Questions

"Sir, who do you think is the killer?"

The guard who heard this question stared at the elevator's security camera footage, pondering who among them could be the killer. Following normal reasoning, he focused on the man who was the guard. The others were ordinary civilians, so attention should be on the strongest ones, and besides the guard, there was the mechanic.

Only the external physique displayed by these two individuals could meet the prerequisite for killing so quickly and without showing any emotion afterward, unlike the woman and the elderly lady.

However, the guard still felt a bit puzzled as he looked at the man, who had been stabbed in the neck.

What he didn't understand was how the killer could accomplish so much in such a confined space and why he wasn't afraid of being caught after being observed through the cameras.

The other guard was also watching the monitor screen, mentally reasoning, but like his companion, he truly couldn't comprehend it.

"I don't know. Actually, what I'm thinking is why the killer wanted to kill that man who was just selling mattresses." The guard couldn't understand why someone would kill a stranger.

"And how did you come to the conclusion that this killer isn't a complete psychopath? Even though we didn't see it, we know the killer is in there."

Initially, they wanted to deduce who the killer was, but the questions became more numerous, and the guards ran out of targets to suspect.

"I don't know either. It's better to leave these questions to the police."

The guard's companion didn't respond and just continued to stare at the monitor screen.

At that moment, there was movement in the elevator, and the lights flickered suddenly, dimming the elevator slightly.

"Please, don't let the lights go out!" The elderly lady panicked immediately upon seeing the lights flickering. Compared to her, the other people, like the guard and the mechanic, watched the flickering lights with alert expressions on their faces. Both were on strange alertness; no one knew who the culprit was, but distrust always arises among the strongest.

"Darn it! Darn it! What's happening now?"

The woman who was crouched on the floor placed her bag in front of her, watching as the lights flickered. At this point, her face was pale with fear because she had already been attacked once. The explosive atmosphere in the elevator could be felt visibly without being physically present.

Although no sound was audible yet, the guards, who had been observing everything from the monitoring room, could put themselves in their place and feel how nervous and scared these people were.

One of the guards frowned, looked at the screen in front of him, and quickly grabbed the radio, pressing the button to communicate with the maintenance man.

"Dwight, can you hear me?"

At that moment, on the top floor of the building, Dwight, the maintenance worker, walked on the iron structure towards the elevator with a flashlight. He heard the tone of the intercom and raised the radio in his hand. "Hello?"

After hearing the response, the guard looked at the monitoring screen and felt that the atmosphere in the elevator was becoming increasingly tense.

"Dwight, it seems there's a short circuit in the elevator, and the light keeps flickering. Have you checked it?"

Upon hearing this question, Dwight looked at the cables and felt even stranger upon hearing this. It was clear that during the previous inspection, the line was operating normally.

"No, I'm heading to the elevator shaft; there's no way to fix something like that in a short time, and I don't exactly understand how a malfunction like that causes flickering."

Upon hearing this, the guard looked at his companion, and a very strange feeling arose in both of them. It seemed that everything was normal, but something happened.

"The lights have been flickering, and the passengers are a bit scared. Dwight, can you speed up the verification process a bit?"

"All right! I'll hurry!" Upon hearing the words from the radio, the maintenance worker looked at the dark path ahead, stored the radio, and began to move more quickly.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

As Dwight accelerated his work, the only sound in the silent basement was his footsteps. If someone was not accustomed to it, many would probably have been frightened by now. But Dwight was used to it, and it didn't take long for him to reach the hallway where elevator three passed, commonly known as the entrance to the elevator shaft.

He focused the flashlight on the empty shaft and found nothing. He continued walking until a small electrical box appeared on the side, and he stopped. While opening the circuit box, he took out his radio to communicate with the guard.

"Zz… Can you hear me?" The sound was transmitted through some kind of channel and echoed in the monitoring room.

One of the guards was talking to the people in the elevator, indicating that everything would be fixed at any moment.

"Zz…"

The guard heard the sound from his radio while looking at the monitoring screen. "Have you found it?"

"Is the light still flickering?"

Dwight, who was checking the circuit, shone the flashlight on the components. With his vast experience and solid skills, he could tell at a glance that the circuits in the elevator control box were operating normally.

Upon hearing this, the guard looked at the still-flickering monitoring screen and continued to press the button to change the camera perspective.

"Everything seems fine..."

Dwight suddenly frowned, looked at the lines, and knew that everything was normal, so he couldn't help but be confused. "This is very strange. What exactly is the problem?"

As strange as it might sound, as a maintenance worker who always has to solve problems, Dwight this time didn't know what to do.

"I want to restart the control system; take a look and let me know if there's any change."

"Understood!"

"Due to maintenance, the lights may temporarily go out, but they will be restored soon. During this period, the killer cannot do anything. We will watch him closely, and unless the killer wants to be exposed, it's better not to do anything."

These words sounded in the elevator, and the remaining four people seemed a bit irritated.

"No!" Crouched in a corner, the woman shook her head, looking very scared.

"Darn..." muttered the mechanic.

"This can't be happening."

"Let no one make any moves, or we'll kill him together."

Upon hearing the solution, Dwight in the elevator shaft directly turned the switch beside him and then immediately restarted it.

The response of this operation to the elevator was that the lights went out instantly, and the monitoring screen instantly turned black.

The guards stared at the monitoring screen.

"No!"

"Oh my God, please turn on the lights."

The loudest screams came from the elderly lady and the woman, but in the next second, the lights came back on, but they were still flickering.

"Darn it! I haven't returned to normal yet!"

One of the guards cursed under his breath, knowing that these errors shouldn't be happening.

"Dwight, nothing has changed..."