“So, what now?” AJ asked. He looked around, as though expecting to find a response written on the walls in glow-in-the-dark paint. “Maybe this is a Jigsaw trap. They did say in the commentary for the first Saw movie that the bathroom scene was going to be in an elevator, but--”

“Shut up, I’m thinking,” Ophelia snapped. She flipped open her cell phone, intending to call for help. Oh, right, she thought, frowning down at it. No signal. So much for that. She sighed and used the light from her phone to examine the buttons of the elevator. “AJ,” she said nervously, “there’s no ‘call’ button or anything like that in here.”

“You’re kidding me,” AJ groaned, peering at the buttons in the dim light. “Who would do that. And why haven’t you know, the police or someone like that, why haven’t they done something about it? I mean, that’s illegal, right?”

“Yeah. It’s funny, I always joked about the people who own this place paying off the cops and all, but this pretty much proves it. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if this place was Diggory property.”

“Who?”

“You know, the jerk Charise was dating. You met him a couple times.”

“Oh.”

“We’re going to run out of oxygen, unless… hey, what if we get the door open? We could climb out to the second floor or jump down to the first floor.”

“Hey, that’s smart,” AJ agreed. “I mean, we’re probably close enough to the second floor to where we could get out that way. It would be, like, a one in a million shot of us being right exactly between levels to where we couldn’t get out either way without being hurt.”

“Stop talking, and help me with the doors,” Ophelia ordered, using her phone’s light to locate the door. “I can’t do this alone, you know.”


“Hey, since these elevators are so old, the doors are probably made from really crappy, weak material,” AJ said, grabbing at the door. He pushed and tugged for several seconds, grunting with effort. “Hey, Ophelia, you having any luck?”

“Barely,” Ophelia gasped. “We’ll be lucky to get the doors open six inches.”

With a great deal of effort, they slowly slid the doors open until Ophelia could just slide her hand between the doors. “Hey,” she gasped, sinking to the floor of the elevator, “you might be able to get it open the rest of the way. At least we won’t run out of air now, right?”

“Right,” AJ agreed. He pushed and shoved until the doors were a few more inches apart. He peered up and down the dark elevator shaft, and then turned to Ophelia, astonished. “Ophelia, remember what I said about that one-in-a-million shot?”

“Yeah?” Ophelia replied, wiping at her brow.

“Even if we get the door open enough, we’re too far up to jump down without getting badly hurt, and the second floor looks like it’s pretty high up, even if we tried sitting on each other’s shoulders to reach.”

Ophelia groaned and sprawled out in the floor in frustration. “Try yelling for help,” she suggested.

“Why me?”

“Because I have a sore throat, and you’re a lot louder.”

AJ sighed, nodding in agreement, even if Ophelia couldn’t see him. He took a deep breath and yelled, “Hey, someone help us!” He listened for several seconds, then made a face. “Nothing but an echo.”

“So, we’re stuck in here for however long it takes them to restore the power?”

“I’ve seen it take days in some places.”

“Okay, look,” Ophelia said irritably, “you are banned from speaking, as of this moment. Every time you say something like that, it ends up happening. I do not want to spend my weekend in here with you. What if I need to use the bathroom? I’m not going in front of you!”

“You can go out the crack in the door. I’ll even turn my back, even though I can’t see much anyway.”

“How? I can’t get my butt through there.”


“Calm down,” AJ replied. “I’m sure we’ll get out of here long before it gets to that.” He sighed and flopped onto the floor beside her. “So, have any good gossip? You haven’t been talking to me too much lately.”

“Well, Charise isn’t engaged to that jerk anymore,” Ophelia responded. “But as for whether or not she’ll stay away from him… well, that could go either way. She’s left him before, and that lasted a week at the most. He’s a really bad person.”

“Why? Is he an ex-con or something?”

Ophelia scoffed and sat up. “He should be in jail for the kind of stuff he’s done.”

“What did he do?”

“I’d rather not discuss it. Let’s just say that I’d like nothing better than for him to die a slow, painful death.”

“I’ll trust your judgment. So, what’s this I hear about you and… uh… what’s his name?”

“Cy. And Cy’s a ‘she.’”

“Are you sure?”

“Anyone who identifies as female, I call ‘she.’ I don’t do a pants check, you know.”

“How can you date someone like that though?”


“Same way you’re dating Tiffani. I’m dating Cy because she’s a good person, and I love her. She’s my closest friend and makes me feel better about myself. When I’m with her, it makes me want to be a better person. So, why do you date Tiffani?”

AJ replied, “Well, obviously, my answer’s not going to be as eloquent as yours was. It’s because I think she’s cute and fun to be around.”

“That’s all?”

“Well, I’m kind of young to be going ‘She’s marriage material.’ My chances of actually marrying her are pretty slim. People these days rarely marry who they dated in high school. I figure that for now, I’ll just enjoy things the way they are, and worry about the heavy-duty relationship stuff later.”

“That was a surprisingly astute response.”

“Thanks. What does astute mean?”

“Never mind.”