Chapter 6: Shadow…

Selene.

Everything goes blank. I sink into despair.

Am crying hard, clutching my thighs. I can’t see anything beyond my tears, my sobs. It’s like I’m falling into an abyss. Locked in these walls.

My body is sweaty now. I can’t breathe. My energy exhausted.

Am slipping, my mind falling into emptiness.

I pant.

I gasp.

Am thirsty.

My mind goes to Isabel. The voice comes on the speaker again. I barely hear it.

“Help.” I mutter to no one.

I keep muttering that one word. Hoping someone comes. The voice on the speaker drones.

The last sound I hear of that voice is a shrieking sound.

An otherworldly growl, shaking me.

My body is too mushed up to comprehend.

My mind messing with me. I drift into sleep, hoping to wake up from this nightmare.

Then I see him.

Just a sneak peek.

First the door, tears open; a deafening sound. That is, it rips apart.

A metal door of such composition, pulled from its hinges, without any hesitation.

A shadow, very quick and dark sweeps in. I don’t see it, but I feel it or him. I feel its tentacles, reaching me. Spreading inside. He’s picking me,

cradling me in his arms. I don’t feel a body, it’s all too quick.

Am carried out, in lightening speed. A gust of wind hits me hard, to tell the speed at which we emerge the elevator. We pass the people gathered

outside the elevator, reaching the foyer, where there are others.

Am dropped on the floor. And that’s it.

Someone runs to me. Holds me tight. I cough, my chest burning. Someone pushes water in my hands, I gulp and gag.

Puking the water.

Someone lays me on a stretcher. I pant, getting myself.

Somehow, my insides synchronize with the rest of me. I hear sounds now. Coherently.

“Ma’am, how did you get out? Anyone else with you?” Someone asks.

I turn. A paramedic asking the questions. I manage shaking my head. Someone screams ahead and everyone gives room, as five bodies are rolled out in body bags.

“They were found in the control room; their heads taken out.” It's one of the paramedics calling out to his colleagues. His face holds revulsion. “We need five more bags.”

“Who are they?” I ask, confused.

The paramedic with me holds me as I lean in to see the body of one of them. The head is peeking out, not properly covered. I gasp. I fall forward, puking now.

God, the maintenance guy at the elevator!

The paramedic rubs my back soothingly. Hands me some electrolyte water.

I rest my back after drinking it. There is much chaos around me.

Am listening to the conversations now. Somehow, those guys that were rolled in body bags, were the hijackers. They put the entire building on lockdown and no one could get in or out.

I find out I was in there for some time.

Apparently, I had fainted from the panic and had no idea time had passed.

Luckily no one was injured, just that some of us were locked in the elevator. I am taken to a free room, where I sit and wait to speak to the occupational therapist.

They called for the therapist, just to follow procedure, before some of us affected can go home.

I need it. I was there for an hour. A whole hour, and no one would have known.

Except for the shadow that had broken in. I hold the blanket tight, entering the therapist’s office.

“Miss Selene Joseph.” The therapist calls.

A curvy, fair woman, with her black hair. She’s wearing glasses.

Looks like a no nonsense person. I barely see her.

My mind randomly thinking.

Someone saved me. Something. A shadow.

“My name is Agatha Kimbo. Are you alright to speak?” She asks.

I nod. She nods and peruses the file on her desk.

“First of all, I am sorry for what happened. I can understand if you don’t want to speak.”

I smile. I want to speak.

She nods. “I am told that you were in the elevator at the 20th floor, when this happened. How were you rescued. No one could come in, the firefighters are still checking around, now they’ve had access here.”

I look at her. I don’t have the answer. I look down at my hands. They’re shaky. The trauma.

“Can I go back home please. I don’t feel too good.” I tell her flatly.

I am really terrified.

Hearing those words from the hijackers and the knowledge that I had been there for an hour, I am fucking shaken.

She regards me quietly.

“Alright, Selene. I’d leave some reports for you to fill and send back, when you can. The offices will be closed from Sunday the 24th till the 2nd of January. So you have enough time to rest and send them back,” she says.

I nod, before I quietly leave.

When I step outside, I see Kirk, my best friend. He holds me in his arms, as I crack.

I hold him tight, crying. My body shaking in spasms.

He guides me, walking us out of the office. The entire office is put on lock down, for the next 24 hours; orders from my brother in law, while the police do their

thing.

The police need to investigate the men's deaths; their identities. There were weird, marks on their bodies. And the way their heads were snapped. The cctv

cameras were taken down by the hijackers, so the police have nothing.

I listen to all this from Kirk, as he drives us in my car to pick Isabel from her playschool. He’s left his car back at work. He’d get it later. Thank God he was

around. I don’t know how I’d have managed.

I look at Kirk, attractive. His dark hair, rich. Although it doesn’t captivate me like Albert’s.

I shudder as I remember hearing Albert’s voice in the elevator.

I recall

the shadow.