A nightmare! - episode 2

I entered the lift which had five other passengers. I pressed the number of our floor and waited for it to operate. The doors closed and it slowly started to rise. Suddenly, I got this strange feeling which wasn’t clear as to what it is. I just wished to get out of there soon. Within seconds, we reached our floor, lift stopped eventually. But the door remained closed. For a moment we laughed and waited to see if it opens. There seem to be some problem and it didn’t take much time for us to realize something was really wrong. At first it looked as if due to the power cut. But, the lift didn’t respond even after the power came. Within minutes, the building management realized the fact and came for our rescue. We could hear them saying not to worry and to be patient. This followed by some sort of noise that generated due to some instruments that they were using outside.

The power supply to the lift was not disconnected thinking this could block the ventilation system. But that wasn’t a good idea. Fifteen minutes passed and now we could hear lot of noise outside - this time it is our colleagues and friends who gathered around, anxious to see what was going to happen. Suddenly, the lift started moving upwards. After that, the frightening part came. The lift started moving in a harsh way like a scary ride that one can enjoy in some fantasy park. But this wasn't so joyful. We were frightened and so started shouting for help... We got the same response from outside as we could hear them saying “oh god, somebody please stop the lift”. We sat down to avoid any damage and started praying for our safety. And finally, they disconnected the power supply and thus the lift stopped. But, we were not aware of its position and anything related as there were no glasses to look outside like some of the lifts do. In fact we had one of those kinds in our company – just opposite to this one. I blamed myself for not taking the stairs or the other lift, after coming out of the seminar hall. Now, there was no fan and we could feel the heat. 30 minutes passed and we were still inside – in the middle of nowhere. Everyone had cell but there wasn’t network. Else, we could call someone outside to know where we are and what the situation is. The communication system available in the lift was also not working. And, now we couldn’t hear any noise from outside either. We were trapped. The lift was stuck in between two floors making it difficult for the electricians to do something about it. The entire lift was jammed between the four walls due to which we could hear nothing but our own voice. All of us tried our best to stay calm and relaxed. But deep inside our heart we all had this fear and were feeling restless to get outside the iron block. We were sweating due to the hot air inside and feeling thirsty.

One hour passed and we were still inside, just looking at each other and the door, hoping for it to get open. And in the last half an hour we haven’t even heard a sound from outside, which made it clear that the situation was critical. The electricians and the support staffs were trying their best to open one of the doors and see what can be done. But still, they were not able to get into the hollow space meant for lift movement. They feared connecting the power supplies as they were not sure about the outcome and the problem that resulted in this situation. It has been quiet a long time in there but we hardly spoke to each other. Everyone inside was tensed, tired and dumbstruck. Nobody was getting any topic that could have at least helped our minds to deviate from the situation.