Reapers by Kim Richardson

floating
and realized that the elevator was ascending faster than normal
speed.
    She pressed her hands on the sides to
steady herself and watched the panel curiously. The level four
button blinked on, and soon after, the button for level five, but
the elevator kept going.
    “ Um…David,” she said.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think we just passed our
stop.”
    David turned to the small tanned
primate with a hairless wrinkled face who was operating the
elevator.
    “ Dude, what did you do?
We’re supposed to be going to level five, and we just passed it.
Don’t make me hurt you, buddy, but I will if you don’t make this
elevator go back right now!”
    The operator shrugged. He looked
terrified and pressed the number five button again and again with a
shaking, bony finger.
    “ I don’t know,” he said,
his voice high and quivering.
    He hit the panel again
with his fist, but the elevator kept climbing. “See? I didn’t do
anything! I pressed level five, but it didn’t stop. It just kept
going by itself. I swear. I didn’t do anything.”
    He held his hands over his head and
cowered. “Please don’t hurt me. It’s my first day.”
    “ Well, can’t you stop it
or something?” said David as he loomed over the tiny primate.
“You’re the operator. Control it!”
    The primate raised his arm and then
hit a small red button with the word EMERGENCY written in gold. It
was the first time Kara had even noticed an emergency button in the
elevators. He pressed it repeatedly, and still nothing happened.
The elevator continued to climb.
    “ It’s like something from
the outside is controlling it,” said the primate helplessly.
“There’s nothing I can do. I’m sorry.”
    “ Do you know where it’s
going?” asked David, but the little operator shook his
head.
    Kara’s panic increased as the elevator
rose. The walls of the elevator felt like they were closing in on
her. She was having a panic attack. Where were they going? Level
seven was out of the question, and the only other level the
elevator could reach was level six—Tartarus. She was going to
Tartarus.
    The high council had never wanted her
back. It had all been a ruse, a trick, and she had fallen for it.
She didn’t blame Raphael. She knew the archangel had tried to help
her. She even believed that the archangel Ariel would probably be
on her side. But the high council had the final word, and now they
were going to cast her off to a gloomy dungeon.
    She shivered at the thought of the
cold, eerie, black walls, and the feelings of numbness and
abandonment that she had felt in Tartarus before. She remembered
the distant moans from the other prisoners whose hallucinations
were all they had left; these were what they clung to before they
plummeted into madness.
    She didn’t want to lose her mind to
the shadows of Tartarus. She didn’t want to lose David…
    Kara pulled herself together. She
wasn’t in prison yet. She was stronger than this. She wasn’t about
to let them take her without a fight.
    As she prepared herself mentally for
whatever was coming next, she watched the number six on the panel
illuminate, but the elevator didn’t stop.
    What was going on? Where were they
going? Who was controlling their elevator and why? If they weren’t
going to level six, then where was the elevator taking
them?
    “ What happens after we
pass level six?” she asked. She couldn’t help but wonder if they
were going to level seven, to see the Chief.
    David swore and kicked the elevator
doors. “No idea.”
    Kara started to relax. That was it. It
had to be. They were going to see the Chief. Maybe he wanted to see
her ghost-like appearance for himself. Maybe he had the
answers.
    And just when Kara started to smile,
the elevator bounced to a stop. Her eyes moved to the panel. Button
number seven was not illuminated. The doors swung open and Kara’s
smile disappeared.
    A man stood before them. Behind him
was a long hallway that branched out into separate