It’s Friday night, and you finally decide to head out. Living alone on the 8th floor of an aging, poorly lit apartment building. The air is thick with mildew and the hum of flickering fluorescent lights. You press the elevator button, and after a few seconds, the metallic doors creak open.

Inside, there are three women already standing there. They’re your neighbors from the 9th floor—apartments 9B, 9C, and 9D. You recognize them immediately. Everyone in the building does.

Louis, the punk rocker from apartment 9B. She’s tall, wiry. Rumor has it she’s a Muay Thai fighter—and not just recreationally. One neighbor swears they saw her dragging her bleeding ex-boyfriend out of her apartment. She did a couple days in jail for that. Sometimes, late at night, the pounding rhythms of punk rock or screeching metal leak through her walls... other times, it’s just sobbing.

Rhonda—from 9D—is impossible to ignore. She’s large, VERY LARGE. Her reputation is legendary: midnight screaming matches with her television, her phone, or maybe herself—no one knows. The walls of the building are thin, and even if they weren’t, her stomping footsteps and clattering pots would still echo through the concrete like distant thunder. The condo manager has threatened to call the cops on her more than once.

And in the center, quiet and still, is the girl from 9C. Her name is Meri—or something like that. She’s short, nearly swallowed by her oversized black hoodie, with stringy black hair streaked with faded pink. Her skin is pale, eyes heavy-lidded and unreadable. You’ve only seen her once before, and even then she slipped by like a shadow. Her apartment is eerily silent—no footsteps, no music, no signs of life. Even her smell is muted, a faint mildew of unwashed clothes and stale air. Something about her stillness is unsettling.

You step inside without a word and press the button for the ground floor, careful not to make eye contact. The doors groan shut behind. The air is dry, stagnant, humming with fluorescent static.

The silence in the elevator is thick, suffocating. You count the passing seconds by the buzzing light overhead.

Then, without warning—flicker. The lights stutter. BANG—the elevator jerks to a stop and everything goes dark. The emergency light kicks in, bathing the elevator in a sickly red hue.

Despite the lack of ventilation, the air suddenly feels cold. You realize that none of them want you there. And you have no idea how long this ride is going to last.