Shopping Trip and Elevators

[dog_of_mishap]

Vext distrusted elevators. There were too many things that could go wrong. But it was the fastest way to get up to the seventh floor where the men's clothing was. He couldn't understand why there were so many floors dedicated to women's clothing but only one to men's.

Watching people go in and out of the elevator for a moment, he took a deep breath and stepped inside, pushing the button for floor number seven.

Comments

[dog-of-mishap.livejournal.com]

The ink hits Vext full on the face. "Oh... for... " He tries to get the ink out of his eyes.

"Can we get out?" he asks hopefully. Hopefully, but doubting.

[onthecase.livejournal.com]

"The squid doesn't want us to leave it... it's scared," the chimp explains. "But... maybe? See if you can squeeze out..."

It's days like today that make me wish I still drank...

Outside the elevator, a fire alarm starts to ring as water begins to spray from the ceiling.

[dog-of-mishap.livejournal.com]

Vext does not drink. Who knows what would happen if he did.

"We could always take the squid... somehow?" Vext tries to squeeze around the squid and then slips.

The ink and water from the sprinklers have made the floor far to slippery for him to walk on.

He slides half-way out of the elevator and manages to grab onto the side before he could drop to a horrible horrible painful bottom. Scrambling his feet catch onto something. "There's a ladder here."

[onthecase.livejournal.com]

"Climb! I'll carry Inky out."

But as they begin to climb down, the elevator drops a foot, and swings precariously.

"We have to get out of this shaft before that thing falls..."

He reaches for the elevator door of the next floor and begins to pry the doors open...

...even as the elevator begins to creak...

[dog-of-mishap.livejournal.com]

It can't actually be said that Vext climbs through the doors so much as splats. As he steps through, he trips on his shoelace and falls flat on his face.

Looking up he sees a macaw staring down at him.

"Hello?" the bird asks in its screechy voice.

[onthecase.livejournal.com]

The chimp has less time. As the chimp hears the elevator's cord snap, he's already in motion, swinging (with a large squid wrapped frantically around his head and body) in through the open doors just as the elevator drops down, narrowly missing the primate and mollusk.

His hands, however, are wet with ink and water, and what should be a graceful leap turns into a spinning, flailing, tentacled mess through the air, past several animal cages, and directly into one labeled, "Quarantine - fleas."

There's a crunch of chimpanzee on wire mesh.

[dog-of-mishap.livejournal.com]

"Oh dear," Vext says as he gets to his feet. Hobbling, he hurt his knee in the fall, he goes over to the chimp and squid. "Are you all right?"

He means both of them, of course.

"All right?" the macaw repeats, wings stretching in its cage.

[onthecase.livejournal.com]

He looks up at Vext, a dark expression on his simian face, a squid clinging tightly to his body and peering from the top of his head.

"I. Have. Fleas. Now."

He gets to his feet.

"I'm never riding an elevator again."

"Again!" the macaw squawks, flapping its wings, then returning to its perching posture.