The elevator was always silent, even when it was empty. No hum of machinery, no soft click of buttons being pressed. It had been there for as long as anyone could remember, tucked into the corner of a forgotten building that no one seemed to know the name of. The building itself was old, its brickwork cracked and weathered, its windows clouded with dust. People avoided it, though they couldn’t say why. Some said it was cursed. Others just said it was weird. Mira had never believed in ghosts. She was a journalist, a skeptic by trade, and she had seen too many urban legends to take them seriously. But when her editor asked her to investigate the strange occurrences at the old building, she couldn’t refuse. It wasn’t a story about haunted houses or ghostly apparitions—it was about an elevator that didn’t work, but sometimes did. And people who got inside it never came out the same. She arrived on a rainy afternoon, the sky heavy with clouds that seemed to hang low, almost touching the ground. The building stood alone, surrounded by overgrown grass and broken fences. Mira hesitated before stepping inside, the air thick with the smell of damp wood and something else—something metallic, like rust and blood. The elevator was small, its doors creaking as she pushed them open. Inside, the buttons were labeled with names instead of numbers. “Floor 1,” “Floor 2,” and so on, but also “The Hallway,” “The Room,” and “The End.” Mira frowned. That didn’t make sense. She pressed “Floor 1” anyway. The elevator shuddered, then moved upward with a slow, deliberate motion. There was no sound, no vibration, just a quiet glide. When the doors opened, she stepped out into what looked like a hallway. But it wasn’t the same as the one she had entered. The walls were different, the lighting dimmer. She turned around, expecting to see the elevator behind her, but it was gone. She wandered down the hallway, her footsteps echoing in the stillness. The air felt colder here, and the walls seemed to pulse slightly, as if breathing. She found a door marked “The Room.” Inside, there was nothing but a single chair and a mirror. As she approached, the reflection in the mirror didn’t match her movements. It smiled when she didn’t. Mira ran back to the hallway, trying to find the elevator again. But the layout had changed. The doors led to different rooms, each more unsettling than the last. A library with books that whispered when she passed. A kitchen where the food was always cold, untouched. A bedroom with a bed that had never been slept in. Finally, she found the elevator again, but it wasn’t the same. The buttons were now labeled differently. One read “Exit,” another “Stay.” She pressed “Exit.” The elevator moved again, this time with a jolt, and the doors opened to the outside world. She stumbled out, gasping for breath, the rain now falling harder than before. She returned to the office, shaken but determined to write the story. But when she tried to describe the building, the details blurred. She couldn’t remember the exact location, the color of the doors, or even the number of floors. The only thing she was certain of was the elevator, and the feeling that it had taken something from her—something she couldn’t name. Weeks later, she received a letter. It was unsigned, written in a neat, careful hand: *“You didn’t come out the same. You just don’t remember.”* Mira stared at it, her heart pounding. She had told herself it was a prank, a trick. But deep down, she knew better. And sometimes, in the quiet hours of the night, she would hear the elevator. Not in the building, not in her apartment—but somewhere, just beyond the edge of reality, waiting.