No Way Out

"It's still the same..."

The news reached the maintenance worker, who looked at the normally functioning electrical box and shook his head. He then took a flashlight and illuminated the shaft next to him.

"If this doesn't work, the only way I can think of is to go back to the top of the building, descend from the top of the elevator, and manually restart the elevator to figure out what's going wrong."

In the surveillance room, the guards looked and responded shortly after, "You have to do that; call us when you start."

"Okay, wait for my news."

Dwigth, with the worn-out radio in hand, looked at the cable shaft. He had a very strange feeling in his heart. He always felt like there was something inside. The more he looked, the stranger he felt. The more he thought about something that shouldn't be there, the more he felt déjà vu.

So, he approached carefully while observing. But before reaching it, a sudden and strange sound came from the tiles, startling him.

"What the hell!" Dwigth cursed and illuminated the interior with the flashlight, but visibility in the compartment was even lower than outside, so he couldn't see everything.

He continued to approach until he entered the hole directly, and this time he finally saw something making a strange noise.

It was several twisted steel cables due to a force pulling them taut.

Dwigth widened his eyes, looked at the elevator above his head, and when he realized what was happening, he cursed loudly.

"Oh! Damn!! Damn it!"

Following his voice, the tense cable was suddenly thrown towards him.

...

Surveillance room.

The two security guards staring at the monitoring screen only had two options. One is to wait for the police to arrive, and the other is to wait for Dwigth, the maintenance worker, to climb onto the elevator roof to fix the problem that cannot be solved from below. So, the only thing the two could do was look at the monitoring screen and keep waiting.

Perhaps because they were impatient to wait, one of the guards also began to feel impatient.

"The police are in the building; they will be up anytime!"

The situation in the elevator was the same as before. The lights kept flickering, and the civilians inside seemed to be saying something, but no sound was heard.

One of the guards looked at all this, and unable to bear the wait, he pulled out his cross and prayed for the innocent passengers inside.

"God, please bless these poor people."

However, just as he took out the cross to pray, in the residual image left by the flickering light, he seemed to see a skull composed of residual images.

"What was that?"

One of the guards stared at the monitoring screen, feeling dazzled. He blinked; the lights kept flickering, but the skull was no longer there.

"What's going on?" The other guard heard Ronald's movement and looked at him.

"Friend, what did you find?"

Although he couldn't see it, the scene that just happened left visible fear on the face of his companion, who tightly gripped the cross and stared at the monitoring screen.

"This is the work of the devil."

His companion paid no attention and looked at the other surveillance screens. Looking at the scenes inside, his tone relaxed, and he murmured, "It seems that the police are coming up."

...

Inside the building.

"This place has become a crime scene. As per the initial protocol, I want all entrances and exits sealed, as well as crowd dispersal."

"And bring me the entry and exit log book." Bowden immediately gave orders to Derek's partner after entering the building and learning about the situation with more complexity.

After this building came under direct police control, Bowden, along with Derek, headed to the monitoring room and immediately saw what was happening inside the elevator.

"Nothing noteworthy to report before we arrived, right?"

One of the guards responded, saying everything.

"Nothing noteworthy to mention, just a serious problem with the lighting that hasn't been solved. Until now, our maintenance workers have been working on fixing it."

"Hmm, do we have communication with them?" Bowden gave a glance to the guard in front of the screens.

"They can hear us, but we can't hear them."

As soon as he heard "maintenance man," Bowden stared fixedly at the monitoring screen and looked at his companion. Before coming, they had already analyzed in advance that the killer inside could kill people in the elevator. It was suspected that this maintenance man was the contact from both inside and outside.

"Where is your maintenance man now?"

The guard fell silent, not understanding what the detective meant, and looked at his companion beside him.

"Dwigth, he's probably still in the basement, and if he can't be found there, he should be going up to the elevator roof."

Upon hearing this, Bowden nodded to Derek beside him, who instantly understood. He gestured with his hand and quickly left the monitoring room with several police officers.

"Detective, what's going on?"

Bowden didn't respond, took the radio they used to contact the people in the elevator, looked at the monitoring screen, and pressed the button to communicate.

"I'm Detective Bowden from the police department... For now, what I can tell you is the same as what you've heard so far. We'll focus on getting you out, and that won't take much time."

Bowden closed his eyes for a moment and said, "What I'm going to ask you is that everyone must remain calm. Everyone will listen to me and do as I say. I want each of you to take out your identification to prove your identity and show it to the camera."

Bowden's voice echoed in the elevator; perhaps because the police had arrived, the four people huddled in the four corners to protect each other and breathed a sigh of relief.

Under the flickering lights, the mechanic, dressed in civilian clothes, looked at the other three people who hadn't moved and shrugged.

"I'm not the killer; I can be the first."

Saying this, under the still-wary gazes of the three people, the mechanic took out his identification card from his pocket and looked at the camera before lifting his card.

Although the lights were still flickering, the names could still be seen from the surveillance screen.

"Good, we're on the right track."

In the control room, Bowden instructed Derek's partner, who had arrived, to write down the names. "Next person, show your ID."

Upon hearing the instructions, the mechanic knew his assistance was over, so he put away his card and returned to the corner where he initially stood.

"I'll go..." The guard took out his ID card and showed it directly to the camera.

Following the guard, the woman and the old lady, respectively, took out their identification cards.

Bowden took the paper where the names and personal information had been written, so after checking it, he handed it to a police officer.

"Let the office investigate the history of these people. I want to know their connections and if there is any relationship between them and the deceased."

In homicide cases, the motive and purpose of the killer's attack are usually investigated, which is the key to the investigation. The police officer knew its importance and hurriedly left with the paper.

"It's impossible for the killer to slip through our fingers, even if there's no connection; the forensic team will surely find something." Bowden was very clear about his advantages, so he didn't panic.

The people who entered his list of suspects were the maintenance guy, who, in collaboration with someone from inside, could have worked together to kill the seller.

However, this relatively reasonable reasoning got stuck after Derek's notification several minutes later.

"Sir, Dwigth is dead."