“I’ll have the presentation sent to you by Monday,” Jimin promised into the phone. “Okay. Thank you, Sir. Yes; see you then.”

He put the phone back into its cradle on his desk, and set about making his final preparations for leaving the office. It was Thursday afternoon, which meant he had one more day to deliver on his guarantee that his highly-anticipated powerpoint would be in his boss’ email by the following week. Jimin was a hard worker, but he certainly wasn’t about to waste his entire weekend sifting through boring reports and figures when he could be out with friends. He briefly considered staying a bit longer to get started on a few more slides, decided against it, and fastened the clasps on his briefcase.

“See you tomorrow,” he said as he waved to his floor’s secretary, who smiled at him sweetly from behind her desk.

Jimin pushed the “down” button on the elevator, and tapped his foot impatiently as he waited for it to come. He suddenly felt very self conscious standing there doing nothing right in front of the pretty secretary, and noticed that he was sweating slightly as he turned around to look at her. The woman was sitting there, typing away distractedly on her noisy keyboard, and not paying the young man any mind at all.

God I must look so stupid; standing here waiting for the elevator like an idiot.

He checked behind him again, but the secretary hadn’t moved.

What am I even saying to myself? She doesn’t care about me standing here.

He looked at the screen above the doors to the elevator, which indicated that the carriage was on the thirteenth floor. Jimin’s office was on the fifth floor, and he went back to tapping his shoe as he watched the needle sit there, idling on the higher number. After what seemed like ages, the elevator still hadn’t come, and Jimin thought that he had most likely sweat through his flimsy dress shirt at that point, so he abandoned the elevator in favor of taking the stairs.

❧

Jimin stepped into the stairwell, which was swelteringly hot, and immediately regretted his decision. Still, it would have been even more embarrassing to change his mind at this point, so he mentally kicked himself and started off down the stairs, descending them as quickly as he could in his rush to get out of the cramped space.

“Such an idiot; what was I thinking,” whispered Jimin as he hurried down the steps.

Although the office building was quite large, the stairwell that Jimin found himself in went only up to the sixth floor - one above the one where Jimin’s cubicle was located. The stairwell ended there, and to get to the higher floors by foot, one would have to cross the sixth floor to get to a different set of stairs. Before long, the young man reached the bottom of the stairs he was on, shaking his head at his own foolishness one final time as he grabbed the doorknob.

He tugged. The door didn’t budge. He pulled harder. The door stayed firmly in place.

“Oh, give me a break,” grumbled Jimin.

He stepped back to examine the door, trying to see if there was perhaps a lock he hadn’t noticed, or a jam stuck under the door. There was neither, so he tried the handle once more before accepting that the exit just wasn’t going to open.

“Great. Just Great.”

It was one thing to change his mind right after stepping into the stairwell, but Jimin had now been gone for several minutes, and he was sure that the small drops of sweat he had felt earlier had become puddles on his shirt by now. At the risk of looking even more foolish, he stopped to pull his suit jacket out of his briefcase, and draped it loosely across his shoulders in an attempt to hide the embarrassing stains.

By the time he reached the third floor on his way back up, it occurred to Jimin that he could just get out at another floor, and catch the elevator or even find a different staircase to take him back down to the ground level. Slapping his head with the palm of his hand, Jimin reached for the handle of the door to the third floor, which was home to the accounting offices. He had a friend, Namjoon, who worked on that floor, and thought that maybe he could play off his unexpected entrance as an impromptu visit to the other man before getting off work; maybe he would even ask if Namjoon was interested in grabbing some dinner before heading home.

❧

The handle turned, but the door wouldn’t open. Jimin jiggled it a bit, trying to get it to budge a few centimeters, but the effort was worthless and the door stayed closed.

Fine. I’ll go back to my floor.

Jimin was frustrated and flustered, but he felt certain that the door at his floor would be unlocked. After all, if it weren’t, then how would he have gotten into the stairwell in the first place? Jimin didn’t know why all the other doors refused to yield to his touch, but he was sure that he was going to make a few complaints when he got in tomorrow about both the slow elevator and the locked doors.

Make me look like a goddamn idiot in front of everyone; I’ll show you, stupid doors.

Jimin yanked on the door to his floor, and was shocked when it, too, didn’t budge. He looked at the sign next to it, and sure enough a big, white “5” stared back at him, informing Jimin that this was indeed his floor. He pulled on the handle again, and punched the door when it still wouldn’t move.

“Why won’t you OPEN, you jerk?!” he screamed at the uncooperative piece of metal.

Jimin slapped his hand over his mouth as he realized that he had just made things ten times worse for himself. Now, not only had he stood waiting for an elevator that never came, failed at the simple task of taking the stairs instead, and walked all the way back up to the fifth floor of the building; he had also made a fool of himself by screaming at an inanimate object. The poor secretary’s opinion of him had probably been thoroughly soured by this point, and Jimin banged his head against the door, praying for the whole, embarrassing ordeal to be over so he could go home, curl up into a ball, and die wrapped in the comfort of his own bedsheets.

The realization that he had made a fool of himself lead to another, more hopeful one, though, and Jimin quickly began knocking on the door, calling out to the secretary whom he now prayed was still there to hear him.

“Hello?” he shouted. “Is anyone there? Please open the door; I’m stuck in here.”

Silence.

“Hello?!” he called again, louder. “Miss Secretary Lady, can you hear me?”

There was still no response, and for the first time since he entered the stairwell, Jimin really started to panic.

What if I’m trapped here forever? What if they find my lifeless body at the bottom of the staircase; only bothering to look because my rotting carcass is stinking up the air vents? What if I don’t finish that presentation and I get fired AND I’m trapped here forever?

Jimin tried to shake these thoughts out of his head as he ascended the stairs again, making his way to the sixth and highest floor.

❧

Calm yourself down.

Jimin took a deep breath as he tried the handle. Unsurprisingly, it turned but wouldn’t release the door, and Jimin took a step back as the gravity of his situation truly dawned on him. He was sweating profusely now, and he could practically feel the liquid dripping down the bridge of his nose.

Just as he was about to start screaming, he remembered something else.

My cellphone!

He pulled the device out of his briefcase, shuffling aside loose papers and inkless pens as he found his salvation. The obvious solution was to call someone - even the secretary on his floor for all Jimin cared at this point - and tell them that he was locked in the stairwell and needed assistance. Jimin decided it would be better to dial Namjoon’s number instead, because although the other man might laugh at the former’s misfortune, at least it wouldn’t be quite as socially traumatizing for Jimin to explain to his friend how he had managed to trap himself in a staircase that was hotter than Hell - and humid to boot.

Jimin held the phone to his ear, already starting to make his way to the third floor landing so that Namjoon wouldn’t have to do anything more than leave his office and open the stairwell door, finally allowing Jimin to get on with his life as if nothing had ever happened. The young man smiled, preparing himself to laugh about the absurdity of the whole situation, when suddenly the stairwell lights cut out.

The entire space plunged into inky darkness, and Jimin watched wide-eyed as the lights on the landings of the floors below him cut off one by one, sending him into a world that was absolutely pitch black. The electric glow of his cellphone was the only thing that kept Jimin from falling down the stairs as he came close to losing his footing in the sudden blackout. The railings sent shadows sprawling across the walls as he recovered, again bringing the ringing cellphone up to his sweaty ear.

Okay. No problem. Just have to be careful and make sure I don’t trip.

The young man kept the phone pressed to the side of his head as he took several careful steps down the stairs, trying to focus on his breathing and foot placement instead of the twitchy movements that teased the sides of his vision.

❧

Abruptly, the phone stopped ringing. Jimin looked down at the screen to see that he had lost service, and cursed loudly as he turned around and went back up the stairs. He tried desperately to regain his signal, but no matter where he stood on the stairs, the phone remained worthless. Jimin moaned as he once again reached the sixth floor, not even bothering to try the firmly stuck door.

With horror, Jimin realized that he was out of ideas. All the doors he had tried were locked, screaming hadn’t helped, and now his phone was essentially useless. And to top it all off, the limited light from the mobile phone’s screen was hardly helpful as he tried to see in front of him, and the area behind him was still bathed in darkness.

Jimin sat on the top step, almost overwhelmed with the urge to cry, but he wouldn’t let himself break down. He would try again. He would yell louder. He would-

Scrape.

A noise, coming from somewhere below him, caused Jimin’s head to snap up. He waited to see if it would happen again, and wondered if it had just been his imagination.

Scrape.

That one was definitely real. Jimin felt his breath hitch in his throat as he listened again, his ears feeling like they were about to pop off of his head with the intensity with which he was concentrating.

Scrape.

It sounded louder this time, and echoed eerily off the close-together walls of the staircase.

Well, this has been really fun, but it’s time for me to get out of here now.

Jimin stood up and turned toward the door, which he started banging on and screaming at with renewed energy.

“This isn’t funny anymore! Let me out! Get me OUT of here!”

Thump.

A new sound reached his ears as something hit the stairs. It sounded like it was coming from the bottom floor - or close to it - because the noise was very faint, but Jimin was sure he had heard it.

Thump.

The muffled slam came again, and was followed by several repetitions as whatever was causing it made their way slowly up the stairs.

❧

Jimin let his tears loose at this point, the salty streams mixing with lines of sweat as both liquids fell down his face in buckets. He screamed, spewing utter nonsense at the still-locked door as a full minute ticked by, the thumping getting closer with each passing second.

“Oh, God!” Jimin cried.

The sounds seemed to be coming from the floor right below him now, and he shut off his phone, not wanting to look at whatever was making them.

Thump. Scrape. Thump. Scrape.

Jimin hid his face behind his briefcase and squeezed his eyes shut. His suit jacket had fallen off at some point, and he had no idea where it was now, so he used his shirtsleeve to wipe at the slurry of fluids on his face, smearing tears and sweat off his hot, damp cheeks.

Thump. Scrape. Thump. Scrape.

The source of the sound was on the staircase directly in front of Jimin, and the young man prepared himself for the worst, vowing not to open his eyes no matter what happened. Suddenly, to Jimin’s left, a light emerged that turned the blackness behind his eyelids a deep shade of red. He took the chance to look hastily in that direction, and saw to his amazement that the door had opened on its own.

Thump. Scrape. Thump. Scrape.

Jimin shot at the stairwell door, not daring to look in front of him, and dove through the opening.

❧

He rolled to a stop on the carpeted floor, his shirt soaked through and ruined, and sat up with a humongous groan as the door swung closed behind him. Jimin pushed the wet hair out of his teary eyes as he turned to look at the sixth floor’s secretary, her ponytail sharp and commanding, who was glaring at him as if he had three heads. He checked to see that he didn’t, scrambled to his feet, and pushed the elevator button as a laugh escaped his lips.

Mercifully, the carriage got there quickly this time, and Jimin stepped in - still laughing - and watched as the doors closed on the face of the stern-looking secretary. He slumped back on the dark wooden paneling as the elevator descended, carrying him to the brightly-lit lobby and away from his nightmare.

I got the idea for this story today while I was, of course, in a stairwell. I feel like I know a lot of people who are afraid of elevators, but I’ve always been more bothered by stairs. I fall on them all the time, which doesn’t help matters, and they do get to be unbearably hot at a rate that seems so much ridiculously faster than the temperature in the rest of the building.

On a somewhat unrelated note, there’s a really creepy staircase at my university that ends in an empty, high-ceilinged room that has no handle on the inside of the door you enter through. There’s another door there that leads to the outside, but that weird, purposeless little room is so freaky! I used my backpack to prop the inner door open the first time I went there because I was afraid that the outer one wouldn’t open and I would get stuck there forever.

✩*⋆Also, Happy 2nd Anniversary to BTS! ⋆*✩