From Point A to Point Z

From Point A to Point Z is a story written by Togi Kayako. It originally ran in Issue 123 at .

Summary

Zed is all on their own and going to try out a stupid urban legend with an elevator in an empty building. It's the dead of night, it's cold, and it's creepy, but they'll do absolutely anything if it's for Angie.

Author's Notes

This goddamn story would not leave me alone! At the point I'd sketched out the idea, I decided that I was going to be way too busy to write it. I woke up an hour early the next day with multiple new ideas and some connections between what I already had, and from there I knew no peace until it was done. It's weird and kind of sad, but I'm happy with it and now maybe I can sleep in a bit. Shoutout to Iron Eater for writing the excellent Kindling and inspiring me to try my hand at a story with no dialogue, and thanks as always to my beloved husband for beta reading.

The series of floors and idea of an isekai elevator is an actual urban legend; this site has more details. I used a mix of that, the pixiv description (JP), and of course some variation of my own. I snuck a few nods to other urban legends/youkai in the story too. :)

If you're curious to get an idea of what the story's elevator is like, here's the nice version and here's a grungy version with bad noises! Alternatively, if you just want a song about being gay and pining for a friend, this is the song I came back to repeatedly while writing.