Nightmare

I wander into the massive, eighteen-floor mall, and look up. I can see all the way up to the ceiling of the building, through the empty core around which the walkways of each level turn. The skylight is pale grey with dust, and casts a white glow down through the tiers to the ground floor, where there are hundreds of people milling around. I stand alone, my hands buried in my pockets, a ring of space around me. I am the eye of an empty storm. I walk slowly down the length of the mall, the dark sea of people parting around me. I look up again. As the floors go higher, fewer and fewer people are leaning over the walkway railings to look down at this seething tide of humanity. I look around, my face blank and empty as I search for an elevator. The clean walls and slick tile floor look like any other mall, with bright gold storefronts, clothes in the windows, little arrangements of flowers and chocolates, and the occasional vending stand looming dimly above the heads of the crowd.

I find an elevator and walk over, the murmuring crowd parting as though a force field around me drove them away. I stand before the chrome elevator and press the 'up' button with one slender finger, before stepping back again and burying my hand in the pocket of my trench coat. The bell dings, and the doors open. I step inside and the doors close, granting me solitude, surrounded by autumnal hues in a geometric chevron pattern on the carpeted walls. I look thoughtfully at the glowing cream buttons, and stretch out a hand to touch the 6. It glows orange, and I feel the elevator lurch beneath me. I stare into my own eyes in the chrome door, and blow a wayward curl of my short brown hair away from my face.

The elevator dings and shudders to a stop. The doors rattle open asthmatically, and I step out onto a dead floor. I look down only three levels and see bright lights and golden glows and moving people, but this floor is quiet, lit dimly with grey. The occasional sepia-saturated accent catches my notice, and despite the grey cast, there does remain some dying vestige of the gold-cream color scheme from the lower levels. The occasional dark figure hurries past, a silhouette in this almost lightless place. I look up. About half the lights are out, and half of those that remain look like they're considering the same path. I turn to my left and follow the walkway around the perimeter of this floor's corpse. Few stores have any light, and what there is recalls some of the golden cheer from below. But no one stands inside the shops for long before hurrying away, as though they sense something is wrong. Only one or two of the lit shops have cashiers, and they look just as dead as the rest of the sixth level. I pass by them, aimlessly looking around. The darkened stores have decrepit steel gates drawn down, like a hat over eyes, across their black doorways. As I wander up the opposite side from the one on which I left the elevator, a store catches my eye. This one is lightless as well, dark inside but for the dim reflected light on the grey walls and the light filtering in from the walkways. It illuminates a dark heathered grey carpet on the floor and the central aisle which proceeds from the main door down to the back wall. In the center, a long, brown, leather couch sits facing the left side of the store. No other chairs give it company, and it simply stands, alone, rather like me. On either side of that central aisle, five-foot-tall display cases stand, hundreds of them, in militantly straight rows, all facing the same direction. They're the kind with the wire baskets aligned on the sides to hold things, the kind that turns slowly if you push it. It's as if this store was set to open, was totally ready and had everything just so, and then choked and died at the last minute. I step inside. Silhouettes of displays loom around me as I go over to the right-hand side of the store, and wander along the wall. They cast shadows on the walls where the faint light of the walkway crawls through the huge, square panes of glass in the windows, just barely giving me light to see by. My eyes are adjusted, and the edges of the displays are lined with the thinnest of lines of light, but still, the store's darkness is strange.

I happen to glance over my shoulder, and there's a boy, about my age, following me. I face forward again. Thinking quickly, if not logically, I grab the wire basket of a display and turn, pulling it down and tipping it over between me and this boy. He stops, and we stare at each other wordlessly. He has a faded red baseball cap on, almost a maroon-red, and a loose t-shirt. His jeans are dark blue, and loose like the shirt, folding up on the tops of his sneakers. His face is pale, and has high, wide cheekbones with a narrow chin. His brown eyes look sleepy and gentle, but something seems to lurk around the dark edges of his flat irises. They're strange eyes -- zero texturing. Flat, as though they're made of glass and slid in behind his pupils. He smiles a little. Somehow, despite the darkness of the room, I can see faint freckles dotting his cheeks. Otherwise, his skin is very smooth and clean, and I briefly envy his miraculous escape from acne.

I notice all this in a little less than two seconds, before I speak. "Don't follow me," I say. He smiles a little wider this time.

"I'm not trying to scare you," he says softly. "Want to be friends?"

I'm taken aback by the offer, and put slightly at ease. I still don't trust him, though. "Um... why?"

"Please? It's... a little weird here." He looks at me strangely, as though he expects me to be able to fix it. The dark store looms up around me, and his face is cast in a dim grey light with soft black shadows.

"I know."

"Listen, let's just sit and talk for a while. Please. We can move to the light if that makes you more comfortable."

I nod slowly, and he offers a hesitant hand. I take it readily enough, and he helps me over the display I pulled down. I lose my balance and stumble a little, and he catches me easily, one arm across my body as unobtrusively as possible. I thank him quietly and start to let go of his hand, but then I think otherwise and leave my fingers clasped in his palm. He smiles a little wider, and leads me through the dark displays back to the faint light streaming wanly through the door. I sit down on the couch and he drops, cross-legged, to the ground right in front of me.

"So... What's your name?" I ask, leaning forward and bracing my elbows on my knees. My face is hovering above his, only a few inches away from the brim of his faded red hat. I smile gently as he looks up.

"Alex. Yours?" he asks, in a low, quiet voice. I tell him, and he grins crookedly. "I like it," he says gently. "It... suits you."

"Suits me how?" I ask, reaching out and running a finger along the worn edge of the brim of his baseball cap. His strange eyes follow the motion slowly, that odd flat look in his caramel-brown irises piquing my interest again. Nothing seems to lurk or hide in the dark rims now.

"It... sounds the way you look. Pretty. Bright, cheerful." He smiles again, a little crookedly as he looks into my eyes. "Maybe... a little naive," he adds quietly.

I repress a laugh. "Maybe I am. Or just confident." I pull my hand back from the cap and drop it to my knee. The shadows surrounding us are just as dark, just as numbly close to my back. But somehow I don't fear them, even now. I never did. It was never fear; only an odd sense of idle interest. Nothing ever felt dangerous. Not even when this boy was following me, he didn't feel dangerous; I was only aware that 'someone's following me; unwise.'

He laughs quietly and looks down, and I notice something else odd about his eyes. His right cornea looks massive, the clear bubble protecting his pupil almost appearing to spread across his whole eye, as though someone gave him a fake eye who didn't know how eyes are shaped. I blink and reset my vision, only to look back and find that both his eyes are that way. They look like someone laid a clear glass globe over his eyes. He looks back up at me, smiling, and I forget about that disturbing anomaly, in the discovery that across his flat brown irises, in thick black strokes of my own handwriting, is written the word 'eye' over and over again. I stare at the marks in confusion, and then I look at him, and realize nothing else has changed. He has strange eyes, yes. But he's the most normal thing in this whole eerie mall. "Confident seems right," he murmurs. "You warded me off pretty quick. Didn't run, though."

I shake my head slowly. "I didn't want to."

"Why not? Usually, girls would have the sense to run from a guy following them." He looks down at my hand and, uncertainly, moves to take it in his again. He looks up at me to watch my reaction, and I nod gently. He smiles shyly and wraps his fingers around my hand. "Not you, though. You didn't run. Why?"

I shrug a little. "I wasn't scared. And you look like the first normal person here. Everyone else is... bundled up in dark colors, like they're trying to hide themselves."

He nods, his eyes falling to our linked hands as his thumb gently rubs back and forth across my skin. "I noticed it too."

"I feel like... we're being watched. At least, like I was," I whisper. Alex raises his eyes to mine, and my breath catches in my lungs suddenly. There's nothing different about this look, it's just... hitting different. He smiles a little, as though he heard the change in tempo of my breathing.

"Don't be scared," he says. "I feel the same way. We'll be alright, you and me, if we stick together."

"I -- I'm not," I breathe faintly. "I'm not scared at all. I never was. Only... curious."

His face changes subtly as his eyes trace my features slowly. "About what?" I shiver as he lifts a hand and tucks my hair behind my ear. Alex lets his fingers linger beside my jaw, and smiles at me gently. It's not a creepy smile. Only... sweet. Sincere.

"This place," I say quietly. "It seemed so... dead. Lonely. It felt a little like me."

"You feel dead? And lonely?"

I nod, once. "I really felt that way when everyone on the ground floor avoided me like the plague. I had a ring of -- of empty space, between me and them."

"Ever wonder if they're the dead ones?"

I blink curiously. "What are you saying?"

He laughs gently. "Nothing, much. Just random ideas that sound like they might fit the situation."

"Oh... Just out of curiosity, what brought you to me? Why follow me?"

He looks away, and I think he's blushing, but I can't be sure in the lightless store. "I thought... you were different. Pretty. You looked nice, and I wanted to know."

My chest aches faintly at the words. "I... I'm flattered, Alex," I murmur. "Thank you. It's... it's very sweet of you." He nods wordlessly and looks away, rubbing his arm with the hand that isn't firmly wrapped around mine. I reach out with my free hand, take his chin gently in my palm, and turn his face back toward me. "Really, Alex. I mean it." My hand drops again.

He smiles shyly. "Would it... be too soon, to say I -- I think I love you?"

My heartbeat pounds. "Well... maybe. But I don't really care." I inhale to say more but abruptly clamp my lips shut and feel myself blushing faintly as I drop my eyes.

He catches the movement, and divines its significance with surprising alacrity. He tilts his head to the side, getting a better view of my face. "Come on," he whispers. "You can say it."

I shrug helplessly, trying to dismiss it. "It-it's really nothing," I breathe shakily, my voice betraying me.

Alex puts up a hand to my face and, fingers trembling as he touches me, cups my jaw in his hand. I freeze immediately and look at him with wide, sparkling eyes. He smiles gently and half rises to his knees, his hand slipping down to my neck to pull me into a kiss.

What am I thinking? I wonder, as our lips meet. I met him when he was following me into an abandoned store on an abandoned floor. But my doubts flee as my eyes flutter closed and I lean forward, matching his gentle passion. We hover there, just the two of us, in an abandoned sports shop on the derelict sixth floor of a massive mall, where on every floor except this one there are people going about their daily lives, oblivious to the strange story Alex and I are telling here. We split apart slowly, our breathing shaky and amazed, and I lean my forehead on his beneath the brim of his hat. We sit eye-to-eye, absorbing what exactly just happened. I hardly even notice the strange flat irises opposite mine.

“So,” he whispers, “What’s nothing, hm?”

I close my eyes and breathe a laugh, “I — I guess -- I love you too?”

“You’re crazy,” he says, grinning. “We just met.”

“Yeah, well, people do that sometimes.” I pull back reluctantly and look down at him. “We —“

Our attention is abruptly grabbed by a girl running through the door and grabbing me, calling my name. “We found you! We finally found you! Where were you!?”

My hand slips out of Alex’s as she pulls me to my feet. He gets up, t0o, and stands in shock as she tries to pull me away. I fight to get away, but this stranger’s grip is strong. “Let go, who the hell are you?”

She smiles an eerie, blank smile. “Don’t you know me? It’s me, Emily!”

I shake my head and manage to wrench myself out of her grasp. “No, I don’t know — you’ve made a mistake.”

She looks glassily at Alex. “Who’s that?”

I look back at him anxiously. “That — he’s — this is — a friend?” She does not look at me, so I shake my head vehemently at him, mouthing reassurances.

He catches my meaning. “Um… sure. I guess.”

The girl latches onto my arm again and pulls me viciously toward the door. “Come on! We’re going to floor four! Remember the service!”

What the hell kind of service is she talking about? I wrench away again. But now, outside the door, there are two older women and another girl. 
“Hi, Mom! I found her!” shouts Emily. But… she isn’t Emily. She isn’t a person. Ever wonder if they’re the dead ones? Alex’s words swirl and re-echo in my mind as Emily drags me towards the door, aided by the other girl. I feel like maybe I should know them, or like I ought to know who they’re supposed to be, but I don’t. And that terrifies me.

Alex follows at a distance, his eyes a little frightened and concerned. I look back desperately, pleadingly, but he only shrugs helplessly. ‘Meet me when you can,’ he mouths, and I shake my head, pulling desperately back toward him, but the non-human Emily-thing drags me even stronger. They get me to the elevator, and I am flung against the back wall; I have no time to recover before the doors have already rolled closed and we are descending. The four inhuman creatures chatter happily about things I don’t know about, some sort of service, the shopping they’ve done. I decide to try and play along.

“Oh, hey, guys, um… is it okay if I listen to the service from outside? I, uh… don’t feel too good. I want to be close to a trashcan, you know?” I laugh nervously and keep my eyes averted.

The four inhumans readily agree, their plastic faces not really paying any particular heed to me. The elevator doors slide open on a dark, mahogany-lined hall, and for a moment I wonder if I've entered a totally different mall. The floor is covered in a red carpet with faint yellowish diamonds in the pattern, and dark wainscoting coats the wall beneath red floral wallpaper. I step out with wide eyes, and the dolls lead me along the hall to a low doorway, framed with mahogany. It's sunk into the floor slightly so that the dolls have to drop down a step before they can go through. I lean against the wall and give them a forced reassuring smile, and they return the fake expression as they go into what looks like a theater inside. They take seats opposite the door, and I begin to pace idly up and down, passing the doorway to let them see I'm still here. I nervously look through, and see a doorway on the opposite side of the small theater. I pause and watch it, and suddenly I see a figure that looks suspiciously like Alex pass by it. I stiffen and look around, but the ends of this hall are closed. The only door is the one through which I can see my flat-faced captors. They look dazed, as though they're literally just plastic dolls set up facing the front of the theater. I risk sneaking through behind them, and am very confused when I glance over the room and find no one at the front, and only ten other people, maximum, in the room. I shake off the fears and run through to the other door, and almost instantly find myself running straight into Alex's chest. I flinch back fearfully, and then I smile in relief when I realize who it is.

"Oh, thank heaven I found you!" I whisper.

"I'm glad I found you," he replies quietly. "Come on, we should g--"

The Emily doll pokes her head suddenly around the doorway. "You alright?" she says to me, her plasticy eyes gazing fixedly over my shoulder into nothing.

I glance awkwardly at Alex and force a smile, nodding quickly. "Yep, all good here!" I add a laugh.

She smiles dreamily. "Okay!" And just like that, she's gone again.

I swiftly turn back to Alex. "We need to get away," I hiss. "Or else not be seen together. These things are... not normal. I don't know what their motivation is but I think they'll --"

And then Emily is back. My eyes widen in desperation and anger, and I tear away from Alex and go through the theater. Alex follows me, and the Emily doll wanders sightlessly back to her seat. Alex and I run to the elevator and the doors close, and I hammer the button for the next floor up. I am gasping for breath, and I just know this is not the end. Those dolls will follow us through the whole mall. Alex reaches out, and I whirl into his arms and hold on tightly.

"What -- on earth -- is going on?" I gasp.

"I don't really know. You need to get away from them, though."

I pull back and look up at him."Me? What about you? We don't know if they'll follow you, too!"

He blinks, and his cheeks gain some color. "I -- I just didn't know if you wanted me to come with you." He reaches up and pushes a lock of hair behind my ear. His inscribed eyes follow his own hand as he does, and I trace one of the 'E's in his strange irises.

"Alex," I whisper, drawing closer, "Of course I want you to come with me." I put my arms around him and rest my head against his chest, closing my eyes and relishing the moment. His arms encircle me warmly and he leans back against the wall of the elevator as we stand, locked together, alone in the strange world I somehow stumbled into.

The doors open and we break apart reluctantly, stepping out with clasped hands and stepping immediately onto a different elevator. We have to evade those dolls. Alex presses the 10 button, it glows orange, and we begin to rise. He steps back to lean against the wall, and I lean my shoulder against his side and cross my arms.

"How are you doing?"

I sigh. "I'm... okay. Starting to get stressed."

"You weren't stressed before, being on that freaky sixth floor?"

I shake my head. "No. Never. Not even when you started following me. It was just a general idea of, 'oh, this probably isn't a good idea... maybe do something about it.' But I was never actually worried. Just... realized it was all kind of sketchy, and went with it."

He chuckles. "That's why I liked you from the beginning. You went through the darkness, and didn't startle at every shadow. You were calm and collected, and even decided to explore a place that was totally dark inside. No guards, no cashiers, nothing, and you went for it."

"And... that's why you liked me? Because I was brave?"

"You thought. You weren't a brainless doll. You were the same as me, before I'd spent a few years here."

"Years??"

He nods. "I wandered in one day, and stayed. There's plenty to do. And I never wanted to leave. I knew where the exit was, but I never cared, until now. Now, I want to get out there. We gotta get those people off your -- our -- tail, first."

I slip an arm around him and turn, leaning my head against his shoulder. "Why do you want to leave now?"

"Take a guess."

I blush and smile. "Me?" I whisper shyly.

"Yes. You. You reminded me of the outside world. And I want to go out again -- but only if I can go with you." He lifts a hand to my jaw and tilts my chin up, and I smile up into his strange eyes as he leans close, presses his lips to mine. I close my own eyes and melt, just a little bit, as he pulls my waist against him, deepening the kiss softly. The elevator doors open, and we regretfully break apart, stepping outside just before the doors close. Alex leans down to my ear. "We'll finish that later," he hints, his fingers twining themselves into mine tenderly.

I smile shyly and we continue up the mall. It seems that on every floor but the sixth, there are floods of dark-muffled people, totally hidden from the world. My trench coat looks similar to theirs, and I make a note to shed it soon in case I get separated from Alex again and need to be easily visible. We find an empty shop and go past the cashier-less counter to the back, where we can see the sign for the fire exit. Alex pushes through, leading me behind him, and we spend almost an hour descending all the flights of steps down to the ground floor. When we reach the bottom, Alex shoves through the door there, into a rush of people who instantly part around us like fish before a shark. We return back to the elevators almost immediately. Alex turns to me in front of them.

"You trust me, right?"

I nod. "Absolutely."

He smiles softly. "I'm glad. I need you to keep doing that, okay? This is the finale. Go up to floor three, then come back down here. I don't care if you use fire escapes or elevators. I'll walk by and give you a paper with more dorections once you get down again, alright?"

"Why are we splitting up?"

"Separate trails make it harder to follow us. I promise, it'll be alright." he caresses my cheek and then kisses my forehead briefly, before stepping back into the crowd. I lock eyes with him until a rush of people between us breaks our connection, and then I turn resolutely to the elevators. I go inside, and press the 3 button. It glows, the doors close, the elevator goes.

And I find myself on the third floor. I step out and look around, go over to the railing. I stand there and look down, hoping for a glimpse of faded red among the sea of dark people. Hoping against hope that he can see me, I remove my black coat, and drape it over the railing. At least he'll probably see that if he's watching for signs of me. I walk along the railing, and look for an empty shop. I dart inside one, the strange force around me giving me clear space to move in, and dodge through to the back where the fire escape door stands. I get through and hurry down the stairs. At the bottom, just like bafore, I open the door, and go to stand in the center of the floor, waiting. A red cap bobs above the crowd towards me, and I walk idly towards it, my eyes on the storefronts to my right. I feel his hand against mine, a crinkle of paper, and then I look down to find a small piece of a paper bag in my hand. There's a list of numbers on it, and on the bottom of the scrap, the paper has the number 183 printed on it. The list of numbers travels all the way down to it. Will I end up on the eighteenth floor? The number right before is 6. The sixth floor, again.

2, 8, 4, 17, 10, 3, 7, 16, 13, 8 again, 9, 10 again, 11, 6, and that's the end. After that, it's 183. I take a deep breath and look at the elevators, then my eyes rise up to the top floor, lost in the heights of the mall. I step toward the elevator and press the 2. The doors close and I rise briefly, before stepping out onto the second level and going down the mall a bit and crossing to the elevators, traveling up to the eighth level. This goes on. Every time I can go down, I take the fire escapes, and if I go less than three levels up I take those then as well. I hop around to different elevator systems, so the dolls can't trace me. I run into them occasionally, and they try to drag me a little way, but I always escape unnoticed, and travel to the next floor. I find myself on the sixth floor, at long last, and I step out and look around. No flash of red greets my eye, and I wander slowly along to the next system of elevators, watching keenly for Alex. I never see him, so I step into the elevator and press the 18.

I step out and look around. Floor 18 is very, very similar to floor 6, but messier. It looks dilapidated and dusty and unused, and the skylight right above my head is even dirtier up close. I look down at floor 17, and it is as bright and cheery as the ground floor except for the gloomy sea swirling around like a whirlpool. I wander back into the shadows and start walking laps, when a dark store like the last one, ungated like the last one, but far more untidy than the last one catches my interest. I look around, and still don't see him, so I step inside. If it weren't for the fact that most of the displays are tipped over instead of being in neat, straight rows, I'd think I had somehow ended up on that sixth-level dark store again. I walk along the wall, stepping around fallen displays. I reach the back corner and turn, to walk along the back wall, and suddenly a shadowy figure rises out of the mess of the displays beside me. Strong arms suddenly capture me and a hand covers my mouth softly, and I freeze. But then, I feel Alex's breath in my ear, and then he whispers, his voice trembling with pride.

"You're amazing," he says. "You went all that way. And that girl got you, and you got away from them without them noticing. You made it!"

I curl my fingers around his wrist and gently pull his hand down. "I followed the directions on the paper. That last one had me confused, though, Alex. I didn't know if you wanted to end on the sixth floor or the eighteenth."

He smiles. "I knew you'd figure it out. I was always one floor above or below, watching for you. I knew right where you were, every time, sweetheart." He turns me to face him and wraps his arms around me, hugging me tightly, pressing his face into my shoulder. "I'll admit, I didn't know if I could do it," he murmurs, his voice muffled. "I never met the girl or her friends, but I saw them sometimes, looking for you. I was scared, really."

I reach my arms up around his neck and hold him tightly. "We did it. Now we just have to go down to the ground floor, right?"

He pulls back, and his face is wreathed in the gentlest smile I've seen yet, overflowing with pride and joy. "Right. But, first..." he turns and presses me gently against the wall, and his lips descend to cover my own in a tender kiss, the continuation of the one in the elevator. My breath begins to shudder slightly in my lungs as we grow a little more intense, and then he breaks away and smiles down at me. "Told you we'd finish it later," he whispers.

"Alex!" I laugh quietly, slightly scandalized. "We should... go," I say, but something in me definitely doesn't want to go just yet. My eyes linger longingly on his lips before I blush and look quickly back into his eyes, and he chuckles and shakes his head.

"No, not till we're out of here." He kisses my forehead again, though. "So come on." He takes my hand and leads me out of the dilapidated store. We go to the elevators immediately, and we descend straight down to the ground floor, with zero stops or pauses, no changes in our elevator system. The elevator dings for the last time, the doors open for the last time, and we step out for the last time, into that swirling sea of people. We walk through untouched, like Moses and the Israelites, to the main doors through which I walked not so long ago.

We step out of the gaudy golden glow into the soft summer sunlight, free from the strange, evil mall.