Pursuit of Level 14

I am the perfect fit for this job. They have no choice but to hire me. Now if I could just make it the interview.

It was hot. Too hot. Blistering, sweltering heat swirled around the cramped space. The aircon was surely turned to heat, with was usually for late June, but it was at least 40*C in that tiny box. Why couldn’t they just put on the cooling cycle?

 

Standing in the coolest corner I could find, sweating away my life in my business suit, I watched everyone else coming in and out of the elevator.

 

‘Level 14,’ I thought. ‘Come on Level 14.’ Why was the interview on the top level? Was it just to spite me?

 

I sighed and lent against the wall, surprised by how cool it was. I closed my eyes and listened to the hum of voices around me. Deep, gruff voices talking about stocks and shares. High pitches chattering away into phones. Babies wailing, suits rustling, phones ringing. And the constant elevator announcements screaming out every level except 14.

 

I realised that the elevator had stopped moving. I opened my eyes again only to see the gaping mouth of the elevator grinning at me. They opened and closed showing the same scene of the lower level carpark. This elevator was possessed. Some evil spirit had taken it over and had made us break down on the bottom floor just to drive me insane. In the heat of that metal box I might have been just hallucinating but it sure seemed as though it was cursed.

 

People around me began discussing the breakdown. I began to slide down, my sweat soaked back slippery against the cool wall. I was melting. Melting. Melting into a puddle on the floor in that stupid metal box.

 

“Ma’am? Excuse me ma’am, are you alright?”

 

I hadn’t even realised that I had closed my eyes. I opened them to see a man bending over me. The hallucinations were getting worse. Now they were coming to life and talking to me. A hand reached out a grabbed my shoulder I shrugged it off and slip down onto my side. The floor was cool as well.

 

Blackness was starting to hover in the back of my mind. Just as it threatened to overwhelm me I looked up at the hallucination of the man then past him to the glowing panel on the wall. The little lights around the 5 and 10 buttons were glowing, but that was it. As my eyes slid closed I realised that I had never even pressed the button for Level 14.