Waking up with a dagger pointed at your throat is exactly as terrifying as you think it would be. 

Max cleared his throat, “Hello again, Marilyn,” he said, the look on his face that of someone who clearly deserved what was happening to him. 

“Hello, Maxwell,” she said, the dagger digging deeper into his skin.

“You know, Marilyn, that’s a knife. It does hurt,” Max bantered.

“That’s kind of the point, dear,” Marilyn said, “You know why I’m here,”

“To rob me?”

“Very funny.”

Max looked around his room, blinking his eyes to adjust his vision. He was in fact still in his room, unlike the last time Marilyn had visited him. 

The truth was, he didn’t know why Marilyn had that knife to his throat. There were so many things that he had that she would want. So many things he’d done or authorized that may prompt her to do this. It was only a matter of finding out what she knew about. 

“How’s the girlfriend?” He stalled.

Marilyn’s eyes flared and Max’s life flashed before his eyes.

“Oh, you have some nerve bringing her up after what you did,” She growled.

“What?!” Max asked. Sure, there were many less than respectable things that he had done, but he would never mess with Marilyn’s girlfriend. He didn’t have a death wish, after all.

“What happened to Ruby?” He asked, becoming slightly nervous. She had been a good friend to the both of them.

“Don’t play dumb, Max, I know you took her,” As his eyes adjusted, Max could see the masscara smudged beneath her eyes.

“Marilyn,” he said, as calmly as he could manage, “please take the knife away. I didn’t ‘take’ Ruby. She’s my friend too, you know?”

She lifted the knife off of his throat and crumpled into the spot next to Max’s bed, sniffling softly.

“You should’ve just told me she was gone,” Max chuckled as he got up slowly, but he was churning fire in his stomach, “She might be in real danger, you know?” He kept his voice calm. If there was one thing good about him, it was his ability to always keep his cool.

“Any evidence left behind?” He asked.

She handed him a note.

Skimming over the piece of paper, Max’s expression turned to disgust, “What in the world? This is my handwriting!” 

“I know,” Marilyn’s voice rasped from the corner.

“Whoever did this knows what they’re doing,” Max realised, “They even used the same type of language I do,”

“Cocky and arrogant?” Marilyn jaded through her tears.

“I’m going to ignore that, since we’re on the same team for now,” Max folded the note again.

“Ew, never,” Marilyn stood up to her full height, which was about four inches taller than Max, which was a fact that would bother him forever. 

“It’s you’re only hope, since, sadly, I am smarter than you.”

Marilyn scoffed, “Then why do I always catch you?” 

“Because my life is boring,” Max winked at her, “The real question is, what haven’t you caught me at?” 

“You disgust me,” Marilyn chided, “Now put on a shirt, we’re going to save my girlfriend,”

“So you admit, we are a team.”

“Not in the slightest.”

The unlikely pair descended the stairs of Max’s three tier lavish suite at the top of his company’s research tower, where Max had been plotting and plotting different schemes on how to become even richer than he was at the moment, causing people like Marilyn to become even poorer.

“Still running for president?” Marilyn asked, acknowledging a campaign poster pinned up on the wall.

“I never was, that’s for a seat in congress.”

“I don’t think that’s an elected position.”

“It’s not.” He didn’t give an explanation, but he didn’t need to. It’s not like either of them really cared.

The kitchen was sleek and nearly all of the appliances and counters were a nice modern black.

“Why are you stopping?” Marilyn asked, clearly annoyed.

“Breakfast,” Max answered, “Most important meal of the day. What will you have?”

“Okay, first of all, it’s not breakfast if it’s two in the afternoon. Second of all, I already ate, thanks.”

“Breakfast is the first meal of the day. Time is an illusion,” Max corrected her.

“Alright, Galileo, tell me when you reenter reality.”

Max cleared his throat, “Einstein.”

“What?”

` “It was Einstein that said that.”

“Do I look like I care?”

“Well, I do, okay?” This was the first civil conversation the two of them had ever had. They had never really been on the same side before. It was always Max carrying out some new scheme and Marilyn thwarting him. Or Marilyn doing a good deed anonymously and Max finding some way to profit off of it. Or one of the two discovering some wrong the other did to them and showing up at their home uninvited with some sharp painful weapon in hand. This was the first time they had to work together, and they weren’t going to do it as friends if it was the last thing they did.

Marilyn rushed out of the penthouse suite and into the elevator.

Max grabbed his coat on the way out and took his time, as he knew how slow the elevator ran.

As soon as the doors closed, Max knew something was wrong, “did you notice anything strange about the elevator earlier?” He asked nervously.

“No, I thought you may have rigged it for a trap,” she said.

Max traced his fingers down the scratches calling his attention, “Well, I didn’t…”

“Shoot,” Marilyn said, realizing her mistake as she too noticed the scratches coming down from the elevator control panel.

Max carefully removed the panel and winced at what he saw behind it, “Well that’s not good,”

A voice came into the elevator from the box that Max hadn’t had installed. 

“I see the two of you have fallen for my trap,” It mused, “Usually, I wouldn’t risk my success, but lets play a game for the fun of it. If the two of you can solve my riddle before the sun sets tomorrow, I’ll let you both go,”

“Now do you wish you’d eaten something?” Max chided in Marilyn’s direction.

“If you don’t,” The voice continued, “well, we’ll just leave that as a surprise,”

“It’s a bluff,” Max confirmed, “They don’t have a plan,”

“Then why are they doing this?” Marilyn reasoned.

“It can't be seen, can't be felt, can't be heard, and can't be smelt. It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills. It comes first and follows after, Ends life, and kills laughter. What is it?”

“This is unbelievably stupid,” Max sighed.

“They have Ruby, we have to solve this,” Marilyn protested.

“Either they’ve already killed her, or they don’t plan to.”

“You can’t truly mean that. What was the riddle again?”

“It doesn’t matter. None of this does.”

“How can you be so calm about this?”

“ONE OF US HAS TO!” Max’s hand flew to his mouth in response to his sudden outburst.

“You’re just as stressed as I am,” Marilyn realised.

“Of course I am, she was my friend too,” Max slumped down against the elevator wall.

“Well she was my girlfriend,” Marilyn said, sitting on the floor next to Max.

“Its space,” Max said.

“What?”

“The answer to the riddle. It’s space.”

A loud buzzing sound filled the elevator. 

“Call me crazy, but I think you might be wrong,” Marilyn quipped.

The elevator dropped two floors, causing Marilyn and Max to fly into the ceiling of the elevator for a split second.

When the elevator stopped, Max was wheezing in the corner frantically and Marilyn was laughing her head off.

“That was fun,” she chuckled, “let’s do it again!”

“Absolutely not,” Max managed to say, “you’re crazy, I’m not guessing again,”

“Then how are we going to save my girlfriend?”

“Stop calling her that.”

“What?”

“Stop calling her your girlfriend. She’s a person. She has a name,” Max complained.

“Why does it bother you so much?” Marilyn asked, “Because she sees me that way and not you?”

Max smirked at her, but the void in his chest grew wider.

“Wait,” Marilyn realized the reason for the expression.

“She dated me first.”

“Marilyn would never date someone as despicable as you.”

“Ouch,” Max said, “But she did,”

“When?” 

“It’s none of your business.”

“It is now.”

“You remember that stretch of time where I kept ‘kidnapping her?’”

“Yes?” It took her a moment to understand, but when she did, she gasped, “She was working with you?”

Max nodded.

“At least she broke up with you.”

“Actually…”

“How dare you?!”

“She was never really in love with me,” he admitted, “I constantly felt like she was just there for the thrill of it,”

“Why are you telling me this? This feels like a conversation for your therapist.”

“We’re stuck in an elevator, what else are we going to do?”

“Of course she likes me better, I have morals,”

“I promise you that I have morals,” Max told her, “I believe in hard work and getting what you deserve,”

“That can’t be right,” Marilyn said, “that’s exactly what I believe in,”

Max chuckled, “Join the dark side, we’re way too similar to not,”

It was Marilyn’s turn to laugh, “I’ve always been afraid of the dark,” she admitted.

“No way,” said Max with a grin, “me too,”

The both sat there in the silence of the elevator for a moment, every so often stealing glances at each other and giggling.

It was Max that broke the silence. He cleared his throat, “What was that riddle again?”