“Thanks,” Ro-Ena called out to the taxicab driver while handing him a crisp twenty-dollar bill following it with a friendly, “Keep the change!”

In doing so, she made her way inside the hotel lobby, which was emptier than the usual. There were few customers lingering around either skimming through the newspaper while sitting on a small single’s lounger on one side of the hotel. On the other side, there was a man whose one hand occupied a cellular phone pressed against his ear while the other hand jotting something down on a leather-cased book so intently. Other sounds also belonged to the people that stood behind the front desks; either speaking with a client face-to-face or over the telephone, all was topped of with friendly smiles on their faces.

Ro-Ena went straight to the elevator. All that was inside the small confined space was her and the man whose job was to guard the elevator and serve to the guests. Nick’s room was at the 32nd floor in the building and Ro-Ena was never one that really liked riding in elevators. She was never comfortable being elevated off the ground by a piece of man-made machine that could very well malfunction at the spark of anything. Her fear of height did not help either.

She let out a sigh every now and then as she watched each light turn from number upon number. At one point, she had to blink her eyes as she felt a sudden rush of dizziness from staring so vividly at the continuous change of the numbers being lighted one after the other.

“Two more floors,” she whispered to herself while fixing the one strapped book bag she had on that caused a creak on her neck due to the overbearing weight of her school books and note binders and coiled notebooks.

In between floors 30 and 31, a sudden halt on the elevator was evident. Ro-Ena gasped from the abrupt occurrence as she pressed both the palm of her hands against the elevator wall she was leaning on, “Are we stuck?” she asked the man that was guiding the elevator.

He slowly turned around while taking off his hat, revealing himself to be the one man Ro-Ena could not risk being stuck anywhere near of in a confined space.

“Jay,” she gasped under her voice while placing her hands over her mouth, a sheer sign of bewilderment and fear. It couldn’t have been real, it just couldn’t. It must be a nightmare that she needed to desperately wake up on. She wanted to wake up. She wanted to find herself safe in the arms of the man that swore to protect her. Except it wasn’t a nightmare, she was fully conscious, everything was real. “No, no, no,” she shook her head sideways while closing her eyes. “This isn’t happening! This is not real! This is a dream!” she screamed out.

“You used to get all excited to see me,” Jay uttered up meticulously. “Why not anymore?”

“Don’t do this to me, not to me, please!” she continued to shake her head back and forth, desperate to convince herself that none of it was reality. “This isn’t real, please tell me this isn’t real!” she begged

“If it isn’t real then how come I’m here and there you are?” he chuckled devilishly. “If it isn’t real then…” before finishing his sentence, he gave her one wicked smile as he raised up both his arms in the air. “Then how come I can do this?” he asked while grabbing Ro-Ena by her shoulders and pinning her hard up against the elevator wall with his tight grip.

“Jay please don’t!” she begged as tears began to stream down her face. Fear had managed to overtake her entire sense and her entire body. She lost control of her own self. She wanted to collapse; she felt like collapsing. Her world that seemed to have the viewpoint of a never-ending road now seemed to have just revolved around the small elevator she was confined in against her will. She wanted Nick to come and rescue her. He was her knight on a magical steed, ready to sweep her off the ground and ride off with her into the vast distance away from all the scarcity, the fear, the darkness, and the troubles.

Reality managed to overtake her as she realized he could never come and save her, not from where she was standing. She had to accept the painful fact that what veracity had to offer for her was not a peaceful journey in the arms of the one man that made her feel safe, but in the grip of the evil-doer that wanted to take her life more than anything in the world.

Jay’s grip on her shoulder began to move closer around her neck. Within a matter of seconds, Jay’s grip moved around Ro-Ena’s neck as it tightened by each passing second.

Ro-Ena felt the suffocation he provided for her. She felt each gasp of air leaving her body as her vision began to blur and any part of her body felt lifeless, immobile. She felt her body slowly drooping down to the ground as Jay’s grasp followed her slow movement towards the elevator floor.

“How does it feel, Ena?” he asked in a hoarse and angered voice. “How does it feel to have death creep up on you slowly? HOW?” he screamed as he tightened his grip once more. “You see: this is how I felt the day you left me! This is how I fucking felt, how you made me feel, you bitch! And now you’re going to experience what I went through and what I’m still going through!” his eyes were suddenly filled with tears from his anger and frustration. “Every goddamn day Ena, every day I feel like someone is suffocating me using your hands! Payback truly is a bitch ain’t it? AIN’T IT?” his face turned red as he watched Ro-Ena gasped for as much air as she could but struggling from his grip that he has not let go of.

Faith and hope subsided out of every pore in Ro-Ena’s body. She knew that was it for her. She knew there was nothing else she could do but to let things flow and happen the way it is. “Things happen for a reason,” the phrase repeated itself back in forth inside her body. She didn’t want it to end, not like that, not right there, not in the hands of the man she hated more than anything in the world.

“Nooooo!!!!” she screamed out in horror, using all the might and emotion she had left inside her body. If she was going to die, she didn’t want to meet death silently. She wanted to let death know that it was not going to take her in silence, willing to accept defeat: not if she can help it.

Silence was broken and was filled with nothing but Ro-Ena’s scream.