A young secretary works in a high-rise office building in the middle of the city. One night she's at the office late, catching up on some paperwork. When she finishes, finally, she packs away her things and heads for the elevator. It's almost ten o' clock and the building is eerily empty, just her and the security guards. She hits the button and waits for the lift to arrive.
Her mind is still on her work, but she's fairly sure she's the only one waiting on that floor. That's why she's so surprised when the elevator arrives and, just as she's about to step inside, someone barges past her into the box. She's so surprised that she stops dead, staring at the man who has pushed past her. He stands in the middle of the lift, smiling benevolently at her. He's not a worker, and he's definitely not a security guard. In fact, she's never seen him before in her life.
Before she can react, the metal doors scroll shut and the elevator starts to descend. The secretary just stands there, bemused. She takes a step back . . . maybe she should take the stairs.
Just then there's an almighty bang, and a rattling from the lift shaft. A siren sounds. A thud echoes up the lift shaft.
Later, down in the lobby, surrounded by police and fire officers, she tells her story. About the man who pushed past her, how she was seconds away from getting into the lift herself.
"You were lucky," says one police officer. The lift, he tells her, has plummeted all the way to the ground floor. If anyone had been inside, they almost certainly would have been killed.
"If?" says the secretary. "But there was someone inside. I remember; a man pushed past me just as I was about to get in."
The police officers just shake their heads. "No," they tell her, "that lift was very definitely empty." And when they check the CCTV tapes the story's the same: no stranger pushes past her. The whole time she was by herself on the floor, completely and utterly alone.
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