Chapter 4 Chapter 4

Leo lay there in the dark with his hand resting on something that felt wet. His heart was beating hard enough that he could feel it in his head. He waited for whatever it was to move or grab him or do something but nothing happened.

After a few seconds, he noticed the wet thing under him wasn't moving anymore. It had been soft when he landed on it.

He whispered. “Could it be dead? Did I kill it by landing on it?” He moved his eyes right and left even though he couldn't see.

He pulled his hand back and wiped it on his jeans. He couldn't see the stain but he could feel it. It was cold and thick.

"Hello?" he said quietly.

Nothing came back. There was no response.

He got his feet under him and stood up slowly. His knees hurt from the fall. His fingers hurt where the skin had torn on the grate. He could feel the blood on his fingertips but couldn't see a thing.

He put both hands out in front of him and walked.

The floor changed from whatever that soft thing was to concrete. Rough concrete, the kind you find in basements and car parks. He followed it until his hand hit a wall. Cold and dry. He followed the wall to the left.

His boots made small sounds. Each step came back to him a little. The space felt big. Not like a room. More like a tunnel or a service corridor. He could feel air moving against his face, not wind, just a slow steady push of it like something breathing a long way off.

He walked for what felt like five minutes. Maybe longer.

Then he saw light.

Not much. Just a glow at the far end. Yellow and faint, like a streetlight seen through fog. Then, he walked toward it.

The light got stronger. He could make out a service hallway now. Pipes along the ceiling. Gray concrete underfoot. A door at the end with a round window in it, the kind you see on kitchen doors in restaurant kitchens.

He pushed it open.

The light hit his face. He squinted and put his hand up to cover his face and stepped through.

He was in a food court.

Not the one he'd seen before. This one was smaller. Tables were bolted to the floor. Chairs too. Everything was plastic and faded and stained in ways he didn't want to think about too hard of how it came about. The ceiling lights buzzed overhead. Some of them flickered. A few had stopped working altogether.

And there were people in it.

Four of them. Each one at a different table. Not together. Each completely on their own.

Leo stood in the doorway with his hand still half raised and looked at each of them. He was scared for a second. But he didn't turn back.

He thought to himself. “At least, they aren't mannequins.”

The first was a man. Forties maybe. Color coming through in his beard. Janitor's uniform, dark blue trousers and a lighter blue shirt with a patch on the chest Leo couldn't read from this distance. He wasn't looking at Leo. He was looking at his own hands sitting flat on the table in front of him. He hadn't moved them since Leo walked in.

The second was a woman. She was young, roughly Leo's age. Red hair in a ponytail, face covered in freckles. A server's apron over a black t-shirt. A name tag he couldn't read. She was looking at the floor and her eyes were moving fast, like she was counting tiles or tracking some pattern only she could follow.

The third was also young. Maybe twenty. Delivery driver uniform, brown shirt with a company logo on it. His leg was bouncing under the table, fast and nervous. He kept looking at the ceiling and then the floor and then back up at the ceiling.

The fourth was a woman, older than the others, mid thirties probably. Sitting up straight with both hands wrapped around a paper cup that was clearly empty. A hospital ID badge clipped to her shirt. The clip was bent. The badge was facing the wrong way.

She was the only one who looked at him.

When he came through the door she lifted her head and her eyes found his and just stayed there. No smile. No frown. Just looking at him like she was working something out before he said anything.

Leo glanced back at the door he'd come through. The service hallway was dark. He couldn't see the grate he'd fallen through. He couldn't see anything back there.

He let the door close.

The sound echoed around the food court. The janitor flinched. Just his shoulders going up slightly then coming back down. He still didn't look at Leo.

The woman with the hospital badge moved her chin very slightly toward the empty seat across from her. Not a wave. Not a point. Just that.

Leo walked over.

The floor was sticky under his boots, grabbing at each step a little. The whole place smelled like old cooking grease and bleach. Like someone had tried to clean it once and then given up partway through.

He pulled out the chair opposite her. It scraped against the floor. The delivery driver's leg stopped bouncing for a second. Then started up again.

Leo sat down.

She looked at him. She had brown eyes. It looked tired in a way that wasn't just about sleep. There were dark circles m that looked like they'd been living under her eyes for years. Her hair was in a messy bun with a few strands coming loose around her face.

"You're new," she said calmly.

"Yeah," Leo said. "I think so."

"How long have you been here?"

"I don't know. An hour maybe. Less." He looked at the others sitting alone at their tables. At the dead lights up above. "Where is here exactly?"

She didn't answer that. She looked at his hands instead. At the blood on his fingers.

"Did you touch them?"

"Touch what?"

"The mannequins." She nodded toward his hands. "Is that from touching one?"

"No. I fell through a floor grate. Cut my fingers on the metal."

She looked at him for a moment. Then nodded once.

"Good," she said. "Don't touch them."

"What happens if you do?"

She didn't answer straight away. She just looked over at the janitor. Still sitting there. Hands flat on the table. Not moving them.

Leo followed her eyes. "What happened to him?"

"He touched one."

He waited for more. It didn't come.

"So what actually happens?" he asked. "Does he turn into one of them?" He gave an inquisitive look.

"He's still himself. Mostly. But he can't move his hands anymore. They've gone plastic. From the fingers up to the wrists. And it hasn't stopped spreading."

Leo looked at the man's hands across the room. They looked normal enough from here. But he hadn't moved them once.

"How long does it take to spread?"

"Depends on the person." She raised the empty cup to her mouth out of some old habit. "Some people lose just a finger and it stops. Some lose an arm. Some lose everything and end up standing somewhere in the mall smiling at nothing. Forever."

Something cold moved through him.

"So don't touch them," she said again.

"Yeah. I… got it."

She put the cup down. "I'm Maya."

"Leo."

She nodded. Looked at the others again. The janitor, the server, the driver.

"None of them will talk to you yet," she said. "They're waiting to see if you're going to last long enough to be worth it."

Leo looked at the server. Still doing her floor-counting thing. The driver still with his leg going. The janitor still looking at his hands.

"How long have they been here?"

"Different amounts. The janitor's been here the longest. Three weeks maybe. Time is strange in this place."

"Three weeks?" Something dropped in his stomach. "I've been gone three weeks?"

Maya shook her head. "Not in your world. Time works differently here. You could spend a month in the mall and get home to find five minutes went by. Or five years. You don't know until you're actually out."

"If you get out."

She looked at him steadily. "Yes. If."

Leo leaned back. The plastic chair made a sound under him. He looked up at the flickering lights. At the dead speakers hanging from the ceiling beams.

"So what do we actually do?" he said. "Just sit here?"

"The mission starts soon."

"What mission?"

She pointed at a set of double doors on the far side of the food court. The kind you push through to get into a restaurant kitchen. There was a sign on them but every word had been scratched out.

"That opens when the mall's ready," she said. "Behind it is the Anchor Room. Get there and you survive the mission. Don't get there and you become part of the mall."

Leo looked at the doors with despair spreading on his face. They looked like any other set of doors.

"And after that?"

"Another mission. Then another one after that. Until you die or until you find a way out."

"Is there a way out?"

Maya didn't answer for a moment. She just looked at him with those tired eyes.

"People say there is," she said. "I haven't met anyone who found it."

Leo thought about his dad. About the jacket lying in the sinkhole. About the voice saying his father was processed differently.

"How long have you been here?" he asked her.

"Three years."

He stared at her. "Three years."

"More or less. I stopped counting properly after the first one."

"And you're still alive."

"Still here."

"How."

She turned the empty cup in her hands. "I was a nurse. Pediatric ICU. I spent years keeping people alive who had no real reason to still be alive. I just used the same approach on myself."

Leo looked at her badge. The bent clip. The name facing the wrong way.

"What happened with the badge?"

She touched it. Her thumb went along the plastic edge. "I was taking a shortcut through the hospital to the morgue. A child had died and I'd been on for sixteen hours and I was crying and I touched a mark on the wall without really seeing it. And then I was here."

She looked down at it. "I keep it because it's the only thing left from before. When I start forgetting who I actually am I look at it."

She flipped it round.

Maya Chen. RN. Pediatric ICU.

Leo looked at the name. Then at her face.

"I'm looking for my dad," he said. "He was taken by the thing behind the desk. Twelve years ago."

Her expression didn't change. But something in her eyes shifted. Just slightly.

"You won't find him here," she said. "The Game doesn't give you what you want. It takes what you have and then comes back for more."

"I don't care what it wants."

"Then you'll die."

"Maybe." He looked at the double doors. At the scratched out sign. "But I'm not stopping."

She watched him for a moment. Then she nodded.

"Okay," she said.

The delivery driver stopped bouncing his leg.

Leo looked over at him. He was staring at the double doors. His face went pale. His mouth opened slightly.

"It's opening," he said quietly.

Leo turned back.

The doors were moving. Slowly, just a crack. Just enough to show dark on the other side.

The server stopped looking at the floor. The janitor finally looked up from his hands.

Maya stood up. She lifted her chair carefully before she moved it so it didn't make a sound.

"Stay behind me," she said.

Leo stood. His legs felt heavy. His hands were shaking.

The doors swung open a bit more.

Something was there on the other side. Not a person. Not a mannequin. Something else. He couldn't make it out. Just a shape in the dark. Too tall. Too thin. Absolutely still.

The janitor got to his feet. His plastic hands made a sound when they came up off the table. A hard click, like two bits of something rigid knocking together.

He started walking toward the doors.

The delivery driver grabbed his arm. "Don't."

The janitor looked down at the hand on his arm. Then up at the driver's face.

"I have to," he said. Nothing behind the words at all.

He pulled free and kept walking.

Maya moved forward. "Wait."

He didn't.

He went through the double doors. The dark took him. Leo could hear his footsteps for a few seconds after.

Then nothing.

Then a sound came from the other side.

It sounded like something wet and it was tearing something. The kind of sound your body understands before your brain catches up.

The doors swung shut.

Maya stood there with her hand half raised. She brought it down slowly.

The delivery driver sat back down. His leg started up again, faster than before.

The server put her head in her hands.

Leo looked at Maya. "What was that."

She was still looking at the doors. At the scratched out sign.

"Mission's started," she said.

She turned to face him. Her face was steady but her hands were shaking a little. Just enough to see.

"Don't touch the mannequins," she said. "Stay close to me. And if I say run, you run. No questions. No looking back. You just go."

Leo nodded.

The double doors opened again.

This time there was no dark on the other side.

There was a hallway. Long, with white walls

and a red carpet and doors on both sides. Numbers were on every door. Apartment numbers maybe, or hotel rooms. He couldn't tell which.

And at the far end, standing in a row, completely still, were mannequins.

Every one of them smiling.

Every one of them was looking straight at Leo.