Chapter 1
The elevator in Building 17 had no mirrors.
Nobody questioned it at first. It was an old place in a part of the city where things broke and stayed broken. A missing mirror didn’t even make the maintenance list.
But people started noticing something else.
The elevator took too long.
Not dramatically—just… inconsistently. A trip from the lobby to the 6th floor might take 10 seconds. Or 25. Or once, as Mrs. Iqbal swore, “at least a full minute, and it didn’t stop anywhere in between.”
Management checked the system. Everything normal.
Then came the complaints about the buttons.
“You press 4, it lights up,” a tenant said. “Then sometimes… it unlights. Like it changed its mind.”
They replaced the panel. New wiring. Same problem.
That’s when security pulled the logs.
The elevator was stopping on a floor that didn’t exist.
There was no 8th floor in Building 17. It went from 7 to 9—an old superstition thing from decades ago. The number had been skipped in construction.
But the system logs were clear:
Stop registered: Floor 8.
Doors opened: 14 seconds.
Doors closed.
This happened three times in one week.
No one reported getting off there.
No one reported getting on.
A technician named Kareem volunteered to ride it overnight.
“Probably a sensor glitch,” he said. “I’ll sit in it, run it up and down, log everything.”
At 2:13 a.m., he radioed in:
“Okay… I pressed 9 from the lobby.”
Pause.
“It stopped at 7… now it’s—”
Static.
“Now it’s moving again. I didn’t press anything.”
Another pause.
“…There’s no button lit.”
The security guard frowned at the monitor. “Where are you now?”
Long silence.
Then:
“It says 8.”
The guard laughed nervously. “There is no 8.”
“I know,” Kareem said.
The elevator camera showed him alone. Fluorescent lights flickering slightly.
“Doors are opening,” he added.
They slid apart.
The camera didn’t show a hallway.
Just darkness. Not shadows—just absence. Like the light itself refused to go past the threshold.
Kareem leaned forward slightly.
“…That’s weird,” he whispered.
The guard sat up. “Don’t step out.”
“I’m not,” Kareem said quickly. “I’m just—”
He stopped.
“What?” the guard asked.
Kareem’s voice dropped.
“…There’s someone standing there.”
The guard checked the feed.
No one.
“Describe them.”
“I can’t see clearly,” Kareem said. “It’s like—like they’re just outside the light.”
“Stay inside. I’m calling—”
“They’re asking me something.”
The guard’s chest tightened. “What are they saying?”
Kareem didn’t answer immediately.
When he did, his voice was… wrong. Flat.
“They’re asking which floor I came from.”
“That’s nothing. Just don’t respond.”
Silence.
Then Kareem whispered:
“…I don’t remember.”
The guard’s hand froze over the phone.
“What do you mean?”
“I pressed a button,” Kareem said slowly. “But I don’t remember which one.”
The elevator dinged softly.
Doors began to close.
“Good,” the guard muttered. “Stay in the—”
The doors stopped halfway.
Something blocked them.
The sensor beeped. Tried again. Closed halfway.
Stopped.
Kareem didn’t move.
“…It put its hand in the door,” he said.
The camera still showed nothing.
“Get back!” the guard shouted.
Kareem took a step forward instead.
“Wait,” he murmured. “I think… I think I know them.”
“No, you don’t. Get back inside!”
“I do,” Kareem insisted. “I just can’t see their face yet.”
The lights flickered hard.
For a single frame, the camera glitched—
And showed two figures in the elevator.
Then it went back to one.
The doors shut completely.
The elevator moved.
It arrived at the lobby 12 seconds later.
Empty.
They fixed the elevator after that.
New system. New wiring.
And they added mirrors.
Now it never stops at 8.
But sometimes, if you ride it alone and look closely—
Your reflection presses a button you didn’t touch.
