The Sirphesto Show

The Elevator Game

On the stage of an empty theater, a man who wore black clothes and a top hat, in deep silence he spoke loudly when he stood before the empty seats of the audience and spoke before he sat on a chair which was placed right behind him.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls. Welcome to the Sirphesto show! Now then…. Shall we begin?”

 I honestly thought that it was just a game when I chose to try it up that day, I thought I would play along since my pride pushed me to do it… and curiosity got the best of me that day. Ever since that experience, if I were to choose whether to take such long stairs or take the elevator, I would definitely take the stairs no matter how far it is. I'm Charles, a normal highschool student with a normal life and normal friends, nothing seemed so new, in my everyday life. Not too much suspense or entertainment, but everything was getting repeated naturally. School, homework, classes, hanging out with my girlfriend and so on my life continued.

 One day when I was at school, after being done with the day as it was finally over, our group gathered to walk back home. It was me, gabriel, stella and Jennifer my girlfriend. When we were on our way back home, stella and gabriel spoke about something something so suddenly and out of the blue, yet they both seemed so enthusiastic about it.

"This elevator game challenge dude, it seems so freaking cool" said gabriel. 

And so jennifer asked in confusion of what both of them were talking about. 
"Elevator game..?" 

"Yeah! It's like a ritual that teleports you to another world! Many people have tried it and they commented about their experience with it" stella said as she wore an extremely hyper smile over her face, didn't really seem fun from her face. Me being the troll I joked about the whole situation

 "Let me guess, you go up and down until the elevator stops working, then you end up dying there because no one knows that you got stuck inside?" I laughed sarcastically, looking at both of them wearing long plain faces, staring at me with their eyes that seemed to say that I'm indeed ridiculous. 

"Joke all you want, dumbass" said stella 

"You know Charles, since you usually enjoy challenges, why don't you join us. Unless you want to chicken away, then it's fine" gabriel said so and smiled, yet again with that unsatisfying smile, that didn't do me any good. I stopped walking and faced the two of them. Pride, is a very bad enemy, but curiosity got the best of me. Being misjudged in front of my girlfriend, and especially by someone like gabriel made me want to punish him so badly… by proving him wrong. "I will take on your pity challenge, and when I manage to prove you wrong, I'll wait for fifty bucks to be in my pocket soon" I raised my voice as I thought he would budge and take it back instantly yet, he didn't. Instead he laughed along with stella, even Jennifer laughed with them.

 "Well of course! When you beat the challenge that is" I remember after that moment he started explaining the rules of this game, and excuse me I may not mention them correctly so no one follows it after me, but if you really much of a curious cat, you will find these rules if you simply search it up. Rule number one is that we have to find a building with a well functioning elevator and should have about 10 floors. Honestly that was too hard to find around our place, he said it's preferable to go for an abandoned building, as the chances of people using the elevator is too slim. But stella suggested that we hit the town's hospital, since it becomes awfully dead during night time, and the building contains 10  floors as mentioned. 
Rule number two, when entering the elevator, the player should make sure that no one enters with them, otherwise the player has to repeat all the steps over again. There is a simple pattern of buttons that the player should click on, after starting from the first floor. The player should follow this specific pattern when switching from a floor to another; 4-2-6-2-10-5, no matter what, the player should never exit the elevator until reaching the 10th floor, that's when the ritual succeeds. What made things even funnier to me was that they said there is a woman that will enter the elevator from the 5th floor, gabriel insisted that no matter what happens, I'm not allowed to engage her no matter what she tries to do or say, to engage me. If I do, the ritual will fail and something "terrible" is supposed to happen.
Mentioning that in front of Jennifer, made her a bit terrified so she didn't cooperate in the conversation that much.