The Elevator That Only Goes Down

Everyone who worked there knew that.

Forty-seven floors.

No basement.

No sublevels.

But the elevator had 48 buttons.

And one of them was wrong.

Mark Ellison had worked night security for almost two years. The job was quiet. Predictable. The kind of job where nothing ever happened, and that was exactly the point.

He liked the silence.

Every night at 1:00 AM, he did the same routine. Check lobby doors. Scan parking entrance. Review camera feeds. Then ride the elevator to the top floor and work his way down.

It was boring.

Safe.

Until the night the power flickered.

It only lasted a second. The lights blinked. The hum of the building died and came back.

Mark frowned but shrugged it off. Old building. Old wiring.

He stepped into the elevator.

That was when he noticed it.

Below the button marked “1” was another button.

Matte black.

No number.

No label.

Just a small symbol carved into it. A circle with a vertical line cutting through it.

Mark stared at it.

“I’ve ridden this elevator a thousand times,” he muttered.

That button had never been there.

He pressed “47” like usual. The elevator moved smoothly upward. Nothing strange.

When he came back down, the black button was still there.

Waiting.

He should have reported it.

He should have ignored it.

Instead, curiosity pushed his finger forward.

He pressed it.

The doors shut instantly.

Not slowly.

Not smoothly.

They snapped closed.

The elevator dropped.

Hard.

Mark grabbed the rail.

The floor numbers began ticking down.

47

46

45

Too fast.

“Easy,” he whispered.

The elevator didn’t slow at floor 1.

It didn’t hesitate.

The digital display glitched.

The numbers scrambled.

Then changed.

-1

Mark froze.

“There is no basement.”

-2

-3

The air shifted.

It felt thick. Pressurized. Harder to breathe.

The lights dimmed to a deep red glow.

The elevator kept descending.

-4

-5

-6

His ears popped.

Then—

A violent jolt.

Silence.

Ding.

The doors slid open.

There was no hallway.

No concrete walls.

No parking garage.

Just darkness.

Endless black space stretching outward.

Not even a floor visible beyond the elevator threshold.

Mark leaned forward carefully.

The red light from inside the elevator spilled outward… but it didn’t reflect off anything.

It just disappeared.

Swallowed.

His radio crackled once and died.

His phone showed no signal.

Then powered off.

Without warning.

Behind him, the elevator remained open.

Waiting.

The silence wasn’t empty.

It felt occupied.

Then he heard it.

Footsteps.

Slow.

Measured.

Coming from the darkness.

Mark stumbled backward into the elevator.

“Close,” he whispered.

The doors didn’t move.

The footsteps grew louder.

Closer.

Closer.

Then they stopped.

Right outside the elevator.

Something stepped into the red light.

It looked almost human.

Too tall.

Its limbs slightly elongated, like stretched proportions in a broken photograph.

Its skin was smooth and pale.

Its face had no features.

No eyes.

No mouth.

Just blank skin.

It tilted its head.

“You pressed the button.”

The voice wasn’t sound.

It filled Mark’s head like a memory that wasn’t his.

“You chose to come down.”

“I didn’t know,” Mark whispered.

“You always say that.”

Mark’s stomach twisted.

“Always?”

The elevator display flickered.

WELCOME BACK.

His breath caught.

“I’ve never been here.”

The figure leaned closer.

“You leave a piece every time.”

Suddenly, flashes exploded in his mind.

Waking up exhausted for no reason.

Bruises he couldn’t explain.

Entire evenings he couldn’t remember clearly.

Dreams of falling.

The feeling of descending endlessly.

“You forget,” the thing said calmly. “We help you forget.”

Mark’s legs felt weak.

“What are you?”

The figure stepped closer.

“Below is where the unfinished parts go.”

“What does that mean?”

“You.”

The darkness behind it rippled slightly.

As if something much larger was shifting in the void.

Mark’s heart pounded violently.

The elevator suddenly slammed shut.

The red light vanished.

Total darkness for half a second.

Then the elevator shot upward.

So fast his knees buckled.

The numbers reversed rapidly.

-6

-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

1

2

3

The speed was unnatural.

Like something had thrown him back.

Finally—

Ding.

Lobby.

The doors opened to bright marble floors and morning sunlight streaming through glass doors.

People walked inside casually.

Laughing.

Normal.

Mark collapsed forward onto the polished floor.

A receptionist rushed over.

“Are you okay?”

He looked at her, shaking.

“How long was I gone?”

She frowned. “You’ve been in the elevator for hours. We thought it was stuck.”

He scrambled to the security office.

Rewound the footage.

The screen showed him stepping into the elevator at 1:12 AM.

The doors closing.

Then—

Nothing.

No movement.

For three full hours, he stood inside.

Perfectly still.

Eyes open.

Not blinking.

At 4:16 AM, he suddenly collapsed.

He rewound again.

Frame by frame.

In the reflective metal wall behind him—

Something stood.

Tall.

Watching.

Its head tilted slightly.

It never moved.

But it was there.

The whole time.

The next night, the black button was gone.

Just 47 floors.

Normal again.

Mark almost convinced himself it had been stress. Exhaustion. Hallucination.

Until the power flickered again.

Just once.

And from somewhere deep below the building—

He heard it.

A faint mechanical hum.

Followed by a distant ding.

Not above.

Not on his floor.

From beneath.

He looked at the elevator panel.

For half a second—

The black button flickered into existence.

Then vanished again.

Like it was waiting for permission.

Mark hasn’t pressed it since.

But sometimes when he rides the elevator, he feels it hesitate slightly between floors.

As if something below is pulling.

Waiting.

Hungry.

And he knows one day—

When the building is quiet.

When no one else is around.

When curiosity wins again—

The elevator will open.

And next time,

It won’t bring him back up.