Stuck

EDITED: Jan.9  I have been searching for inspiration and found this prompt:two people who hate each other are stuck in an elevator for 12 hours.  What happens?  Please, Please, Please give me feedback.  I am trying to be more descriptive in my writing. 

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Of all the people in the world, why would I need to be stuck with her in an elevator?  All I wanted to do was ride this elevator down to the lobby so I could go to class and now that we are stuck, I will be late to class.  I have never been one to be early.  I am either just on time or late, but mainly late.  I wonder what class she is going to.  It has been forever since we talked last.  Should I say something?  This will seem like an eternity if no one talks.

“So…we are stuck,” I say.

“No shit Sherlock,” Emmy says.

Okay so maybe we can just sit in silence.  She is still the same bitch that she was before we stopped talking.  Why did we stop talking?  It has been so long I can’t even remember. 

“Emmy, what ever happened between us?” I ask.

She turns her head to look away from me, giving me the cold shoulder.  I walk to the corner of the elevator that is furthest away from Emmy and sit down.  I might as well take a nap to make the time pass.  I close my eyes and immediately have a vision of her killing me.  My eyes snap back open and I look towards Emmy.  Now, she is giving me the death stare.  I open my backpack and begin rummaging for some type of self-defense tool just in case she attacks.  After investigating every pocket, the most threatening thing I can find are my car keys and a dull pencil.  I just need to pray that she doesn’t have a pair of scissors in her backpack.  I move my keys and the pencil into my sweatshirt pocket and look back towards Emmy to see what she is doing.  She is still glaring at me.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asks.

I can’t tell her what I was doing.  If I told her I was looking for weapons then she would think I was trying to kill her.  Maybe it would be better if I was dead right now…then I wouldn’t be scared for my life. 

“Well?” she pries.  

“Just trying to find my keys,” I say.  “Just in case.”

“In case of what?  We are not getting out of here for a while,” she says.

“Self-defense,” I say.

Her eyes turn really dark and her eyebrows scrunch together.  Her hand reaches for her back pocket and I prepare myself for my last moments of life.  I cover my head with my arms because if she does end up killing me I would prefer not to see it coming.  I hear a very loud bang and the elevator jolts, causing my head to smack into the wall behind me.  My ears can’t hear anything and my mind tells me that I am dead.  I can’t move a muscle in my body.  I am stuck in this position for what feels like a very long time. 

Suddenly, my cell phone vibrates in my pocket.  My hand reaches for it and I realize I am not dead, but I still can’t hear anything.  I open my eyes to look at my phone and realize the elevator lights turned off.  The only light in the elevator is coming from my cell phone.  I have no idea where Emmy went.  I say her name, but I can only hear myself in my head.  I scream her name.  I use my phone as a flashlight and scan the elevator.  I find her lying in the opposite corner of the elevator with her back to me and her face to the wall.  I stand up to walk over to her.  As soon as I am on my feet the elevator drops.  The floor physically drops from under my feet and I am suspended in the air falling fast. 

The emergency break in the elevator engages and I fall hard into the floor of the elevator.  I lay there unable to move.  They must be trying to fix the elevator and I really wish they would hurry up.  When I find the strength to move, I roll towards Emmy.  When I touch her body she doesn’t move.  I quickly scramble to the opposite wall of the elevator, afraid that she is dead.  I reach to my pocket for my cell phone.  When I take it out, I realize that it broke when I hit the ground.

The sound of loud static begins ringing in my ears and I squeeze my hands over my ears to make it stop.  It continues to get louder and louder and I begin to scream.  I squeeze my eyes shut and continue screaming.  The screaming makes the static seem quitter.  When my voice becomes tired I lie down and curl up in a ball hugging my backpack.  I cry myself to sleep on the elevator floor and wake up in a hospital.

“How are you feeling?” the doctor asks.

I reach up to touch my head.  I have the worst headache I have ever had in my life.

“What happened?” I ask.

“You were stuck in an elevator for 12 hours with Emily Parsons and she died from a head trauma.  You suffered from some head injuries as well,” he says.

“Emmy is dead?  I killed her?” I ask.

I don’t end up hearing what the doctor tells me.  The static started in my ears again and I blacked out.  When I woke up again, no one spoke a word about Emmy.  As far as I know, I killed Emmy Parsons when we were stuck in an elevator together.  The doctor sent me home after giving me three different pill bottles to manage my pain. 

As I walk into the lobby, I can see the elevators off to the left.  The elevator we were in has yellow caution tape across the door.   My mind flashes back to when I touched Emmy’s shoulder in the dark.  Was she dead then?  If I killed her how did it happen?  My mind turns numb from the memories. 

I decide to take the stairs up to the eighth floor where I live.  As I conquer each flight of stairs, my mind stays locked on Emmy.  The last time I saw her, and will ever see her again.  I try to remember every detail about her.  Her long curly hair was pulled back revealing the blanket of freckles across her nose and cheeks.  She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, a casual look for a weekday.  Remembering her sweatshirt made me remember my keys and dull pencil; are they still in my pocket? 

I pause mid-step.  As my hand reaches for my pocket, I recall the doctor saying Emmy died from a head trauma.  I become frightened for what I am about to find in my pocket.  If my keys caused the head trauma, they would be covered in blood.  But wait, maybe I didn’t kill Emmy.  Wouldn’t I be in jail if I had?  I doubt they would have released me from the hospital.  I reach into my pocket to pull out my keys, but stop myself.  My left hand wraps tightly around my keys, and I continue upstairs.  I have one more flight to go before I am in the safety of my apartment. 

I take the last flight of stairs quickly and enter into my hallway breathing heavily.  I slow myself down as I make my way towards my apartment door, apartment 812; at the end of the hallway.  I take my left hand out of my pocket, and insert my key into the lock.  As I turn the key to the right, I look down at my key chain.  A flurry of red dust is racing to the carpet below my doorknob; the red dust, the blood of Emmy Parsons.