Gemotions

The lights flickered, plunged into darkness, and the elevator ground to a halt. Sarah gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. Beside her, Mark, a man she barely knew, mumbled something about a power outage. She fumbled for her phone, the screen stubbornly blank. Three hours. The thought clawed at her, a cold dread creeping into her chest.

Her breath came in shallow, rapid bursts. She felt a strange buzzing in her ears, as though she were underwater. The silence was deafening, broken only by the hum of the emergency lights and her own ragged inhalations. She kept glancing at Mark, his face illuminated by the faint glow, searching for reassurance. Finding none, she swallowed hard, trying to regain control.

“Are…are you okay?” she managed, her voice barely a whisper. He nodded, but his eyes, when they met hers, held a mirrored disquiet. She wanted to scream, to pound on the metal doors, but her limbs felt heavy, unresponsive. Instead, she swayed slightly, needing to sit, feeling a sudden lack of blood to her head.