The Sebana Heir

Chapter 33

As they rode down, they felt as if the elevator was taking much longer to reach the ground floor than it usually did. The numbers above them were descending at a much slower pace. Ria kept looking up at the numbers. It went from 7 to 6, then 5, then slowly to 4; to her horror the numbers stopped at 4 and slightly began turning into a 3 then back into a 4. It started to malfunction and when the numbers froze, so did the elevator. Hayne stood up straight from leaning back against the wall, to press on the down buttons. He gave a puzzled face trying to figure out what was wrong with the elevator.

"What's up with this thing?" he mumbled to himself.

"What's wrong? What happened? Why aren't we moving?" Ria found herself feeling a slight panic attack. "W-Why won't the doors open?"

"We must be stuck in the middle of the fourth and third floor," Hayne guessed.

"Stuck?!" Ria cried, "No. No, no, no. We can't be stuck. Oh no! We got on the left elevator. This is the malfunctioning one. We should've taken the other one!"

"Don't fret, this might take just a few minutes, okay," he noticed the dire look on her face. She seemed to be deeply dreaded by their current situation. "Do you have your phone with you?" Ria reached into her bag with shaky hands and pulled out her phone. Hayne took it and tried the security number on the wall. "Uh....hey, I'm calling from inside one of the elevators of the building and we're in a stuck situation here................yes, we got on the one on the left........what do you mean there was a notice on the doors?" Hayne began to shout on the phone, "No, there wasn't............. Well it must have slipped off the door or something, look can you get us outta here or not?............ Yes, thank you.............. there's two people in here. Yea............. you are? Okay thanks." Hayne hung up with relief.

"What did they say?" Ria asked anxiously.

"Well, he said that he's just called the technicians and they're gonna try and find a way to get us out soon,"

"How soon?"

"Couple of minutes," he shrugged.

Ria decided to calm herself by the corner. She tried telling herself that she wasn't going to be stuck in there forever, her hands feeling sweaty and heart pounding hard in fear. Minute by minute, as time passed she couldn't control the rate of her pulse and she thought she could feel the four grey walls around her closing in. Her chest was heavily moving up and down and she couldn't bring herself to stop. Her mind suddenly went back to the time they'd get locked up in the small space in the attic back at Masylon. Where there was nothing but darkness and a small keyhole to look through. It had been mental torture, something way worse than the lashes.

Ria shut her eyes to keep from looking at the four walls around her, but even with her eyes closed the image of the orphanage could be viewed in her mind. She repeatedly swallowed in her saliva and took in deep breaths to control her heart rate. And before she tried to hide it from Hayne, he had already noticed the disturbed look on her face. It had been twenty minutes since they were stuck in there and she looked like she was going to throw up soon.

"Hey, you okay," he asked in his gentle deep voice. "Ria?" He was studying her body language then her head gave a rapid shake to his question. "What's wrong?"

"I....ah........I can't can't...." she tried to sound calm.

"You wanna sit down or something. You okay?" he kept asking, "Are you gonna throw up?"

"No, I just......... I don't think I can stand being in here anymore," she cried as her hand slid along the walls for support. Hayne quickly held her up but she tried to push his hands away.

"Hey hey, tell me what's wrong. Are you feeling faint?" Ria shook her head again.

"I can't ahh stay here too long.....hhm..... I just wanna get out of here," she pleaded.