I don’t remember hitting the emergency button—pretty sure that was Trevor. All I know is that the elevator had lurched and dropped a good foot or two, making my stomach flip like a bad carnival ride. Sparks showered the corners, and for a second, the overhead light flickered, plunging us into near-total darkness.

  Of course, it had to happen on a Monday.

  “Grab that rail!” I hissed, fighting to stay on my feet. The entire metal box trembled around us. My heart pounded so loud I could barely hear Trevor’s panicked breathing.

  Trevor, half-dressed in his rumpled office getup, clutched the side rail for dear life. “You think?” he gasped. “Because I was gonna stand around twiddling my thumbs while this deathtrap tries to kill us!”

  “Hey, sarcasm’s my line,” I shot back, forcing a grin I didn’t really feel. Above us, the fluorescent light buzzed with a pathetic hum, flickering on and off like it couldn’t decide which team it was on. “Could this day get any worse?”

  A metallic shriek answered, as if the universe took my question personally. The elevator jerked downward another inch, and a fresh wave of sparks danced near the control panel. My stomach twisted in raw panic.

  “Ethan, we’re—” Trevor’s voice rose in pitch, teetering on the edge of a full-blown shriek.

  I braced my shoulder against the wall, blinking away the bright afterimages from the sparks. “We’re not dead yet, Trevor.”

  He pointed shakily at the overhead panel. “No lights, no floor indicator. Are we between floors? Or in freefall?”

  I swallowed hard. “We dropped, but it’s not moving now… I think.” At least, not for the last few seconds, I added silently, glancing at the flickering overhead light. My heart hammered, a drumline of adrenaline echoing in my ears.

  Trevor fumbled with the control panel, jabbing at the ground-floor button, then the second-floor button, then anything else that looked important. Each press gave a half-hearted beep before dissolving into static. “Oh, come on!” He clenched his teeth, slamming his palm on the emergency intercom. “Hello? Anybody there?”

  A hiss of static answered, then silence.

  “Guess we’re alone.” My throat felt dry. “We have to force the doors. Or—” Another squeal of metal cut me off, and the elevator floor dipped just a hair.

  Trevor’s eyes bulged. “Don’t say ‘or.’ Let’s just do it. Now.”

  Hastily, we staggered across the small compartment. The overhead light blinked out altogether, leaving us with only the dim emergency bulb that cast everything in a sickly glow. My pulse thundered. Could we drop any second? My imagination helpfully conjured the image of the elevator cable snapping outright, plummeting us three floors down in a whoosh of terror.

  “On three,” I whispered, wedging my fingers into the narrow seam of the door. The metal felt cold and slightly slick, like it had been drenched in some nightmarish sweat. “Ready?”

  Trevor gritted his teeth. “I was born ready… but I’d rather be anywhere else, if that’s cool.”

  “One,” I started. “Two… three!”

  We heaved. At first, the doors refused to budge. A ripple of panic surged in my chest. Then, with a dull groan, the doors parted maybe an inch. A wedge of dim hallway light sliced into the darkness, a sliver of hope that made me want to sob with relief.

  “Keep going,” Trevor rasped, sweat beading on his forehead. We adjusted our grips, pulling with all our might until the gap widened enough to see the corridor. The elevator was indeed stuck about a foot below the second-floor threshold.

  “Oh thank God,” he breathed.

  We paused, panting. The metal door gave a violent shudder, like it might snap shut any second. A flicker overhead made me glance up. The emergency bulb was still on, but who knew for how long?

  “Looks misaligned,” I muttered, gingerly testing the gap with my sneaker. “We can climb out. Just—don’t think about the elevator dropping again.”

  Trevor barked a nervous laugh. “Right. I’ll think happy thoughts, like Gerald giving me a raise for not dying.”

  I snorted. “Gerald, giving raises? That’s the funniest thing you’ve said all day. Get a hand up. I’ll push from below.”

  With a nod, Trevor wedged himself through the gap. The moment his torso cleared the threshold, the elevator jerked half an inch downward. He yelped, scrambling to get his leg out. My heart lurched. If the doors slammed or the box dropped further…

  He managed to haul himself onto the corridor floor. “Now you,” he gasped, arms outstretched, trembling with leftover adrenaline.

  With a shaky breath, I crouched and braced my palms on the elevator’s edge. “Don’t let go,” I half-joked, voice strangled.

  The overhead light chose that moment to sputter again. The entire elevator shifted downward maybe another fraction of an inch. My stomach catapulted into my throat. “Oh, come on!” I hissed, ignoring the jolt of pain in my knee as I sprang upward, half throwing myself through the gap. Trevor caught the collar of my jacket, pulling me forward with a grunt.

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  I sprawled onto the corridor floor, panting like I’d just run a marathon. The elevator let out a final groan, then settled with a hiss of sparks.

  For a few heart-pounding seconds, we just lay there, side by side, gulping air. My head spun, my arms tingled with pins and needles, and I realized how close we’d come to being crunched between floors. This day, I thought, has no right to exist.

  “You… good?” Trevor wheezed, rolling onto his back.

  I nodded numbly, then forced a laugh. “I’m thinking an official complaint about the elevator. That’s, like, an HR thing, right?”

  Trevor managed a hysterical chuckle. “Sure, HR will love that. We’ll fill out a synergy form, maybe do a post-mortem if we’d died.”

  I let my eyes fall shut for a moment, just drinking in the fact that we were out of that metal tomb. The corridor’s fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. They, too, flickered—less violently, but enough to keep my nerves on edge.

  After a few seconds, I heard footsteps approaching. “Oh my gosh, you guys!” a voice blurted, tension thick in every syllable. I recognized Izzy—the young admin assistant who always looked like she was about to faint from stress. She skidded to a stop, eyes wide. “I heard something— Are you okay? The elevator—”

  “Alive,” I croaked, pushing myself upright. “Barely.”

  Trevor blinked, slapping dust off his pants. “We might sue the building if we survive the day, but yeah, we’re okay.”

  Izzy twisted her fingers together, glancing at the half-open elevator. “That’s so scary. Barry went to find maintenance. Claire’s trying to keep everything calm. The lights have been flickering all morning.”

  “You don’t say.” I exhaled, forcing myself to stand. My legs felt like jelly, but at least we had solid ground. “Is, uh, Gerald around?”

  Izzy winced. “He’s complaining about ‘operational synergy’ in the conference room. He wants everyone there, now that the computers keep glitching.”

  Trevor shot me a knowing look. “Told you he’d reference synergy. That man’s a meme.”

  I snorted softly. “Yeah, well, I’d prefer synergy over elevator death.” I rubbed my face, trying to banish the leftover dizziness. My mind refused to let go of that near-drop. We could’ve been lumps of flesh stuck between floors. Not the best way to start Monday.

  “He’s waiting for you guys,” Izzy said, voice trembling with leftover adrenaline. “He’s in a mood.”

  “Perfect,” Trevor drawled. “A mood plus an almost fatal elevator fiasco. What could possibly go wrong?”

  I fought a shiver. “Lead the way, Izzy. Maybe we’ll get hazard pay or something. Because I nearly—holy crap, we nearly got flattened.”

  She gave a faint attempt at a smile. “I’ll talk to HR. Not sure they handle this sort of thing, though.”

  As we turned to walk down the corridor, I noticed how the overhead lights continued their unholy flickering. The building felt… off. My nerves jumped at every stray pop from the wiring, every shift of shadows on the floor. Maybe it’s just my imagination. Or maybe there’s something bigger going on.

  Barry appeared around the corner, broad shoulders tense. He spotted us and exhaled visibly. “You made it. Good.” He jerked a thumb behind him. “Maintenance guys are messing with the breaker box. Might take a bit to fix that elevator.”

  “Understatement,” Trevor muttered, brushing past. “I’d say a bit too late, but hey, we’re not corpses.”

  Barry’s eyebrows pinched at that, but he said nothing. Izzy quietly explained how we’d had to crawl out. Meanwhile, my eyes flicked to the windows at the end of the corridor. A heavy blanket of storm clouds pressed against the Seattle skyline, the city outside tinted with an unsettling greenish hue. Weird, I thought. They said it’d just be drizzle. Did the weather decide to join the building in freaking out?

  “All right, let’s get to the conference room,” Barry said, turning on his heel. “Gerald’s losing it.”

  I forced a laugh. “When is he not?”

  Trevor patted my shoulder. “At least we have a story to tell, right? Elevator fiasco? That’s prime water cooler gossip.”

  “Sure. Too bad we might not have power for water cooler usage.” My voice sounded more bitter than I intended, but the near-death adrenaline was still coursing through me.

  We reached the conference room door. Through the frosted glass, I could see the lights flicker inside, casting jerky silhouettes across the table. Claire stood near the front, arms folded, while Gerald paced like a restless tiger. A swirl of uneasy tension clung to the air.

  I braced myself. Let’s see. We cheated death. Now we have to endure synergy metrics. Maybe the day can’t get worse. A hollow laugh echoed in my mind—some part of me suspected we hadn’t seen anything yet.

  Izzy nudged the door open, and we shuffled in. The usual hum of the AC felt stifled, replaced by this faint electrical crackle that set my teeth on edge.

  Gerald zeroed in on us, annoyance etched into every line of his face. “Finally,” he said, tapping a folder against the table. “We’re behind schedule, people, and these random outages are messing with everything. We need to talk about synergy goals, or the entire pipeline stalls.”

  Trevor opened his mouth to retort, but I shot him a quick glare. No sense picking a fight. I cleared my throat, ignoring the fresh wave of flickers from overhead. “Elevator nearly killed us. Sorry if that’s not synergy enough.”

  Gerald shook his head, exasperated. “Everyone’s day is disrupted. But we can’t just flop around. We have metrics to discuss. Please, sit. Let’s be efficient.”

  “Sure thing,” I murmured, stepping around the table. If only the building would do the same. Barry took a seat, arms crossed, while Claire offered a small nod of acknowledgment to us latecomers. Izzy hovered near the door, anxiously checking the lights.

  As I slid into a chair, my muscles still quivered from the elevator fiasco. The fluorescent lamps overhead gave one more harsh flicker, making my eyes water momentarily. I hope that wasn’t the building’s final protest. The smell of ozone lingered, an odd tang in the air.

  Gerald cleared his throat, launching into a speech about throughput charts and Key Performance Indicators. Classic. If I hadn’t just faced potential death by elevator, I might have dozed off. But I was too wired, too attuned to every hum in the walls, every shift of the lights.

  Trevor shot me a sidelong look, half an eye roll, as if to say this is the real torture. I almost snickered, but the adrenaline still thrummed in my veins, overshadowed by a nagging sense that something bigger was happening. The building’s flickers, the elevator meltdown, the storm outside—it all felt too intense for just an electrical glitch.

  Gerald droned on, oblivious. “—and if we can’t increase synergy by five percent, we risk stalling our entire Q4 projections.”

  I tapped my pen, swallowing a surge of sarcasm. Could be worse, I reminded myself. At least we’re not pinned between floors. The thought barely comforted me though, because that flickering overhead was a constant reminder that reality could pull the rug out from under us at any moment.

  Seconds ticked by, each one feeling heavier than it should. You survived the elevator, I told myself, so you can survive a synergy meeting. But deep in my gut, the fear lingered—like we’d only glimpsed the start of a much bigger meltdown.

  As the conference room’s lights dimmed again, I caught a glimpse of Trevor scribbling a doodle in his notebook: a tiny elevator plummeting from a stormy sky. Right beneath it, he wrote in big block letters: “TUESDAY MIGHT BE WORSE.”

  I almost laughed. We can’t rule it out, I thought. Because if Monday started like this, the rest of the week was bound to be a cosmic punchline. And something told me the punchline was coming sooner rather than later.

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