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Parul shifted her last cardboard box into the elevator, her muscles sore from three days of relentless moving. The building smelled faintly of cleaner and cement, and the soft jazz playing from the lobby speaker was an oddly comforting touch. This was her first solo flat — fifth floor, modest rent, walking distance to the first office job she’d ever really wanted.
As the elevator doors closed, she glanced at the control panel — floors lit by modern blue LEDs, clean brushed steel surface. When she hit “5,” a smooth, gender-neutral voice announced, “Going up.”
The clarity was impressive — synthetic but oddly warm. On the first ride, Parul chuckled, whispering, “Nice industrial design.” When she reached her floor, the same voice said, “Fifth floor. Welcome home, Parul.”
She paused.
How did it know her name?
Over the next three days, busied with unpacking and onboarding calls, she forgot about the incident — until Friday night, when she left her flat to grab groceries. She pressed the call button, leaned against the wall, scrolling Twitter.
The elevator arrived with a soft ding. As she stepped in and hit “Ground,” the voice murmured, “Going down.” But it sounded different — male now, richer, slower.
“Ground floor. Be careful, Parul,” it said on arrival.
She looked back sharply. There was no one else there.
The next morning, Parul took the elevator to check for packages. She lived on five — going down it said, “Going down.” A child’s voice. Curious and sing-songy. Each floor had an exit chime that echoed oddly around her, the acoustics weirdly shifting as if the cabin itself changed shape subtly. She told herself she was tired. Renovations, maybe. Acoustical illusions.
When the elevator returned her from the lobby, it greeted her in a woman’s voice now, older, gentle: “Going up. Still here, Parul?”
Her eyes shot to the speaker grille. The tone was familiar. A memory sparked then: something from her childhood. A voice from her old school intercom. Exact same lilt and pitch.
Before she could question it, the doors dinged open into floor five.
She barely slept that night.
The next evening, she invited a friend over for dinner. Armaan, a graphic designer who lived uptown, was skeptical when she mentioned the elevator behaving… oddly.
“Hearing weird voices. Messages are tailored,” she said. “Not just machine-generated. Different accents. Names.”
“It’s probably AI,” he shrugged. “Voice customization’s baked into a lot of new systems now.”
“Even the creepy parts?”
He grinned. “That’s called personalization.”
To test it, he proposed a ridiculous experiment. They’d take the elevator floor by floor, from G to 9 and back, and record every voice.
It started normal on the ground. “Going up.”
Second floor: The voice was deeper. “Going further. This is floor two, Erik.”
“I’m not Erik,” said Armaan.
Third: Hollow tone. “Almost there. She’s watching.”
By the sixth floor, Parul was shaking. Only Armaan’s presence kept her from bailing. The voice by then was distorted, guttural, and reciting lines she hadn’t told anyone in years:
“Fifth floor. Don’t hide from the water tank again.”
She looked at Armaan. “I used to hide from my cousin in the water tank area of my old house.”
“Yeah, how would it know that?” he muttered. His face had lost its color.
They decided to stop at Floor 8. But as they rose, the panels flickered.
No 7. No 8. The LED just blinked: “–”.
The elevator halted. Doors didn’t open.
Then the cabin lights flickered.
The voice returned. Except this time, neither male nor female.
It was precise. Mechanical. But it used Armaan’s voice.
“Stuck between floors. Parul, don’t move.”
She gasped. “That’s your voice!”
He turned, alarmed. “I didn’t say that!”
Then hers came next: “Why are you here? You shouldn’t have brought him.”
Armaan screamed, yanked open the emergency panel. The call button didn’t respond. Instead, another speaker activated — one they hadn’t seen before. From behind the mirror.
A chorus began. Their voices, fragmented. Laughing. Crying. Repeating intimate phrases.
“I should have died with her.”
“Don’t trust the third-floor man.”
“There’s no ninth floor.”
They pounded on the doors.
Then it stopped.
With a ding, they arrived on the fifth floor.
Everything seemed normal again.
A week passed. Armaan refused to return. Parul took the stairs exclusively.
She emailed building management. No response.
When she tried visiting the top floors, the stairs ended at seven. Everything above was sealed.
One late Sunday evening, she heard voices in the hallway. TV static, garbled whispers. She peeked outside. Empty corridors. Glancing at the elevator… the LED displayed a floor that shouldn’t exist: “10”.
Staring at it, she saw herself inside.
Not a reflection.
Another Parul. In the same grey hoodie. Tilting her head slightly, smiling. Behind her stood someone taller — faceless, except for a shifting mass where eyes should be.
“Going nowhere, Parul,” said the elevator.
And then she was gone.
Parul backed into her apartment, slammed the door, and never opened it again without checking through the peephole first.
No one else in the building ever claimed to hear voices.
But the elevator kept arriving — even when she didn’t call it. Always opening its doors.
Always waiting.
