𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐎𝐮𝐭 𝐏𝐢𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬 ➤ 𝑹. 𝑩𝒖𝒄𝒌𝒍𝒆𝒚

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍

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"𝙊𝙝 𝙨𝙝𝙚'𝙨 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙢𝙚 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙣𝙚𝙬 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨"

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𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟐𝐧𝐝, 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐲

𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐒𝐍'𝐓 just Dustin. It also wasn't a figment of their imagination — as much as Valerie wished that were the case because instead, the five of them were trapped in dim, metal cage-like room that was hurtling a hundred miles per hour into perpetual darkness. The room also wasn't a room, Valerie realised, a cold chill running down her spine. It was an elevator, and they had no idea what had launched it, who was controlling it — or where it ended.

She should've stayed home.

Surrounded by terrified ear-splitting screams, Valerie inhaled shakily as they seemed to swarm through the room, piercing her ears and ricocheting deafeningly in her skull. The whole situation was so out of place she'd be laughing if she weren't so frightened. She could pick apart Steve's urgent shouts from somewhere nearby and Erica's distraught cussing, loudest of all were Robin's harrowing shrieks that made her wince each time they rang out.

Valerie opened her mouth to join them, but no sound left her throat and she tumbled forward for the umpteenth time in the last few seconds they'd been trapped in this free-fall.

Before she could hit the ground though, a hand reached out to grab her. It managed to snag the lower part of her shirt and gripped the material tightly, pulling her back up. She felt her back hit the cold metal storage shelves and exhaled a desperate breath of relief as her heart jolted from the shock. Valerie begged it to slow down, there was no way she was going to die in a malfunctioning elevator from a heart attack. At the very least she'd prefer fatality from the impact of the fall.

Another moment passed and the lights blacked out completely, leaving them plummeting in darkness. Valerie felt her chest tighten painfully and extended both arms out, her left hand grasped a smooth cold surface that she assumed was a part of the shelve structure. It was rigid and grounding, but it didn't calm her in the slightest, so she relied on her right limb, blindly feeling around next to her for something, anything.

Valerie had never liked the dark — in fact, she hated it. As a kid, one of her most prized possessions was a nightlight Jim had bought her that doused the room in a faint blue hue as she slept. She'd never been superstitious, but Aminah had once teased her with a story about  Pocong, ghosts from Indonesian folklore that appeared in the remains of a traditional Muslim burial shroud, and that was enough to have her pulling the covers over her head at night. While her fear of ghosts and monsters had eased now, but there was still something unsettling about the dark, it was something she couldn't see or navigate, and this time, it was moving.

Her breaths quickened as she struggled to keep herself calm, and finally, a saving grace, her fingers brushed something soft. Frantically she seized it, abandoning the shelves behind her to allow both arms to cling to her newfound source of comfort.

Her body seemed to melt from the radiating warmth, and she buried her face into the soft material, she could no longer stand to stare into the shadows. She didn't look up until she felt the movement around her come to a halt. It almost seemed cruel and for a small while — Valerie wasn't sure how long — she didn't believe it, sure she'd just dissociated and imagined an impossible stillness. She was certain they were still falling.