The scene starts, plays out all the way to the end, then starts again, an ouroboros. Kierk’s in the elevator with that distinct vestibular sensation informing him that he is moving, moving down. The floor numbers tick in red. Everything is skipping around, his perception is blurry, focusing occasionally, a shaky camera. And as the display ticks down from impossibly large numbers he realizes that someone is in the elevator with him. Standing right behind him to his left, in the corner. There is a flicker of the lights, fluctuating power. Kierk looks over his left shoulder at the figure in the corner, hoodie on a sweatshirt pulled down to conceal the face, hands in the pockets, jeans, looking at the elevator floor. The killer! The figure remains motionless, the lights flicker again. Kierk reaches out a single, trembling hand to touch the hood—the lights go off in the elevator. Kierk jumps back in the complete darkness, retreating frantically until he feels the cold metal wall behind him. He is sure that the killer has moved from the corner. Kierk lashes out with his leg, kicking into the dark at different places and at different levels—if it approaches, he’ll feel it coming with his sneakers, the blow will reveal location and give forewarning—mid-kick, the lights come back on in the empty elevator. Breathing hard, Kierk regains his composure. He has escaped, he knows this. Again he watches the floor numbers, now a melancholy yellow. He’s twitchy, he paces back and forth, waiting as the countdown continues. Nervously he watches the door, now realizing it will open and that the thing will be waiting for him there, at the basement level. The tension builds, the lower digits go by, he’s nearly on his knees now, crying. The elevator dings open and he cries out in anticipation. The macaque, totem-headed and grinning, sits in its plastic see-through box. Kierk falls back in mortal terror against the far elevator wall. But it remains stationary, left there, alone, rapidly breathing, its arms and legs scampering inside the box like the legs of a frantic centipede, pressing and smearing against the glass from all angles while its head remains fixed facing Kierk, looking directly into his eyes. Its lips are moving, and there is the hissing sound of syllables that reveal flashes of canines. It is whispering something. Something just beyond Kierk’s hearing. Kierk steps toward it in trembling trepidation and curiosity. He leans down to listen, puts his ear right up against its whispering thin lips, hearing just snatches of mathematics and foreign scientific terminology. His eyes, at first confused, begin to widen and then change into a look of incalculable awe. Kierk’s brains are blown out through the back of his skull and splatter against the wall of the elevator in thick chunks.

WEDNESDAY