Into the Nothing「Nouis/Ziall」

Chapter 7

Things were not going great in the lift. Okay, I lied. Maybe it wasn’t of such good quality, meaning, yes, it broke, and the girls were now in between floors fifteen and sixteen. They first tried pressing the button that had a bell printed on it to see if they could get in touch with someone from the hotel, but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred everyone just blanked those urgent pressings, believing they were children that had somehow managed to get through security, and were now trying to annoy all the staff. Then, Danielle tried to ring Liam to see if he could get in touch with a hotel worked, but found there was no signal.

“...I don’t suppose we could force the doors open?” Eleanor suggested. Danielle shook her head.

“We’re in between two floors, so it would either open up to a wall, or to reveal a gap just big enough for us to fall to the bottom.”

Eleanor sat on the floor of the lift. She only now noticed how extravagantly designed it was, for such a cheap lift. There were posh pictures in neat little frames on every wall, and the carpet was red and fluffy.

“If there’s a fire,” Eleanor said. “We’re gonna die.”

Danielle decided to join her on the floor.

“Or, we could starve to death” she replied.

“Mmhmm. I don’t suppose there’s a chance something like a bomb would drop on us.”

“Yeah...set fire to year hair, poke a stick at grizzly bear. Eat medicine that’s out of date; use your private parts are piranha bait...”

Eleanor giggled at high light-heartedly Danielle was taking the situation. She’d never expected her to have started singing the ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ song – she thought Danielle was going to be more like Liam, serious and parent-like.

“Dumb ways to die, so many dumb ways to die..”

Eleanor sang softly. This time, Danielle chuckled.

“I suppose only Louis’ girlfriend could start a conversation about death and make it end funny.” She said.

Eleanor desperately wanted to say she wasn’t, but what was the point? Even if she wasn’t, Danielle was still Liam’s girlfriend. Instead, she replied with another laugh.

“Well, you started the song. Never would’ve thought it could come in use!”

Danielle agreed.

There was a comfortable silence.

“Ahh. Being in a lift reminds me of when I was a child. Did you ever press all the buttons just to annoy other people trying to get on?” she asked.

“So many times.” Eleanor replied, laying her head on the wall behind her. “I also remember calling random people with my friends that we found on yellow pages, asking them weird questions whilst pretending to be people we made up.”

“Yeah...everything’s so simple when you’re a kid, and then the real world hits you. Apart from Louis, who’s always a child.”

“Hahaha, yeah...” Eleanor really didn’t want to bring Louis up.

Suddenly, an agonising pain shot at her head. Eleanor had regular headaches due to problems of her own, but this was the worse migraine she’d experienced yet.

“Eleanor, are you okay?” Danielle asked, seeing as Eleanor had buried her head in arms.

“Yeah, yeah...I’m fine. Just a slight head ache. It’ll go in a sec.”

Danielle looked at her worryingly, until she decided to take action. She grabbed one of Eleanor’s hands, receiving a look of surprise.

“Trust me on this, okay? I know an effective way to cure headaches.”

Eleanor nodded, feeling her cheeks go red from the interaction.

“This might hurt a bit, but what I’m going to do is pinch in front of where the bone of your thumb connects to your pointing finger. This’ll make your body forget that the pain is in the head.”

Eleanor nodded again, her cheeks redder than a tomato. She looked away from her hand, only to find Danielle’s face in her view. It was one of those moments where she was so captivated, that she didn’t even feel Danielle pinching her hand, and only realised it was over when she saw Danielle’s eyes staring into hers.

“Oh, thanks,” she quickly said.

“No problem.”

There was a moment where the world seemed still. Turned out it was that Danielle had hugged Eleanor.

...