The Prey in the Elevator

In the hallway of an old apartment building late at night, anthropologist Ji Ningshuang crashed headlong into a strange man’s chest. The man was pale, with a lingering sinister look rooted in his brows and eyes, like a trapped beast lurking in the shadows. He didn’t give his name, only told her to call him “Ambrose.” The elevator abruptly stalled on its way up, and the cramped metal box imprisoned the two of them together. The way Ambrose stared at her grew more and more wrong — it was not the gaze one casts at a stranger, but the gaze of something that had been starving for too long, finally catching the scent of its prey.