The blackout shut down the entire city, leaving strangers stranded in an elevator between floors.
“Guess we’re stuck,” she muttered, her voice cutting through the sudden silence.
A chuckle echoed from the opposite corner. “Looks like it.”
In the darkness, they talked. About favorite books, childhood fears, dreams they’d never shared—the kind of things you only admit when you don’t have a face to judge you. Her laugh was warm, infectious. His stories painted pictures she could see despite the blackness.
Hours dissolved into moments, or maybe moments stretched into hours.
Then—a mechanical whir, a soft ding.
“The doors are opening,” he said, emergency lighting flickering to life.
She hesitated, pressing herself against the wall. “Maybe we shouldn’t look.”
He laughed, understanding immediately. “What, stay mysterious forever?”
She smiled in the growing light. “Maybe just a little longer.”
But curiosity won, as it always does.
