The Lift
1106 Words
I snatched the backpack out of the elevator’s grip—zippers mangled, one strap torn clean off.
Didn’t even bother to fix it.
I turned on my heel and took the stairs two at a time, my blood running hotter than the coffee I just chugged.
The halls felt quieter than usual. Not peaceful quiet—watched quiet.
At the ground floor, I headed straight to the security guard’s desk.
He didn’t even look up.
“Something’s wrong with the lift,” I said, placing the wrecked backpack on his counter. “The sensor didn’t stop. It nearly crushed my foot.”
He shrugged. Shrugged.
“Not my problem,” he said flatly. “I don’t get paid enough to care.”
I blinked. Once. Then twice.
Then I slammed both palms on the desk—hard. The clap echoed in the small security cabin like a gunshot.
The guard flinched.
I didn’t.
“I have official numbers,” I said, voice steady. “Try me. I'll call them right now and tell them how little you care about tenant safety. Let’s see how fast you’re packing your desk.”
He finally looked at me.
For a second, I saw something flicker in his eyes—fear maybe. Or worse, recognition.
I leaned in.
“Call. Maintenance. Now.”
He fumbled for the phone.
That’s what I thought.
An hour later, the maintenance team finally showed up—two men in blue overalls, one younger, one older, both looking way too casual for a call that nearly took my foot off.
They didn’t expect me to be standing there, arms crossed, waiting.
“Problem with the lift, right?” the older one asked.
“Nearly tried to eat me,” I said. “Figure out why.”
They didn’t ask questions. Just opened their tool kits and started checking the system—panels, wires, sensors.
Thirty minutes passed. I didn’t move.
Finally, the younger one knelt near the sensor and pulled something out with tweezers.
Small. Flat. Metal. A piece of something that looked like it belonged inside a phone or maybe a computer.
He squinted at it, turning it over in the light.
“What is that?” I asked.
He didn’t answer right away. Then he stood and looked at the older guy.
They exchanged a look.
Too long of a look.
“This…” the older one said slowly, “...this was blocking the sensor. Someone must’ve lodged it right in front of the infrared trigger. Deliberately. Lift couldn’t detect motion, so it closed like no one was there.”
“Deliberately,” I repeated.
Like a cold thought rolling off my tongue.
The older guy hesitated. “Yeah. This wasn’t wear and tear. Someone placed it exactly where the beam was.”
I stared at the object in his hand. “Can I see it?”
They didn’t want to. But I leaned forward until they handed it over.
It was small, round, with faint scratch marks across the surface—like someone had carved something tiny into it.
Three vertical lines.
A familiar mark.
I’d seen it before.
On the article edits.
At the corner of the case file.
At the base of that milk bottle label.
Three lines. Like tally marks.
Like I was being counted.
I looked closer. The object wasn’t just some metal chip or debris.
It was thin, rectangular, with copper lines etched across one side.
Like a SIM card. Or maybe part of a key card.
“What is this?” I asked, already knowing they wouldn’t answer.
The older maintenance guy scratched his head. “Some kind of access tag maybe? Or a tampered sensor card? Hard to tell—it’s not part of the lift.”
“So it was planted,” I said flatly.
The younger one nodded reluctantly. “Looks like it. But we can take it and check with—”
“No,” I cut in, already slipping the card into my pocket.
They both hesitated.
“It’s evidence,” I added, “and I don’t exactly trust people who take an hour to respond to a threat.”
The older one opened his mouth to argue but saw my face and changed his mind.
I gave them a polite, thin smile.
“You can go now.”
They didn’t argue. Just packed up their tools and left, fast. The older one glanced back once, but I was already walking away.
As soon as they were out of sight, I took the card out again.
It wasn’t scratched—it was etched, on purpose.
The three tally marks weren’t random. They were burned in. Deep and deliberate.
And it wasn’t just a card. It had weight.
History.
I turned it over.
On the back was something else—so faint I almost missed it.
A phone number.
No country code. Just digits. Seven of them.
But I recognized the last three numbers.
They were the same as Yara’s birth date.
My chest tightened.
This wasn’t random.
This was personal.
I didn’t call the number.
Not yet.
Something told me this card wasn’t just about making contact—it was about what was hidden inside.
Luckily, I still had my old phone. The cracked-screen one I kept in the back of my closet, buried under socks and denial. I’d kept it as a backup for emergencies—or evidence.
Today, it was both.
I powered it on. It buzzed weakly to life.
No SIM. No Wi-Fi. Perfect.
Carefully, I slid the strange card into the slot.
It didn’t quite fit like a normal SIM, but it connected.
A new folder appeared almost instantly.
Unnamed Storage.
No password. No lock. Just sitting there—like it wanted to be opened.
My fingers hovered for a second.
Then tapped.
Inside were videos. Dozens.
No titles. No dates. Just thumbnails frozen in time.
And in almost all of them—
Yara.
Laughing in one. Crying in another. One where she was sleeping.
Another—walking down a hallway I didn’t recognize.
I froze.
She was wearing the same clothes she had on the day she died.
But the timestamp on the file?
Three days after her funeral.
My breath caught. A single word slipped from my lips.
“…What?”
I tapped another video. It played.
Yara. Alone. Sitting in a dim room. Pale. Blank stare.
She looked right into the camera.
Then whispered something.
“Don’t believe the time.”
The screen went black.
I dropped the phone.
And for the first time since this all began—I felt truly, completely terrified.
- Writer
