Between Floors

Text 1: Going Down, by Rowan Cale

An original short story extract.

The lift doors closed on the eleventh floor, shutting out the bright office and the hum of the cleaners’ machines. Nia pressed the button for the ground floor. For a moment, everything was ordinary: the soft whirr beneath her feet, the pale numbers changing above the door, her own face floating in the mirrored wall.

The lift gave a small, almost apologetic chime. Then it stopped.

Nia waited for the doors to open. They did not. She pressed the ground-floor button again, then held it down, as though the lift might respond to persistence. The number above the door had vanished. In its place was a narrow black window. She pressed the alarm button and heard a distant ringing, followed by a voice broken into pieces by static.

“Can you tell me—”

A crackle.

“—name?”

“Nia. I’m between floors. I think I’m—”

The voice disappeared. The lift was silent except for a light metallic ticking somewhere above her. Nia looked up. The ceiling panel was perfectly still, but the mirrored walls appeared to lean closer each time she breathed. She told herself that the lift was a box, nothing more than a box, and immediately it seemed smaller.

Her phone showed no signal. She raised it towards the ceiling, then towards each corner, following the blank screen around the lift as if it were a compass that had forgotten north. Tick. Pause. Tick. The floor shifted beneath her by the width of a step. Nia caught the rail with both hands. The lights flickered once, recovered, and went out.

How does Rowan Cale use language and structure to show Nia’s growing tension while she is trapped in the lift?

You should use relevant subject terminology to support your answer.