Marcus Caravahlo (_caravahlo_) wrote in horror_story, @ 2012-11-10 19:58:00 |
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Entry tags: | complete, cycle001, diana, emma, jenny, kostya, marcus |
Who: Diana, Emma, Ethan, Jenny, Kostya, and Marcus
When: 7 PM to roughly 10 PM
Where: Main elevator off of the lobby
What: Power out!
Warnings: Language, underage drinking, vomit.
Normally, Marcus might have taken the stairs for the exercise. There came a point in every day where three flights of stairs didn't exactly hold the same appeal for him, however. The day had been stressful to say the least, and curiosity had kept him down in the public venues longer than strictly necessary. Panic over the impending weather was no longer restricted to those with anxiety disorders. Eclipse staff claimed that the hotel was fortified, though the windows out front near the lobby seemed inclined to cast some very audible with every gust of wind. As his financial situation prevented him from pouring more of his meager savings down his throat at the overpriced bar, Marcus opted for going back up to the room for a while. Stress levels were becoming palpable, and it just wasn't fucking amusing to be stuck in the middle of it anymore. There was a passing thought towards tracking down the coroner and making sure the guy wasn't freaking out. Marcus hadn't seen him in some hours, so assumed the man was up on the third floor, as well.
He was first in the elevator when the doors opened, but he saw others coming so positioned himself so that he could hold the doors with a hand. A girl with long brown hair in braids almost stepped inside, but she hesitated when she saw him. Her black shirt had a pair of white unicorns on it, which conspired to make her look all of seventeen. Marcus flashed her a grin that was in no way reassuring. “Don't worry, chica. I don't bite little girls.”
Eyes that were already quite round to begin with widened to saucers, and the young lady instinctively recoiled from the elevator and headed for the stairs instead. Marcus snorted. Not his type, anyway. Far too young, and what kind of girl wore a fucking unicorn shirt over the age of ten? It was hardly a loss. When everyone had stepped on who seemed to want to be on, Marcus released his hold on the door, punched the button for the third floor with the knuckle of his right index finger, and stepped back to lean against the wall casually, arms folded across his chest.
---
Diana was restless. Not like it was that much of a change from the status quo, but being forcibly detained in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people by a freak storm? Combined with the constantly churning ocean in her stomach, it all was playing Night on Bald Mountain on her nerves. So, she’d taken to the only thing that alleviated the pins and needles in her feet (and got her away from Glenn), exploring the lavish - if bleak - surroundings. At the moment, the stairs looked less than inviting, regardless of the nervous little thing that darted past her from the elevators. Diana paused, watching the back of the girl’s head with a drawn brow; the same look that turned into the elevator to see what scared her off.
That well manicured brow then arched upward. Diana’s first tangible thought was circus freak, but she immediately banished that sour note with a pinch of self loathing and gave the elevator hulk a small, noncommittal smile as she stepped within.
---
Ethan had hesitated to enter the elevator as well, though not quite so obviously as the little girl in front of him. It was just so crowded and he hadn't expected so many people to be heading down at this hour. The only reason he didn't turn around and wait for the next one was that it would be decidedly weird to do so and people would notice and think he was strange - probably. He gave nobody in particular a polite little smile as he scooted to the side of the elevator, trying desperately to look casual while thinking he should have taken the stairs. It was logical to take the stairs in this weather, was it not? Now he regretted not doing that but leaving the elevator would be even stranger than backing away from it so he stood still and focused on breathing calmly as he slipped his hands into the pockets of his oversized, gray cardigan and stared at the wall in front of him.
---
Today fucking sucked. That was Emma's mantra. First, she woke to find that the partial pack of cigarettes, that had been in her bag the night before, had mysteriously disappeared. Second, when she'd made her way down to the lobby to check out, the person working the desk told her that transportation was still halted. At that point Emma had thrown her arms up in disbelief, frustration, and defeat. By the time she'd finished eating dinner --breakfast for her-- the sun had already set and she had nothing better to do than return to her room. It wasn't like they'd let her in the bar to drink, and that was about the only thing that sounded entertaining in the slightest. So she decided to make use of the decrepit old television set in her room. It'd taken to occasionally losing audio all together. That could prove to be interesting. Emma was the sort to insert her own dialogue anyway.
She'd contemplated taking the stairs. Usually she did because she loathed riding elevators that weren't empty, but she decided she was lazy. Instead of trekking up the stairs to the second floor, she made her way to the elevator --avoiding a younger girl as she bolted for the stairs-- and walked inside. There were people there already. Emma rolled her eyes and positioned herself as close as she could to the exit. She was bound and determined to be off the damned thing as soon as fucking possible.
---
Missing out on the seminar was a bummer, but Jenny was just trying to stay positive. She was warm and dry, safe indoors, and she could definitely be worse off than she was tonight. She believed the staff when they assured her that the hotel was secure, and she mostly tried to ignore the way some of the windows rattled against the wind outside, or the way that the lights seemed to flicker now and again. There wasn’t much to do for her around the hotel, she wasn’t a drinker although she had gone to the bar for lunch, she was a sucker for pub food. Other than that, it had mostly been an afternoon of light reading and relaxing.
To be honest, it was nice to be away from home for a little while. She missed Charlie and Chase both incredibly, but on the other hand, it wouldn’t kill them to take care of themselves for a couple of days. And it certainly wasn’t going to kill her to lay back and finish some novels. Even if she didn’t make it to the seminar, she could probably get some writing in. The boys would be fine, she did like to keep them on their toes. Getting some writing in was exactly what was on her mind as she made her way across the lobby and toward the elevator, her brain already running through ideas that she wished she could be jotting down somewhere. She had come down to the front desk to see if there had been any change in the weather forecast, and predictably, there hadn’t been.
People crowding onto the elevator wasn’t anything that bothered Jenny, and she waited politely behind the people ahead of her, moving aside a bit as the girl took for the stairs, before stepping inside behind the brunette in front of her. Jenny found a place, scooting in along the side wall herself, close to a stiff looking young man staring at the wall across from them. She immediately gave him a warm smile, before noticing Diana standing inside as well. Jenny’s smile widened, her hand lifting in a little wave at the older woman. “Good to see you again, how’s your evening been? Pretty depressing, isn’t it?” she asked, not really minding being the first one to speak up in the otherwise silent space.
---
“Держите!” Konstantin quickened his pace to catch the elevator. He was dismayed to find it fairly crowded, but that was better for him these days. It’s better to be around people, witnesses that won’t accuse him of something he didn’t do. He slipped into the elevator before the door closed and carefully put his back to the wall, looking over the group assembled. Sadly that kid that couldn’t walk on a wet floor wasn’t there. Too bad. Konstantin had all but decided that trying to scare that kid was going to be part of his entertainment being stuck in this storm. No harm could come of that, he reasoned. He hadn’t done anything wrong since he’d gotten to the hotel. If Tanner believed that would keep him out of trouble, he would try to believe it too.
The jackass that he and Tanner had met in the bar was one of the merry band. He was the only one he knew, but that didn’t surprise him. He hadn’t seen much of anyone besides Tanner, which suited him fine. He thought for a moment about striking up a conversation with the guy, but decided against it. He wasn’t worth talking to, really, it was just that he wanted someone to know he had been there and nowhere else. He was thinking like he needed witnesses. This whole murder thing was really getting to him. He had to shake it. It didn’t really have anything to do with him, he didn’t want it to spoil his honeymoon.
He tightened the grip on the neck of the bottle in his hand. He had no idea where the vodka he brought with him had gone, they drank it fast. He had only brought one bottle from the case he had his mother send him from home. He had expected to be able to hit a liquor store if they ran out, but that wasn’t going to happen. And liquor stores around there probably didn’t carry a good brand anyway. So the only option was the bar. He’d left Tanner in their bed and had made the trek all the way down to the bar to vastly overpay for poor quality vodka. But it was worth it. Not only was he more than happy to spend Tanner’s money (he’d told him to!) but drunk Tanner was always hysterical. And that never took much vodka to achieve.
---
Marcus threw both the blonde woman and the Russian knowing smirks, but that didn't carry much significance. He'd smirked at every single person who'd stepped onto the elevator, whether he recognized them or not. When he released the doors, they shuddered closed in a weary sort of way, announcing to all and sundry that they were old doors, and far past retirement age. The elevator’s motors made a similarly wretched groan in agreement. Mouth ticked downward in a distinct frown, Marcus tried to mentally calculate the weight of all six people. The elevator was big enough for ten, easy, but it seemed to lurch before it came to life around them. He didn't like that at all. Elevators didn’t unnerve him in general, but the creaking was pervasive. It didn’t inspire much confidence, even when the thing lifted. Worse still was the jarring, dying moan as it jerked its way to a halt before reaching its destination. There was a sudden, grinding halt. At the same time, the lights flickered out. All of them; even the normally illuminated button panel.
The sudden darkness managed to add even more volume to the large, tattooed man’s knee-jerk verbal reaction, which wasn’t exactly quiet in its own right. “The fuck? Gotta be fucking kidding me.”
---
After softly engaging in the young mother she’d made passing friends with earlier that morning, Diana had made herself small against the back of the elevator as it continued to gain passengers. Besides the mounting twinges of nervousness given to each newcomer and the hope that none of them were wearing a perfume, cologne, soap, or detergent that may upset her stomach in such a small space, the preacher’s wife’s thoughts were plenty distant from the elevator itself. Until it made that noise. And stopped.
Without realizing it, the thin-fingered grip she had on the rail behind her had gone white-knuckled - the other automatically found a protective spot over her abdomen. Ignoring the profanity from the massive man to her right, she turned a hard look up at the ceiling - like it would actually help or offer answers.
“It’ll move in a second,” she proposed quietly. Who really got stuck in elevators for longer than a few minutes nowadays?
---
Despite himself, Ethan had made a small sound in the back of his throat when the elevator stopped, a quiet, helpless one that embarrassed him for the second he had before panic set in at the darkness. The woman's words did little to calm him, not when she sounded as worried as he felt. Elevators were not usually something to be afraid of, but this hotel with all its stories and rumors flying around made for a frightening place to be stuck in one. It didn't help that said elevator felt old and he hadn't really noticed if there was a 'recently inspected' certificate anywhere in there. He pressed himself against the wall at his side, blinking and peering as his eyes got used to the dark. "There should be a button," he said, then cleared his throat as his voice came out a little rusty. "For emergencies."
He couldn't help but feel a tiny bit of relief at the fact that he wasn't at the side of the buttons and so it wasn't his responsibility to find said button and start an alarm. There was something decidedly unpleasant about making a lot of noise and he much preferred to leave that to other people.
---
Dread welled up in Emma's stomach as the lift creaked to halt. The lights going out only helped by making it harder to see the five other people in the elevator with her. The only problem with that was that Emma knew that there were five other people in the small, normally mobile, room. She became painfully aware of Marcus because of his size, and the fact that he'd exclaimed moments prior. She’d have closed her eyes, but that wouldn’t have helped. It wasn’t like she could see anything anyway.
The anxious feeling only got worse when Diana spoke. Maybe that was Emma’s fear messing with her, but she didn’t feel very confident that the scenario would play out that way. Forever a pessimist? Yeah, maybe.
“Here’s hoping,” she replied, eyeing what she presumed to be the doors. She wanted to will them to open, but with her luck they’d be in between floors or something. Fuck.
---
In the back of her mind, Jenny had been a bit wary of the elevator since her arrival. Her ride up from the lobby with the young man down the hall had been fine, but the elevator had seemed sluggish, even then. They had made it okay, but no part of Jenny would have been surprised if they hadn’t. So when the elevator began to groan and grind to a halt, she was nonplussed, but she gasped the second that the lights went out. That part did catch her off guard, and the only reason that she didn’t grope out and grab the arm of the nearest person to her, was probably because she had the foresight to realize that it would probably freak said person the hell out.
She was trying to squint through the darkness, toward the large man closest to the panel of buttons. “Yeah, hit the call button,” she agreed with the voice coming from close to her. The wall-starer, probably. “They’ll send somebody,” she added, trying to believe her own words. The staff in the hotel had seemed sort of.. lax, from what Jenny had seen. Who were they going to send to fix it? There had to be a maintenance person somewhere. She hoped. And maybe they could fix the lights while they were at it, though she doubted it. Losing the power had probably been inevitable for them.
---
Konstantin groaned when the elevator stopped. It wasn’t that he doubted that it would get going again quickly-- it was America after all-- but the longer it took, the more time Tanner had to cool off. He’d have to start all over again. Not that it was the worst thing ever, but he wanted to get to drunk Tanner as fast as possible. The unopened vodka bottle in the stalled elevator was putting a big hitch in that plan. And to be perfectly honest, it was putting low odds on the bottle still being unopened by the time he got to the room.
“It go.” He put on his most confident tone to assure whoever felt the need to take his assurance. He made no move to find the buttons or call phone. It wasn’t his job in the first place, and even if he did find a phone, he hardly had the English to be effective. Someone else could deal with that. He leaned against the wall, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness and counting his blessings that he was sure there were no mice in the elevator. Damn buggers did their worst damage in small enclosed spaces in the dark.
---
As the one closest to the elevator panel, the duty fell on Marcus to push the aforementioned emergency button. He did, several times to no avail, after whipping out his cell phone in order to have light to find it by. Nothing happened. The elevator didn’t move, and no comforting alarm was set off to alert anyone to their situation.
“Shit’s supposed to be on a fucking battery or independent generator,” he growled to nobody in particular, as he examined the panel for some other kind of call-out feature, thinking perhaps that he’d hit the wrong button. There should be fail-safes in place for this kind of thing. Emergency lighting, as well. Modern hotels weren’t supposed to fall into pitch black, even during a power out. Neither the alarm button nor the phone button seemed to want to work. They both depressed quite gamely when knuckled, but it didn’t do anything. When that endeavor proved futile, he tried using the cell phone to call out. “Fuck,” he hissed, happy to provide commentary for what was going through everyone else’s minds. Not one to sit idly by and wait for things to fix themselves, Marcus turned his phone towards the doors -- and by default anyone who happened to be standing between him and the elevator doors, who became the lucky recipient of another growl, this one an order. “Move.”
Marcus then muscled past, to see if he could force the doors open with his hands. Size and strength generally worked in his favor, but he couldn’t find enough purchase to get his fingers between the two doors, let alone pry them open. So he reiterated: “Fuck.”
---
Not only was this elevator stuck, this elevator was full, and Diana honestly was not surprised how quickly things got tense. After all, it was her own general state of mind, it wasn’t that much of a leap to assume others here felt it. The storm - that had to be it. Everyone was pinned in a place they likely didn’t want to be, and now here they were in the same situation again, only concentrated to an eight foot by eight foot space.
The preacher’s wife stayed quiet this time, her lips pressed into a thin line straight across her face and her body molded as close to the wall as possible, watching the big guy try to peel his way out of their metal cage. She knew it wouldn’t have worked, but hell if she was going to say it. Instead, the hand not guarding her stomach dug into her cardigan pocket for her cell phone. She had the hotel’s front desk saved, and brought it up in an attempt to make their situation known.
---
While Ethan was grateful that someone else was taking charge and trying to do something, it worried him how crudely Marcus was acting. It put him in mind of some of the awful people from his own past and how easily they would start lashing out in anger at others around them when things didn't go their way. Things were definitely not going Marcus's way right then and honestly, Ethan was pretty sure he'd get violent or crazy at any moment.
He caught the light from the cell phone and while he knew from his own experience that there had been no reception for at least the last hour, having a little light wasn't a bad idea. He picked his own phone from his pocket, the led screen barely a ghostly square there in the dark since he usually had it on a very dim setting. "There's no reception," he said quietly. "Does anyone have a flashlight or anything?" It was getting more and more uncomfortable standing there in the crowded elevator and while he couldn't see everyone properly, he could feel their bodies all too close to his own, hovering and too warm.
---
Had it not been a physical impossibility, Emma would have literally jumped out of her skin the moment Marcus growled at her to move. She didn't have much time to comply before he'd pushed his way to the door. She ended up elbowing someone and muttering what sounded like an apology.
Her eyebrows furrowed when Ethan spoke up. Instinctively, her hands went to her pockets in attempts to retrieve her phone, and she let out a sigh when she remembered she'd left it in her room. "I got nothing," she replied, turning to see Ethan's face illuminated by his phone. "Fucking figures."
She sighed a bit before speaking again. "You guys think it's just a blown breaker? Or do you think this has affected the whole hotel? If everyone's affected, someone might come looking for us?" Her gaze made it's way over the dark corners of the elevator, as if light were going to magically appear. "Maybe we should make some fucking noise."
----
Jenny was unsurprised as well that Marcus was unable to get the doors open, even if it had been that easy she had a feeling that they were between floors. They had never gotten to that proper point in the elevator ride where everything evens out again and it feels right again, ready to step off. It was too sudden, who knew where they were trapped in the shaft? Though she had been aware of the lack of service for several hours now, it was part of what had her wandering out of her room in the first place, Jenny noted the small pockets of light popping up around the elevator. She quickly followed the hivemind and reached instinctively for her purse, grabbing her phone from it.
“I’ve got a flashlight app on here somewhere,” she answered Ethan, already scrolling through her applications to try to find it. Really, it only utilized her flash, and it wasn’t too bright but it would be better than nothing. She turned it on, directing the phone and the light down a bit, avoiding everyone’s eyes. “I’m willing to bet it’s the whole hotel.. in this weather, I’m sure it’s not an isolated incident. Making noise couldn’t hurt, right? Someone will hear us.. someone will have to come eventually, they have to check these sort of things,” she said, before pausing. “Don’t they?” she asked, a bit hesitantly to the rest of the group.
---
Konstantin’s eyes were adjusting to the darkness. Most of his childhood spent not being sure when the electricity was going to work meant years of being in the dark once the sun went down. Not dirt poor, mind you, just not rich and not in a city. That’s all. He could make out most of the others standing around him, but that didn’t do anything for him. He didn’t know them when the lights were on and he still didn’t know them. Other than the dude that tried to hulk the doors open. He tried not to laugh. And almost succeeded.
He had left his phone upstairs, but according to others it wouldn’t have helped anyway. He had tried the reassuring thing and no one seemed to care. There was some chattering in English, but he didn’t really bother with it. He held a little tighter to the bottle and tried to convince himself that opening it now was a bad idea. He couldn’t come up with a reason why, though. This experience, as long as it lasted, would be so much more entertaining drunk. He unscrewed the top and took a drink from the bottle. It tasted like college.
---
“Want noise, chica?” Marcus asked, not knowing which ‘chica’ had made the suggestion, and not really caring. He gave a signature, amused snort, and then began to bang at the elevator doors. While he was not actually losing his mud, there was still the impulse to solve the problem somehow, and violence did tend to work for him. It was like slipping into a comfortable pair of shoes. Noise was certainly produced. The large man was strong enough to jar the elevator, so if anyone was within hearing distance, they would certainly be alerted to something being amiss, right? Of course, all he was accomplishing was giving himself a fucking headache, and risking a displaced shoulder or - God forbid - another boxer’s fracture, so the attempt didn’t last all that long. After about a dozen hits to the doors, Marcus stopped for reflection. Maybe that had been noise enough?
He huffed, not entirely disheartened, but certainly edging that much further down the road towards pissed off.
---
After the ear-splitting jangling of metal and whatever else the antique lift was made of finally quieted, Diana opened her eyes and finally allowed herself to breathe. She eyed the large caveman that thought trying jostling their cage was the best idea possible.
“Did anyone else hear bangs, groans, and other noises in this place last night?” she asked in the short silence, her voice tense but quiet. “Storm like this, I doubt anyone will come for any noise. They need to hear us.”
---
Ethan's heart was beating hard and fast after all the noise Marcus made, and that after the brief comfort of seeing more lights in the elevator. It really wasn't fair. Diana's words did nothing to ease his mind and now he was beginning to think of all the horrible things that could happen in a dark elevator full of strangers. He instinctively clutched the wallet in his pocket tightly, glancing at his phone again. "Someone will notice," he said, though his voice lacked the conviction he wished he had. "Someone else will need the elevator and notice it's stuck." In the meantime he worried someone would get violent, or the elevator would crash, or they would run out of oxygen somehow.
---
It was slightly comforting when Jenny's flashlight app kicked on. It didn't fully illuminate the elevator, but now they could make out people rather than just voice to unknown shadows. Now they were unknown outlines with partial features, but being as the lights were on, Emma could make out who was who. They were relatively in the same places as before, aside from Marcus now being in front of the doors.
Adrenaline kicked in full force when the elevator shifted under the momentum of Marcus' assault of the doors. Emma would have said something sarcastic, as per usual, but she had made the suggestion.
The conflicting statements from Diana and Ethan didn't get a response from Emma. She didn't want to think about how long they were going to be stuck. If she thought too much about it she was going to end up having a panic attack. She was amazed that she'd fought one off that long.
She turned her attention now to the other tall man in the elevator, the Russian. Though she wasn't entirely sure of his heritage. He'd exclaimed in a foreign language earlier, that was all she had to go off of. But Russian was a good bet, as she could now make out the smell of vodka, and the outline of a bottle in his hand. She'd not voice stereotypes. A Russian with vodka meant that it had to be at least decent vodka, right?
"Hey, are you the stingy type, or are you planning on sharing? Because I could really use a swig of that." She only hoped that he wasn't like the hotel staff here. Who cared that she was two years shy of legal age to drink in this country? Really? She'd only done one absolutely stupid thing when drunk. Everyone did something stupid once, right? Though if he shared with her, he’d quickly become Emma’s best friend. Alcohol had a way with taking the edge off of things. Especially anxiety. Well. As long as it wasn’t tequila.
---
The sudden and extremely loud sound that Marcus produced, seeming to shake the elevator all around them, had not been what Jenny was expecting. It successfully jangled her nerves a little, making her drop her phone to the floor. “Fuck,” she hissed, ignoring the usual knee-jerk reaction of chastising herself for swearing. She tried not to swear around her son, and being away from him was so foreign, she almost apologized. But they were all adults, she supposed, even if some of them were shaking like scared kids.
“She’s right, I think they’re going to need to hear us.. like, our voices. But we can’t shout all night,” she said, as she crouched down to the floor to get her phone. It would figure, a huge crack in the front of her screen. At least it still seemed to work, although now she was frowning. Despite her feelings though, it was natural to her to try to stay positive, even if it only made a couple of people feel better. It was worth a try. “Not that I think we’ll be in here all night.. or that I think yelling in an enclosed space is a good idea, actually. But someone will have to come. He’s right, someone will at least hit the call button or something, and then when it never shows up.. someone will have to come look. That must be some kind of procedure.”
---
Konstantin frowned at the bottle in his hand. Sharing wasn’t going to let it last very long. He wished he’d bought the two the bartender had, but Tanner never needed that much. He squinted at the woman that’d asked him but didn’t find anything that made him want to back away. Eh, a new friend was usually made over a drink. His mother had said that once. Or more than once. His mother had also allowed him to drink vodka before he could tie his own shoes, so she may not have been the best judge of such things. Not a drunk by any means, but old fashioned when it came to child rearing and being a Russian.
He handed the bottle over to her, but kept his eyes on her. “I have this little. Not so much, okay?” That was probably rude, but whatever, he didn’t have to be nice to every stranger, right? His vodka was at stake, it wasn’t like sharing food or water or something unimportant. And having to be contained in a small space with the large man that made horrible innuendos in English and shook the elevator car without purpose, he needed his vodka. A lot of vodka. Under his breath, he muttered, “Святой Николай, пожалуйста, избавь нас от этого ада быстро.”
---
“Mami, there ain’t nothing about this fucking place that goes by the fucking book,” Marcus informed the optimistic blonde, amusement shading his tone. “Elevators shouldn’t fucking stop in a power out. They lower, and open. Lot of fucking corners being cut here.”
Given that pounding on them had made no difference, he assumed leaning against the doors wouldn’t exactly be much of a risk. So he did that; folding his arms over his chest and pointedly ignoring the smell of alcohol in the air. That was un-fucking-fair, but Marcus was a do-unto-others sort, and he wouldn’t want to share his booze, either. It had been rather ballsy of the girl to even ask. He snorted when he overheard the muttered Russian. “Heh. Yeah. What he said. Chinga tu madre.”
---
Dear Lord in Heaven... Diana had been mostly quiet and still, not just for lack of space but for the quickly depleting fresh air supply once the foreigner introduced his powerful party favor. The very instant he’d cracked it open, her stomach had tied itself in knots and was doing its best to force it’s way up her throat. She’d done her best to ignore it, but dear god she was only human.
“I’m so sorry, but please, could you put that away...” she asked behind the curled knuckles of her hand, pointedly making eye contact with the Russian and the woman sharing the inopportune happy hour. Diana could only hope she wasn’t quite the shade of green she knew was probably coming.
---
Out of all the people to be stuck with in an elevator, Ethan just had to be stuck with foreigners, speaking foreign languages he couldn't understand. He rolled his eyes at the mutterings and sighed softly as he tried to get his growing anxiety under control. For how long had they been there already? It felt like hours stretching out, even if logically he knew it was only minutes. Was the air getting thicker? Was this sorry excuse for an elevator properly ventilated for a stay that dragged on this long? He pressed his hands against the cool of the wall behind him, focusing on breathing slowly and deeply.
---
Emma took the bottle from Konstantin and took a small swig. Nothing huge, or that she'd regret in a moment, but decent sized. She frowned again when Marcus' apparent knowledge of elevators was voiced again. Not being sure of his occupation, or general knowledge of anything mechanical (but that it had to be more than hers), she found herself silently agreeing.
She'd opened her mouth to speak when Diana asked them to put the vodka away, scoffed in her direction, and handed the bottle back to Konstantin. "I guess you won't have to worry about me drinking all your booze," Emma wouldn't have been sympathetic even if she'd known Diana was pregnant. The woman was possibly coming between her and something to numb her to the situation at hand. There was one friend Emma wouldn't be making. Though, at least she'd said please. Manners counted for something.
---
She turned her gaze to the top of the elevator, and squinted. "Hmm. Is that just a thing in movies, or is there usually a way out through the top of these?" She turned her attention to Konstantin, then to Marcus. They were the tallest, and Marcus seemed to know a little bit more about elevators than Emma did. "I mean, if they aren't going to come and get us, we might as well exhaust all our escape options."
---
Jenny couldn’t argue with anything that Marcus said. It was true, things like this shouldn’t be happening in the first place. Not in a competent hotel, anyway. But there was little they could do about it by smashing the doors and yelling either, it obviously wasn’t getting the attention of anyone outside. She didn’t have any other suggestions, really, and mostly hung back against her side of the elevator until the mention of a maintenance panel.
That perked her up a little, and despite the crack in the screen, Jen lifted her phone up a bit toward the ceiling. It didn’t illuminate much, and she couldn’t really see the top of the elevator much better with it’s help. She definitely couldn’t see or tell if there was a way out up there. But it made sense, the girl was right. They couldn’t give up without trying anything. “There might be something,” she agreed.
---
Konstantin rolled his eyes at the woman’s request and took a long drink before putting the cover back on the bottle. Americans were so damn delicate! He’d agree to her plea for the moment, but that didn’t mean the bottle wouldn’t be coming back out if they were stuck too much longer. He didn’t care how sensitive she was, being trapped in this small space with all of these people would go much smoother for him if he was drunk or at least very relaxed. The one little drink he had wouldn’t do it.
He looked up, but it just looked like a ceiling. “How we get?” He reached straight up, but didn’t touch the ceiling and he was pretty damn tall. He wasn’t about to lift someone on his shoulders but that was probably the only way that they could reach all the way up. His shoulder wouldn’t forgive him if he tried to lift something that heavy. And even if they did get up there, he didn’t figure it would do much. From what he’d seen on TV, up there was just a lot of dust and wires. Not a secret ladder to get them out of this little hellhole.
---
Only slightly taller than the Russian, Marcus didn’t bother making the attempt after watching Kostya try. He eyed the others - or at least what he could see of them in the light of the few cell phones that were out - but didn’t see anyone who seemed eager to start forming a human ladder. Frowning, he finally offered, “I can lift any of you fuckers high enough to hit a fucking maintenance panel.”
He couldn’t guarantee that there was one, that it would open, or that it would help them, should either of those conditional factors turned out to be true. Nobody in the elevator seemed like they’d be too heavy for him, however. The only issue that he saw was the doors. Even if there was a panel that they could open from their side, they still had the issue of getting to the next landing and opening the outer doors on that floor. Doors that tended to be designed specifically not to open unless the elevator was actually behind them, to prevent people from falling into empty shafts. If the elevator doors were difficult, he saw no reason to believe that the others would be any easier. All he said to this effect was, “Don’t think it’ll fucking help.”
---
At least they capped the bottle, but the damage had already been done. Now nearly every scrap of Diana’s concentration was going to suppress the wave of nausea that would threaten them all if it was loosed. Pressing herself against the back wall as thin and small as she possibly could, her eyes were screwed shut and the back of her hand glued firmly to her lips.
Count to ten, count to ten; one, two, three, four... Swallow, swallow, swallow.
Without realizing it, her grip on the rail by a skirted hip had gone white knuckled. Every shift of weight or irritated movement of the too-many people in the elevator, she felt vibrate through her spine and pool in the deepest part of her gut. She did her best to tune their voices out, to concentrate on the smell of her own skin and not the lingering vodka, the strong perfume of someone’s shampoo or detergent, the touch of cigarette smoke...
---
Ethan preferred to not be one of those fuckers that could be lifted, though he easily could be with his slight build. He certainly wasn't volunteering, unsure what he would even do if he survived being lifted up by a complete stranger - or anyone really. "Do you think there would be a maintenance panel up there?" he asked, feeling awfully brave for daring to speak at all to the giant by the doors. "It seems unlikely, improbable... Impractical, even." It was time to shut up now and he shrank back against the wall, checking his phone again to see what time it was. The minutes were going by painfully slowly and before long he was sure he'd start panicking.
---
"Well," Emma replied, turning to face Marcus. "There's only one way to find out." Remnants of irritation at being growled at earlier still visible in her expression. Unless someone else volunteered, she'd resorted to the fact that she was the most likely candidate to be hoisted to check.
---
“Check is about the only way to see,” Jenny agreed quickly, exhaling heavily and keeping her eyes up above them all. She still couldn’t see much up there, but it’d probably be easier if someone lifted her and she could see, and.. well, it didn’t look like anyone else was going to speak up. It could be dangerous, she warned herself instinctively. But if the elevator was going to fall or the cables were going to let go while she was on top of it, she was just as likely to die if she was inside of it with the rest of them. If something went wrong, it didn’t matter either way, she figured.
If there was nothing there, then it would be no harm, no foul. If there was something there, then she could at least check it out and see what could be done. He could be right, it could be a total waste of time and not even do them any good. And she wasn’t very tall, once she got out there, if she got out there. But it was getting a bit stuffy in there anyway, maybe at least opening the panel a bit would let some air in or something. “I’ll go, come on,” the blonde piped in finally, turning her head a bit to look at Marcus through the semi-darkness of their cage.
“Don’t drop me or anything,” she warned, though she was smiling weakly.
---
“Heh. Not a fucking issue,” Marcus responded, in an offhand way. As far as he was concerned, it was a waste of fucking time, but all they really had was time until the power came back on or the doors were pried open. Might as well spend it manhandling the little blonde author. Of course, getting her up on his shoulders was going to take some doing, and would likely involve jostling others. More effort than copping a feel in the dark was really worth; however, it wasn’t as if it put him out to give it a shot. Maybe the movies weren’t full of shit and there was some kind of maintenance ladder that was easily accessible, and a clear path to an exit. Odds weren’t great on that, but he’d played worse odds before.
Assuming little Miss-Only-Writes-and-Doesn’t-Work-Out could actually get anything open. He couldn’t really see for shit, so didn’t notice that there was a woman about to be sick. Marcus just crouched down and flashed his teeth at the blonde. There was a token “You ready, mamacita?” before he instructed her to basically climb up onto his back and sit on his shoulders to get the most height. Once she’d done that, he could stand and they’d see if she could actually reach the roof of the elevator.
---
Konstantin shook his head. What exactly was she even going to do provided she got anything open? Was she expecting a switch that said ‘spare elevator power’ that she could just flip? Things never worked out that way. He was getting restless and it was getting harder to ignore the stupid. The space was small and the people in there were as annoying as Americans usually were. He took another swing of his vodka before remembering that one of the women had asked him to close it. Whatever. He put the cap back on the bottle anyway.
“How you think that help? What you do ‘side sit on him?” He tried not to let his voice get too condescending, but really, it was a stupid idea. He got why the guy was doing it and it didn’t have anything to do with the elevator and more to do with the girl’s legs. But why she was doing it was a mystery to him. “You....” He frowned. What was the damn word? “You.... электрик? You know to fix a thing as this?” He looked up at the woman, but doubted that she could see the expression on his face. It was just as well. Dumb Americans. He took another swig of his vodka.
---
“Shut the fuck up,” Marcus growled, more irritated with the Russian heckling than he was with the weight on his shoulders. The man was absolutely right, however, and holding the woman up was proving to be more trouble than it was strictly worth. When her initial fumblings did not have the desired results, he decided to put her down before he did actually drop her. It wasn’t a graceful, or particularly careful process. Several people were pushed out of the way as the bitch got down... leading to the very distinct sound of someone retching, followed by the smell of vomit.
Fucking wonderful.
Ideally, the doors would have opened then, just to rescue them all from the smell. They did not. Even Marcus was forced to go quiet, lest he suffer the loss of his own dinner. Like everyone else, he tried to move away from it, but there wasn’t anywhere to go. They were stuck.
---
After three hours without power, the emergency generator located in the sub-basement of The Eclipse finally kicked on. While the overhead lights in the elevator and the hallways stayed dark, the elevator groaned back into life. It descended to the lobby floor and opened its doors to release its hostages into the general panic of the darkened hotel.