" Nick snapped, getting to his feet. I guess he was done with the buttons.

Poor Diana flinched and jumped at the outburst. Paul shot Nick a glare before getting back to the breathing exercises.

"We need to get out of here. It's been hours! What could possibly be taking this long?" Nick ran a hand through his short dark hair in frustration. "You know what? I'm calling 911. This is unbelievable..."

He pulled his phone out of his pocket. As he dialed, I noticed that he grasped the phone so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

"It's busy," Nick muttered, his face crumpling with confusion.

"Busy?" I spoke up for the first time, immediately feeling alert.

Why would it be busy?

"Let me try. Maybe it's your phone?" I unlocked mine and tried calling. It rang twice, then gave me the obnoxious busy signal.

"It's busy..." I said, lowering the phone from my ear. I looked up and made eye contact with Paul. His bewildered expression probably mirrored mine.

"Told you," Nick huffed. "I don't know about you guys, but I don't plan on staying in here all day. I'm getting the hell out. Now."

Nick turned to the elevator doors and started to try and pry them open. This led to a complete relapse with Diana.

"Don't do that!" she panicked, then started to cry. Paul attempted to comfort her by taking her hands in his. It soothed her a bit.

"Stop it. That isn't going to help the situation. We just need to stay calm and wait. I'm sure there must be a delay of some kind. Maybe there's a fire nearby? That could explain why we can't get through to the police," Paul said.

It was clear he was trying to rationalize the situation, but I didn't buy it. For the first time in the last three hours, I found myself actually taking Nick's side. We'd been waiting long enough and something just didn't feel right. Standing up, I put my phone in my trouser pocket and wiped my sweaty palms on the front of my pants.

"I think we should at least try to get the doors open. No one is responding. Maybe we should at least try to see if we can get out through the doors," I suggested.

Nick's eyes met my blue ones. I think I'd caught him off guard, but he gave me a look of approval. I moved beside him and took one of the doors while he took the other.

"I really don't think-" Paul started as we began to pull on our respective doors.

At that moment, there was a scream.

Not one of the yelps of fright that we had been hearing from Diana, but a muffled scream that came from the other side of the elevator doors. The sound pierced the air and I felt my heart jump in my chest. Every hair on the back of my neck stood up from that noise.

What was that?