The Empty Mall

This is my first publishing. Let's get some constructive criticism going.

It was cold, very cold. I entered the mall with just a t-shirt and shorts. It was an early Tuesday and I entered through the food court. It was clearly deserted. The lights were off, all of the shops were closed, and no one was in sight, not even a custodian. I was wondering how I even got in the mall if no one was inside in the first place. Ignoring this, I walked through the large and long hallways to the movie theatre. Down the hallway, I saw the glint of metal moving. I thought to myself “Thank god, the stores were opening.”

I kept walking. I noticed the store that opened was one of the larger department stores. Still there was no one present. There was something different today. When I usually came here, there were at least a few shoppers. I live in a pretty big town, so this was very weird. I entered the department store and started browsing through the clothing. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a quick shadow move on the wall to my left and immediately turned around to look at where I had entered. There was nothing, so I disregarded it, thinking it was an employee who was late for work that ran by. I was done browsing through the clothing and decided to go upstairs to the appliance section. My stove was having problems recently, so I decided to go take a look.

The escalators were off, but I decided to walk up them anyways. As I went up, it got darker and darker, considering the second floor doesn’t have windows. I then realized that the power must be out. The lights are off, the escalators didn’t work, the heat was obviously off, and the electric doors wouldn’t open on their own. I didn’t take any of this in at the time because I was on a mission to get a new working stove.

I went through the make-up and jewelry section on the second floor and thought “Hey maybe the alarms are off as well!” I looked around for something heavy, but easy to throw. There was no one around, so I grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall. I walked over to a glass case where I found a beautiful necklace. I smashed the glass with the fire extinguisher and snatched the necklace.

Immediately, the alarm went off. I guessed the place had a specific power source for the security system. This wasn’t a security system you would expect to see in a mall however. I heard the metal gate closing downstairs, and red flashing lights came on. The escalators started moving extremely fast, so you couldn’t get down or up them. I hid in the racks of clothing, and the alarm stopped after five minutes. I decided to wear the necklace. It was gold, with a large black looking gem in the center, with chains engraved into the gem. I don’t know how it was done, but it seemed like the darkness of the gem made everything around it dark as well. It was dead silent again. Looks like I wasn’t getting my stove. I started to head down the escalators. Half way down, I realized the gate was shut. I had to get out.

I went up to the metal gate and tried to lift it. It was no use. It was locked on its own. I was sure they had to have keys for it near the registers, so I went through each department searching every drawer for the key. No luck. I went back to the entrance where the gate was. For some reason, it was open just enough so I could get out. That meant someone was in the building. Maybe it was the police, or an employee. I looked at my watch. It was nearing nine in the morning. I rushed for the nearest exit of the mall, which was back where I came from. I couldn’t get caught. I rounded a corner, and heard something running behind me. Not like a small cat or a dog, but big. I heard thumping. It was catching up. It must’ve been a guard or a cop, so I stopped and turned around.

There was nothing, and as my footsteps stopped, it was silent. I must’ve been imagining things. I turned and continued running towards the exit. I rounded another corner, and there it was. The exit. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. About 10 yards from the door, I was thrown aside; by a burst of I don’t know what. The ground shook, and rock-like tentacles came out of the floor in front of the exit. The floor tiles shattered, and I backed myself away, sliding along the ground. Going straight up to the ceiling, the tentacles were each almost 40 feet high and 4 feet wide. Once they reached the ceiling, they stopped. It was silent again and all I could hear was my breathing.

I stood up, and it seemed to be darker than before. I had no way of getting out that exit. I ran, as fast as I could, to the exit in the other wing of shops. As I was running, I looked in the reflections of the glass shop windows. I saw a wisp as my shadow formed and ran with me. I didn’t know what was happening; I just had to get out. I neared the exit. I noticed it straight ahead and thought, “that’s weird I could’ve sworn I wasn’t running for that long. It's usually much farther down the hall.” I grabbed the handle, and something blinded me for a few seconds. I felt myself hit the ground and when my sight came back around, the exit was gone, and all that was in front of me was darkness. I couldn't see anything that was farther than five feet away. At this point, I was scared to death. I got up slowly. I didn’t want to turn my back on the darkness, for fear of something coming out of it, so I slowly backed away. The only thing I could hear was my footsteps.

After I was about 50 feet away, I turned and sprinted. It was darker. There was one more exit I could try. I rounded the corner and saw the sets of double doors. I ran. Nothing could stop me. I grabbed the door and thrust it open. It was silent upon exiting and I looked around. The sky was grey. The trees were grey. Everything was grey. I ran to my car. As I was running, I tripped over something, and slid across the pavement. It was a dead body. I couldn’t tell who it was, because it was slashed to pieces. Body parts were strewn all over the ground. I looked up. There were hundreds of bodies littered about the parking lot. I then realized my life was in true jeopardy. I beamed to my car, leaping over body parts, and fumbled with starting it. It wouldn't start, and the pendant began to glow. Everything outside the car turned black. I sat in my car in pure darkness and waited.

The silence was broken by a sharp ringing. It was coming from the necklace. I took it off, and threw it in the back, but the ringing persisted. It became intensely painful. My head was throbbing and I felt a huge thud on the hood, which shook the car. The darkness in front of my windshield parted, and what I saw, was petrifying. It was a shadow that took the form of me, and I saw myself in its form. I had larger, sharper teeth, longer arms, with sharp claws, and wicked eyes. I looked into its eyes and a surge of pain consumed me. Visions of death and pain were being transfered from the shadow, through my eyes, into my head. My head, my body, was going to explode. I leapt to the back seat, with the pendant. My shadow was still standing on the hood, staring at me, peering into my soul. It felt like my veins were being squeezed. I ripped the cord off the necklace so I was just holding the pendant. I showed the shadow the pendant, and its eyes lit up. The pendant started absorbing all the light around it. More shadows appeared outside my car. This time, in forms that looked like my family members. More pain. My bones felt like they were breaking in every inch of my body.

I couldn't take it anymore. I grabbed my keys, put the pendant on the seat next to me, and stabbed it. The pendant cracked and the sharp ringing got much louder. Purple and blue demon-like creatures flew out and were swarming around inside my car. The shadows slowly disappeared, and the darkness went away. I opened my car door to see the world as it was before. The mutilated bodies were gone, and the demons rushed out the door and into the sky. There was color and activity. The people were alive, and the sun shone through the clouds. It was a normal day and the mall was as busy as usual. The sound was amazing, and relieving. I took the pendant and smashed it on the ground.

I walked into the mall. All the shops were open, and there were people everywhere. I proceeded to go to the store I was originally in, and it was open. I walked upstairs. The glass case wasn’t smashed, the fire extinguisher was still on the wall, and there was a necklace in place of the one I stole. This one was different though. As I got closer, everything around me seemed to be more alive than usual. It glowed and had a silver chain, and a white diamond pendant. It was the same price. Weird. I bought my stove, and went home.