Dr. Creepen's Dungeon - S6 Ep339: Episode 339: Abandoned Shopping Mall Horror

Episode Date: May 19, 2026

Tonight’s fabulous podcast epic is all three parts of the 'Dead Mall' trilogy by the wonderfully talented Tyler, kindly shared with me via Creepypasta Wiki and read to you here under the conditions of the CC-BY-SA license: http://relics.valice.net/about-stories/https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/User:Digigekko

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Welcome to Dr. Creepin's Dungeon. Abandoned malls are creepy because they were designed to be full of life. Every corridor food carting, glowing storefront was built for crowds, noise and movement. So when they sit empty, it feels deeply unnatural. The faded music, dead escalators and abandoned mannequins create that sense of something ending suddenly, leaving behind a hollow shell of normal life.

They also tap into a fear of decline. Places that once represented prosperity and community now stands silent and decaying, like monuments to a world that vanished without warning. So we shall see in tonight's epic story. Now, as ever before we begin, a word of caution. Tonight's tale may contain strong language as well as descriptions of violence and horrific imagery. That sounds like your kind of thing. Let's begin.

It was called Sleepy Pines Mall. A few miles off an interstate in America's northeast, at the center of several small towns. It was a single story and only had two anchor stores, but it was sprawling considering its almost rural location. Billed in 1973, it was one of the oldest shopping malls and opened before there were long-term strategies on more viability. Popular for a time, its occupancy dwindled in the late 90s, and it lost its movie theater and its Sears by 2003. before becoming a neglected, poorly maintained, and sometimes dangerous commercial plaza that was outdone by nearby rivals

and doomed by surrounding negative growth trends of the towns that kept it fed. The food caught closed in 2006 and the last stores followed a year later. Sleepy Pines had its fans and grown adults who'd gone there as children, paying it nostalgic visits, as all malls do, but by 2010 it had become

a mostly forgotten derelict with a parking lot full of weeds. Ten years later, and a lengthy demolition was in its final stages. I'd been assigned to be the foreman of the construction of the building that will replace it, a large warehouse and distribution centre for a major retailer. I'd pay frequent visits to the site as the walls were torn down and the roof was gutted, myself having gone to them all several times in my youth, whenever my family was passing through the area. so I knew its layout well.

By the winter of 2020, all that really remained of the structure was the back wall of its atrium, which once overlooked the fountain. A painted mural on tiles covered that wall. Well, efforts to save this artwork delayed its destruction several times, but enough funds were never procured

to bring the wishes of perhaps only a few dozen people to fruition. Well, I'm no critic, but I always found it rather creepy anyway. European settlers amid a backdrop of pine trees, where the natives they drove out now instead depicted as their friends. Their faces were plain and simple, their eyes staring off into a space where there was once a skylight.

On the other hand, the trees looked like they were made by a different painter, and one more talented. The pines were muted in their colours, but highly detailed, with layers of darkness in their shadows where you might expect mischievous forest creatures to reside. The swirling, intricate patterns of the nearly black paint took the forms of deranged beasts, if looked at closely enough. But I think it was just the artist having fun, and not acting out with hill intent. It wasn't like the vast majority of the shoppers would stand around and study the mural closely,

or not when there were sails to be found and warm pretzels to be had. Now the mural itself will be coming down soon, and ground on the next building would be broken after the spring fall. while little demolition remained was also put on hold while the earth was still frozen I went to the site a few days after New Year's to get my last look at the public painting exposed to the elements and surrounded by a landscape of snow I checked in on the operations trailer while there just to give my best wishes for 2021 to the guy in charge

who I'd gotten to know over the years from various other projects hey uh you still like strange shit right he asked me after a few minutes of us chatting about our holiday get-togethers. I got something you'll love. My guys found it just before they left for the winner. I'm no good with electronics, you know, so, well, you might as well see what you can do with it. He handed me a GoPro camera. An earlier model that I would later learn was from 2013.

Now, the little box was in bad condition. I didn't take into consideration how bad at first. And it was true. did collect oddities and yard sale objects with inexplicable backstories in my spare time. It wasn't the camera itself that might rival some of my greatest finds. It was the potential of the footage on board it, if it had survived. Well, if it could explain how the poor thing had been beaten into such bad shape, then the story of the object would be made all the better.

Look, I had a long winter ahead of me with little else to do, so I figured I could spend a few nights cracking it open and see it. what was on its memory card. Geez, I replied as I studied it in my hand. It's like it's, well, melted. Yeah, we dug it up and couldn't tell what it was at first. No idea if there was some kind of fire here, but it doesn't even look like burn damage. Well, he made a good point.

There was no sign of smoke, no bubbles in the material, no metal fatigue. It was like something had turned it into clay and had its way with it. misshaping it into a twisted piece of art. The glass of his LCD screen and lens was intact, but the body was warped, stretched, and compressed, as if by tiny fingers. If the memory card was still in one piece, I'd never be able to pry it out.

I'd have to carefully crack open the camera around it. Of course, I did have a big collection of tools at home, so I knew I could do it. There was every chance that the card was missing, all corrupted, All the data had been deleted, but now I was interested. I wanted to find out for certain. I told my friend that we should have lunch sometime and then headed home.

I was making good money, but I got to keep the house after the divorce and had yet to get around to moving out and finding a better place. It was a small place, and half of it was spread across cardboard boxes or otherwise just a neglected mess. My home office was the only decent room remaining, and it also featured my toolbench and the air. arsenal I would use as disassembled a scarred and malfunctioned lump that used to be a high-tech recording device. Well, I managed to break it open and separate several of its pieces, and eventually

the micro-SD card fell out from its slots. It was perfectly readable and full of video files, which I transferred to my computer and organized by date. They were 23 and all, most recorded over the course of two days in December 2013. So with a cold, quiet winter outside my window, I turned up the heat, brewed some coffee, and went through the files, knowing nothing about the camera's owner or what they'd experienced when I began. I'll summarise the portions that are more mundane or uneventful and fully transcribe the rest. File number one, recorded on a chilly morning with the operator obviously testing camera settings outside their house. No address can be seen and the surroundings are typical suburbia, making the location difficult to identify. There's snow on the ground.

It starts with the operator saying, nice, as they zoom out on their new camera's now empty box. They're inside their messy car and they focus on the house for several seconds before the video ends. File number two. The file created date indicates that this one was recorded just a couple of hours later. A young woman, around 30, is watching a pot boil on a stove. She's a small brunette with a bubbly attitude and big blue eyes. I quickly discern that this is the operator's girlfriend. They're both happy and energetic, and like they have their whole lives ahead of them.

I'm definitely not married, and they've probably only been together a few months. I'll own birth of their names as the young man teases her a bit with the camera, and she remarks that she hopes he didn't spend too much. on the new toy. I'm not going to share their real names, so let's just call them Mike and Jenna. They clearly like each other, and the clip ends after he tells her, this is a lot better than the old one. The more videos are going to look great. Gina stirs some stovetop sauce and smiles. File number three, Mike records some football in the yard at another house. Even though the clip was made only a week after the previous, there's no snowboard.

present. In fact, everyone is running around in T-shirts, making it obvious that this was filmed much further south, away from the cold weather. It's a Thanksgiving gathering, and Mike is filming his three younger cousins toss around the old pigskin outside, trying his hand at some sporty

action shots. It keeps going for about ten minutes, and friendly banter is shared among the family members. The cousins seem to like Mike, even as he keeps denying their request to join in. At the end, Jenna walks out of the front door and tells everyone that the meal is ready.

File number four. Mike and Jenna visit a local mall in the area on Black Friday. It's large with two floors and doing well. The place is packed and Mike gets a few minutes of the mall Santa and the line of kids waiting to see them. Jenna looks at the camera and smiles again. Mike comments that he hasn't been to a mall this busy in years. It definitely makes me nostalgic for the pre-pandemic days. File number five.

Mike is seen on video for the first time at the mall, 10 minutes later. Jenna gets in some framing practice. Mike tries to humor her with his grandiose gestures, like he's introducing the place to an adoring and large audience. He says some things about the mall, but the crowds drown him out. The camera isn't really known for its audio recording quality. while this last several minutes as Jenna gets used to the device and how to hold it steady. Towards the end she recommends getting some sort of mount for it,

which it was designed to be used with, and Mike agrees. File number six. Things begin to get interesting. It's now December 15th, and Jenna is doing another camera test around sunset. Mike is seeing crossing the frame several times as he moves about, and she pans the camera. they're getting footage of the front of Steepy Pines Mall, which is just recently closed. Snow covers the neglected parking lot. Mike tries the door and looks frustrated that it's locked.

I hear the agitated version of his voice, as he remarks that they should have come yesterday. God, now it's too late. Jenner assures him that there must still be some way in, that someone had forgotten to lock one at the many doors. I understand now that they're urban explorers of some kind, but they likely just kept things easy and focused on malls. Judging by Mike's response about that, not been a good idea,

I figured that they hadn't broken into a place before. I re-checked the closure date of Sleepy Pines, which was December 14th. They just missed their chance to legally or easily get inside and film a dead mall. Mike sounds ready to give up, mentioning how well their previous trip went to another mall in the region, and that they are never going to get their subscriber count up at this rate.

Well, Jenna isn't so despondent. She wants to make her guy happy, and she mentions that since it took an hour for them to get there, they should at least try to get in. Mike sighs, nods, and smiles. File number seven. Shot a half hour later, it's now dark. Jenna is holding the camera, getting a selfie of both.

both of them. They're under a buzzing wall light somewhere on the side of the mall, near a cracked open service door. Well, they both look pleased, but it's clear that they're still amateurs at the newest hobby they want to do together. Hey guys, it's Mike in general, she says with an awkward grin. Um, so, well, we're here at Sleepy Pines Mall, and we're going to go and explore it together. If you've watched our first five videos, you know that we're both interested in this sort of thing. We're just going to go in for a quick look tonight, then come back tomorrow during the day. I bet it's really creepy in there now. All right, let's do it, Mike adds, and then sidesteps inside.

He opens the door and beckons in the viewer, or Jenna snaps the camera into a shoulder mount. The service corridor is poorly lit, and the 2013 hardware doesn't have the sensor chip to shoot in darkness very well. Digital noise fills the frame as they navigate their way into the mall proper, stumbling over some equipment, boxes and cleaning materials that had yet to be removed from the area. Commentary is nearly nonexistent till they find another door and emerge into a side hallway that brings them to the atrium.

Most of the mall's lights are still going, although the mural is bathed in shadow, giving its already creepy staring faces and ominous presence in the nearly empty building. For several minutes the couple of explorers walk around, getting footage of the vacated stores. They reached the other end of the mall and head back to where they'd begun, saying very little as they collect footage. The clip ends with a ten-second hold on the mural, during which Mike can be heard laughing after Jenna remarks.

Yeah, that is a little scary. File number eight. The two definitely don't have a script. As they perform a longer second walkthrough, they chat idly about how they feel about the place, and experiences from past visits to other moors, just to feel dead air. Jenner is at least a competent cinematographer, even if her boyfriend leaves much to be desired in the information and anecdote side of things. If they weren't planning to add some interesting voiceover narration in post, they would have two

very dull videos on their hands. It's around the five-minute mark in this clip. while Jenna shows off the closed dollar theatre, that Mike finally mentions some personal history. I learned that he used to live in the area as a kid, and as fond memories of visiting Sleepy Pines, back when it had busy weekends and few closed doors. Some of my earliest memories were of coming here with my dad when I was five,

he tells Jenna. So must have been around 1991. I met Santa right over there. He points to a wide open liminal space under a skylight in the center of the mall. Damn, it's sad what happens to these places. How the memories fade over time, you know. Was that why you were so mad when you found out you missed his final day? Jenna asks, now keeping him in frame like they were having an interview.

He shrugs. Oh, I paid a visit a year ago. It was already deep in the shinner. It would just have been symbolic or something. We're both here right now, though. He pauses and looks away. Yeah, you're ready to go? We can get more footage tomorrow during the day.

We just have to keep that door from locking. Yeah, this place is starting to get to me. Empty Mars at night are unnatural. I turn around and head towards the hallway where they came in. On the way, Jenna suddenly stops and swings the camera around. She stares into a lightless corridor, so dark that the sensor can't pick up anything. A posted sign indicates that the more security centre is at the end of the hall. She lingers on it for an unusual amount of time, and Mike asks off-screen what she's looking at.

Don't you hear that? she asks. Nervousness in her voice. I turn up the volume as much as I can, but nothing's strange. Strange passes through my headphones. If she's hearing something, the camera didn't pick it up. She looks into that corridor, as if more petrified by fright than curious. In the end, it takes Mike dragging her away to break her focus, at which point she seems to snap out of it.

The clip ends with Mike staring at her and asking, What's wrong? If she gives him an answer, she does so when the camera is off. At this point I get onto YouTube and search for their names, adding mall into the search form on a second try, and this brings me to their page. They really were just getting their start. Their channel only has six subscribers, five videos with only a dozen views each, and no uploads for over seven years. I skimmed through their videos, all visits to other malls, and find nothing out of the ordinary. Their most recent

uploads started showing the signs of professionalism with some of that voiceover narration they badly need it might share some history of the empty mall in another state they'd visited and he does so with some enthusiasm he and Jenna smile throughout their trip and look like they're having a good time walking through a shopping plaza of memories

they were one of YouTube's earlier dead mall channels and well they'd had some promise But, seeing their inactivity, only but confirms my worries that something bad happened to them. And a few minutes of Googling later, I found out that they'd been reported missing in early January 2014, at least a full two weeks after they started working on their ill-fated video. Well, naturally, I get the urge to skip to the end to find out what may have happened to them, but I convinced myself to keep going through the files in order.

and take this trip with them as their latest expedition's first viewer. On a second look at the last few minutes of this file, I noticed two pink pixels in random spots on the video. I notice a sign of sensor damage, and I trace it back to when Jenna focused the camera into the dark hallway. After 30 seconds, one dead pixel shows up. A little later, the next arrives. It's as if there's something at the end of that corridor

as emitting a damaging, invisible light or other energetic phenomena which steadily overloads the camera sensor. But, I don't know what else could do such a thing, other than a powerful laser or radiation. So eagerly, I move on to the next clip.

File number nine, the dead pixels are here to stay. They're present throughout the video. I see Sleepy Pines' exterior again, this time early in the morning. Mike stands at the side entrance, his breath filling the cold air. He gives Jenna a thumbs up and she comes over and points the camera at the both of them. I'm Mike, and I'm Jenna.

Then I add in unison, and today we're exploring sleepy pines mall. Oh, cute. They proceed inside and arrive at the atrium without cutting the shot, even when there's no reason. to keep things all in one take. But Mike must have done some research while at whatever hotel the two stayed at the night prior, as he starts going over the basic details of the mall.

Its opening date and designer, a brief history of the area, a few controversies about its construction and maintenance record, and the stores that have come and gone. They all get a mention, though not in a scripted way. Mike has all this stuff memorized

and jumps from one bullet point to the next. Still, I'll give some props to the guy for remembering so much and getting it all out on the first try. Did we get it that time? He asks when they return to the atrium, where the fountain still hosts some coins and is half full of stagnant water. He smiles after Jenna quietly responds and adds, Okay, keep that one. So, not actually their first try. I don't know how many attempts it took, since they must have kept deleting prior takes to keep.

memory space free. Before Jenna stops recording, Mike wanders around a little, looking into empty stores. Eventually, he suddenly notices that the red light remains on. Hey, um, you still rolling? Mike, I think we should check out the security area. He sighs and looks a little annoyed. You still care about that. Come on. We've seen just about everything else. We should get everything on film before they tear this place down. Well, there'll be rooms that are, you know, forgotten forever, never archived. Yeah, we don't need to be perfectionists. Yeah, but you went on and on last night about visits here with your family and friends, your memories of the holiday decorations and seeing dollar movies. Really, Jenna? You're saying

all this on camera. At least shut it off. The shot lingers a few moments longer before Mike looks fed up and starts approaching the camera He's about to grab it when the clip ends I guess every relationship has arguments But it's a strange thing to have a fight about It almost sounds like Jenna felt something that was calling to her File number 10

Mike now stands in front of the dark hallway Although now with the sunlight coming in through the nearby skylight skylight, it's no longer pitch black. My outlooks like he's under just a little bit of duress. But I understand, knowing myself that sometimes you just have to do what your significant other wants. All right, so let's take a quick look down this hallway. He says, lacking his typical enthusiasm. There'll be a place you probably saw only if you tried a shoplift or something, you know, filmed without permission like only criminal scum. would do.

Mike, Jenna exclaims. He fakes a smile and says, let's check it out. The camera has already acquired a third dead pixel before they even start moving into the hallway. More pop-up as they get closer as the sensor becomes more and more permanently damaged.

But with the camera on her shoulder and Mike leading the way, Jenna doesn't notice. Well, it quickly becomes too dark for it to pick anything up again, but Mike turns on his phone's flashlight, which at least helps it show anything that's within its cone of light. They enter the security office and freeze for several seconds, an old desk and monitoring station in frame. What is that? Mike asks. Do you hear that? Yeah, some sort of electrical buzzing, Jenna answers. Weird, right?

What the hell, Jenna? Why are we even checking this place out? God, one of us is going to get electrocuted. Can we please just get out of... Okay, okay, I just thought there'd be more to see. She then turns around to leave, but then looks back at Mike again after realizing he isn't moving. He's staring into a small room to the side.

His light is on a sign that reads, Lost and Found. Now he's the one that seems to be under a spell, and just has to know what's beyond the next door. Without saying anything, he opens it and goes inside, while Jenna silently follows. What follows is, well, difficult to describe. The video goes almost completely dark.

For some reason, Jenna doesn't point the camera to whatever Mike is looking at until the end of this clip. His phone light is only seen at the very edge of the frame. They both examine what is evidently a strange object. What is that thing? Jenna asks. No idea. Never seen anything like it. Oh God, it's almost like it's moving. Mike, don't.

It's warm. How did this get here? Stop touching that thing. It's dangerous. There's no such thing as a cursed object, Jeanne. I think we should just get this thing out into the light and get a better look at it. Oh, oh shit. What did you do? Mike, what's it doing? I don't know. I didn't, I didn't. I turned and run out of the room, but the camera still can't pick up anything they might be hearing.

The two are frantic, and the video, what there is to see, becomes a shaky mess. By now, scattered pink pixels partially cover the video, completely obscuring entire small segments of the frame. The two can be heard screaming in the last few seconds of the clip, which ends abruptly. With the darkness, I have no idea what kind of terror the two might have experienced. I would have thought they were already dead if this had been the last file on the card, or at best someone else found the camera and recorded more video before they also mysteriously disappeared. Analyzing the clip frame by frame reveals two elements that just barely got burned into the digital film. As they turn to run, Mike's light sweeps over the strange object they come upon.

It's some sort of totem, made out of unknown dark material and maybe three feet high. It sits in the middle of the lost and found room on the floor and is the only thing in the place at all. It's carved in carvings that form angular patterns, though I usually, the term loosely because there's no real pattern to the lines at all. They swirl and break off from one another in random, unappealing ways. It's like one of those AI-generated images that almost looks like something familiar and identifiable, but is never quite anything that really exists. Even so, it didn't look entirely alien or forged by some forgotten tribe. It could have been someone's art piece, found at a garage sale many decades ago. It's

History and origins now long obscured. But the strange totem wasn't the sight I found really frightening. I don't think Mike and Jenna saw them before his phone light suddenly cut off, leaving them in darkness. I can't confirm whether or not they're actually moving or just writhing in place, but on the walls of the security room is a spreading sea of long, solid black worms. Well, I don't know how else to describe the things. but it's obvious in the few frames I get of them that they're no trick of the light or other optical illusion.

Worms molding over the wall. Like they're devouring it. After re-watching the entire clip several times, I closed the video and try to wrap my head around what I just saw. God, I almost dread finding out what happens next, so I delay myself from opening the next file by refilling my coffee. It's around midnight when I move on. To a recording May 3 hours after the last. File number 11. I open the file with no expectations,

and it right away defies explanation. While the smattering of dead pixels linger, it's as if the past trauma the couple had just experienced isn't a thought in their minds. When at first it's like they've gone to another location, I'd put on some new clothes, or rather old clothes, because it looks like Mike pulled a wardrobe out of the late 80s and changed inside of a brightly lit dressing room, all in the span of a few hours. Mike stands smiling, though he has a nervous twitch. It's apparent in Jenna's camera work as well, because her shot now has a constant tremble. The device is also no longer mounted, judging by the shakiness of the video.

Hi guys, Mike says after taking a deep breath. Well, you're never going to believe what happened to us. If we get out of this, we will. Jenna replies, though there's no confidence in her voice. Right, right. Um, well, it'll be better if we just show you. He gestures to a mirror in the dressing room, and Jenna walks up to it to show herself in the reflection.

She now looks sharp in a bold red blazer and capri pants and her hair is fancifully styled up in a way that would take hours to achieve. But it's the camera itself that's even stranger. Holding it with two nervous hands, she brings it close to the mirror and... Well, it's no longer a GoPro. It's not even a digital device anymore. It's somehow a classic Polaroid, one of those old instant cameras. cameras.

Yeah, weird, right? Mike continues. It doesn't have a screen on the back anymore, but it has buttons and all of the on-screen information is inside the viewfinder. I don't know why or how, but how clothes change too. It's like, I don't even know how to say it. Man, we're going to get millions of views, baby. We're going to be on talk shows and side-shows.

scientists will want to. Mike, can we please just get out of here? It's too confining. All right, yeah. Let's just keep showing them. The two leave the dressing room and step out into a fully lit, packed Dillard's department store, just like the one sleepy pines used to have. But I hadn't seen one so busy in many years.

And as Mike and Jenna keep pretty quiet and give a tour of the place, I steadily realized why it seems so off. Like their clothes, those on all of the shoppers and staff, and those waiting to be worn on the racks and shelves. Everything is dated. It's all fashion from around 30 years ago. Mike at one point even grabs a polo shirt and, with a stupid smile on his face,

rings its price tag right up to the camera, remarking about how it's so cheap. Do you get it yet? he asked the viewer. I mean, it should be obvious what happened to us, right? We didn't believe it ourselves at first, but... Sorry, man, he tells an older shopper he bumped into, who under-responds by turning around and giving Mike a curious look.

Come on, let's see them all. We haven't left this store yet. We needed some time to get over the shock first. I wish we'd gotten some of that recorded. God, Jenna was crying. All hysterical. Mike, she replies disdainfully, you're taking all this way too lightly.

How can you not be terrified of what's happening to us? He frowns and admits. A part of me is, baby, but we can't explore this place while only being scared and worried. We can at least get it all on record in case something happens to us and the camera is all that's found. Don't say shit like that, Mike. None of this is normal.

Hey, come on, look, I'm right here, I'm right with you. We'll get out of this. Jenna begins to cry, and the camera points down at the floor. Mike can be heard saying, Let's talk. Just before the clip ends. I go directly to the next one. File number 12.

It's a few minutes later now. The camera is now pointed toward the main thoroughfare of Sleepy Pines. past the Dillard's entrance. The shot lasts for about 30 seconds, during which dozens of shoppers walk by, many of them wordlessly glancing at the camera for a moment. Mike then walks into frame and guides Jenna out into the mall, though her movements show that she's still reluctant.

I pull myself and my chair closer to my monitor and watch intently. I hear something familiar and nostalgic come through my headphones. I turn on the noise cancelling so I can feel even more engrossed by what I'm experiencing. Mike doesn't even know what to say about the enormity of the situation as they approach their exit. I hadn't given my time to process the previous clip or how the look of the store could have been pulled off through some elaborate set dressing. The obvious but incredible answer to all of this had yet to feel like a valid thought in my head. Mike isn't the only one startled when a large woman suddenly enters the frame. One second, it felt like we'd been exploring uncharted territory together,

and the next there's a big lady in a pantsuit threatening to spray him with a bottle of amber-colored perfume in a crystal bottle. I told you, we don't need a sample, lady, Mike snaps at her. Oh, jeez. Oh, but this is our new false scent. There's nothing else like it on the market. it. Just one whiff and you two will fall in love all over again. She seems aggressive. She keeps trying to spray Jenna and Mike as they shove their way past her.

For about a second, her unsettling, toothy smile fills up the frame as the camera itself nearly smacks into her. What the hell's her problem? Jenna asks once they're in the safety of them all. They could all be like that. Mike sighs and looks up at the skylights. just maybe not as bad, from what I remember. Crazy bitch. Oh, God, are you okay? She didn't spray you right. Michael, what is this place?

Jenna asks and points the camera at the ceiling, revealing the blue sky beyond the horizontal panes. The camera then settles back on Mike, and for several seconds he grins in a way that's almost as unsettling as the perfume lady's smile. I can hear the tinny echoing music better now as Jenna waits for her boyfriend to say something It's genuine traditional musak Those like co-opted renditions of pop music that went out of style years ago that's barely heard anywhere anymore

Somehow fittingly as Mike grins like an idiot Toto's Africa fills the air Are you really gonna make me say it? Mike asks There has to be some other explanation. This all can't be real. Babe, we're in the past. We found some sort of time-traveling device, I'm telling you. He turns around and soaks in the mall, adding, my guess, 1990, maybe 91.

All those 1980s styles are on the way out, and everything is so colorful. I'm talking post-Cold war chic, Jan. Well, then why did our clothes change? Why did the camera change? Where did our phones go? We need to make sure there's a way out or a way to go back before we try and start having fun. I don't want to be trapped here. Look, we're not here to have fun.

We're here to make history. Maybe even be a part of history. We're filming the past, babe. We'll document everything we see. And then we'll find that weird thing again and figure out how it can send us back to 2013. But we could stay a while, right? I mean, this decade is so much better than the one we came from, with all that social media shit and dumb-ass challenges.

I wish you wouldn't say that. Our friends and family are there, Michael. Our future together. We can't stay. Mike sighs. He doesn't want another argument. He wants to explore what he thinks is the past, some small piece of his own childhood.

The shot lasts another few seconds on his impatient face before the camera pans down. I get a good look at Jenna's shoes to see that they've turned into a pair of red high tops. File number 13. This clip goes on for over ten minutes and it's a proper mall tour. Jenna quietly films every store they pass without argument or Mike tries to provide some commentary.

But he's often distracted, overwhelmed by, by amazement every time he looks into a shop, or sees a person walk by in nostalgic clothing, or finds a treasured piece of media from the era. He forces Jenna to spend several minutes just in Sam Goody, so she can get every audio cassette, early CD or videotape in at least a few frames of video. All the while, Mike is overly excited and Jenna seems wary of the crowds. The shop has almost approached an uncanny valley. I mean, they look like regular people, but they look.

They act like emotional automatans, staring vapidly at the two like their intruders in their home. She notices them, as do I, but Mike hardly seems to consider whether or not something is off with everyone other than himself and his girlfriend. He's under the effects of a siren call brought about by his love for a romanticised past. They passed by a brightly lit hair salon with colourful geometric shapes on the walls and a checkerboard floor. The three women seated inside are all getting the exact same hairstyle. A small movie theatre's marquee lists as now playing Total Recall, Gremlins 2, Terminator 2, City Slickers, The Rocketeer, and ironically, back to the Future Par 3. We see more mall store staples, many of which no longer exist anywhere.

A KB toys, a Walden Books, a merry-go-round filled with clothes for teenagers. I recognise most of the places and sure I miss seeing them if I think about it, but they all had their time, and I don't worship the past like Mike seems to. While it's certainly interesting to see all of these old stores in modern high-definition, dead pixels aside, I do find myself just hoping the two make it out. Sleepy Pines looks very different overall. It has big blue, red and yellow painted lines running along its wall, neon lights cast their glow on indoor trees and lounge areas full of boxy chairs and couches.

Coin-operated rides sit out front of the arcade, for the kids too young to venture in and play the cabinets that brighten noisy pixelated games inhabits. Well, I can empathize with Mike. Being a kid during this snapshot in time, wanting to go back and feel something genuine again, if he believes the present is shallow and hopeless. But that idealism isn't going to find either of these young adults are always. way out. All the while the calm sheerfulness of the mall music undercuts the rising dread

I begin to feel about a situation I'm hopeless to change. Wow, Mike says wistfully as they reached the Sears at the other end of the mall. It's great, Chan. What an experience. You got all that right? Yes. Now can we go back to the lost and found? We need to get that thing to send us back home. I wonder if the younger me will show up if we wait around. Baby, I don't think you appreciate all of this enough. How often do you get to take your girlfriend to the freaking past and show them someplace that meant so much to you? After waiting for a response from her that doesn't come,

he sighs, nods and says, All right, fine, let's get a good shot of the mural on the way back. We head to the mall atrium, where Jenna lets the mural fill the frame. It's incomplete, and even creepier for it. Two-thirds of the forest segment is done, but the five figures standing in front of it have yet to be painted and are just a solid, ghostly white. I didn't know that the whole thing wasn't finished all at once.

It suggests that it might be something to my idea that the poorly drawn pioneers and natives were added by a second artist. Maybe even just as an excuse to cover something up on the original background. Oh, that's weird as hell, Mike says as he looks at the artwork. We must have been brought back to one of the few days when the mural was still being made. Jenna grumbles and starts to pressure him to focus on getting themselves home, but is interrupted when more security comes over and reminds the pair that they can't just shoot pictures in the mall without permission, unaware that their mutated camera is actually filming video.

Sure, no problem, Mike is heard saying after. the camera goes to Jenna's side and is pointed at the floor. Hey, um, can we check your last and found? We think we, um, left something behind when we last... And the clip ends, as abruptly as I've come to expect. File number 14. The next file was created four hours later. I'm seriously concerned about what might have happened in the time in between before I open it.

Mike and Jenna are staring at the camera to get. They're back in one of the Dillard's changing rooms, where they might feel safe. The light flick is above them, and now they both look noticeably stressed. Hey, guys. Mike tries to find the words and wraps an arm around Jenna's shoulder. Um, so, uh, here's the part where we have to tell you that things aren't looking good for us. I still don't know how or why we're in the past. We can't find the thing that brought us here. thing that brought us here. We've looked all over. Every store, every back room, every staff room you

could think of. It feels weird trying to sneak around, you know. The people here are always looking at us. I don't think any of them have left either. They're all the same shoppers that were here when we arrived. Something's wrong with this place. I should have seen it earlier, but I was too busy being too stupid about everything. The door's all locked. Jenna adds, Tis. She seems to come to terms with their situation. We tried all of them, and they won't budge. We picked up one of the pay phones, but there's not even a dialtoe. God, we're going to tear this place apart if we have to.

We'll find that thing, whatever it is. Just in case we don't make it out, and you find these videos. Please call my parents. Their home number is... Mike! Jenna suddenly shushes him. She points towards the edge of the frame, and might turns the camera around to show the gap at the bottom of the changing room door. After several seconds, a pair of large feet stuffed into high heels, steps into the space.

They turn towards the door, and it rattles violently. Jenna can be heard suppressing a scream. The door keeps shaking for about a full minute, before the assault on it finally ends. without saying a thing the large woman on the other side walks off as upset as she is jena picks up the camera again nearly dropping it as she films mike cracking open the door and looking around he gestures for her to come out and they make an exit from the store by sneaking behind clothes racks and keeping quiet the other shoppers look at them again but don't bother them just before they can leave mike gets a shot of the perfume lady standing near the store entrance. I recognize the shoes and realize that she must be stalking the pair at this point. Without warning, she turns toward them, and they duck behind a display table full of polo shirts.

I pause on a frame of her face and see how hideous she has become. Her bulbous face is covered in bright red lipstick, sky-blue eye shadow, and bright pink blush. But it all does nothing to help with the fact that she has to be. has greasy disheveled hair and yellow crooked teeth. After a few seconds, the camera pops back up. The perfume lady is gone. Where is she? Jenna whispers.

I don't know. We just have to get out of the store. We never should have come back in here. We knew the door would be locked just like the others. Mike, we have to... Jenna is cut off by the sound of ruffling fabric. she and Mike both flip around to see the perfume lady staring right at them from the top of a clothes rack. She slumped over some of those chrome bars, her blob-like arms dangling down like she's in a beast sloth with a murderous glint in its eye.

She curls her lips into a demented grin and holds up the perfume bottle, seemingly glued to one of her hands. Mike and Jenna quickly work up the nerve to get on their feet and make a run for the store entrance. judging by the sounds coming from behind them, their pursuer knocks over the entire rack and crashes into more displays as she gives chase. There are expletives, terror and panic in Jenna's voice as she and Mike dash out towards them all. She briefly turns the camera back to capture the crazed lady on film. She's become animalistic, running on all fours with eyes as black as a shark's. Jenna lets out a shriek as the feral beast gains on them. But the perfume lady stops right at the boundary of the store, as if there's an invisible barrier

she can't pass. After catching his breath, Mike flips her off, and the woman simply regains her composure, getting back on two legs and returning to the cosmetic department. That grin, never leaving her face. What the hell, Mike? She's not human. No person acts like that, Jenna shouts at him. We need to get out.

out of this place, right goddamn now. I know, Jan, I know. At least you can't leave the store. Oh, shit. Mike tries to calm himself down as the shoppers stare at him, most of them now just standing around as if they're MPCs who've run out of walk cycles. He points the camera up at the skylights,

revealing that it's dusk. The neon lights for them all now determine the colours, splashing everything in hues of reds, purples, pinks and blues. I can also hear that the muzac is slowed down and become distorted, like it's a talking electronic toy with low batteries. The audio seems to unnerve Mike, who closes his eyes to think, but can't get comfortable enough to do so. It's like this place is starting to fall apart.

He mutters out the same thought that just crossed my mind. Jen, we need to find something. heavy, hammers, crowbars, maybe just a trash can, we'll smash our way out. He proceeds to shove his way past the crowd of zombie-like onlookers, yelling at them to get out of his way all the while. Jenna follows at a distance, getting a face full of their staring eyes on the way. They briefly stop near a display of a red 1990s corvette, where a nearby small film crew seems to be trying to make a commercial.

Hot lamps hit the swelling face of an older man in a grey suit. He repeats the line. A lot is happening in a sleepy barns more. Why not come see what's new today? Several times as Jenna also films the scene. Mike then loses his patience and enters the shot, but the attempt at making a commercial continues. You've been here for hours, Mike tells the crew angrily.

Who are you people? How did you get in here? What ad agency do you work for? Michael, stop, Jenna quietly pleads. Don't antagonize them. They're not even real. They're mindless. It's running on some kind of script.

With no concern for consequences, Mike knocks over the lights and the expensive film camera and then steals the tripod. Jenna doesn't know what to make of it. She just stands in place in shock as Mike walks away with the bulky piece of it. equipment. And actually Mike seems to have a point because the actor simply keeps repeating the

same segment of the commercial several more times with the crew watching and going through the motions. The camera pans down to the floor and the clip ends. File number 15 starts with Mike midway through another swing of the tripod against a glass door. He's been at it for a while based on his apparent exhaustion. He lands the heavy metallic tripod plate against the glass several times, but he's yet to crack it. The glass doesn't even seem to have any gift to it. Might as well be hitting a brick wall.

The vintage cars and trucks in the parking lot outside seem real, but I'm not sure. There are no people outside in the darkness, yet the couple are trapped in the mall with hundreds of them, so everything beyond the walls may not even have reason to exist. whatever time-travel trickery is going on it likely can't extend past the building in which it was triggered Jenna can be heard sobbing quietly

she pans to a trash can on the floor knocked over and she gives it a kick giving me the impression that she'd used it to join in the effort before she gave up and started filming again I also noticed that the muzac is now completely gone replaced by a monotone buzzing sound Mike hits the door 12 times in all, working up a sweat and eventually hopelessly claps into the floor. The recording of his effort then ends. File number 16

The camera sits on a table in the food court. It's getting late, but it looks like all of the places are still open. The pair have cups of soda and slices of pizza on paper plates in front of them, but they both look hesitant to eat. It isn't that they're only losing hope of escape, they're also afraid of the food. I can't blame them, but also mostly in shadow,

now led only by the neon lights. We are really going to eat this? Mike asks listlessly. I mean, who knows what it's made of? Well, Jenna murmurs back. We have to eat something. We're starving. Mike looks into the camera and says tiredly,

Yeah, so the clock's here, say it's two in the morning. Things just keep on going. It's a 24-7 mall now, I guess. We couldn't last much longer without eating or drinking something. If this is what ends us, at least you'll know it wasn't the perfume, lady. In one of the few acts of bravery I've seen Mike exhibit across the videos, he takes a sip from the cup before Jenna, slowly at first, before gulping it down thirstily.

She then does the same with her drink, and they soon look a little more confident about trying something solid next. Well, it tastes like Dr. Pepper, Mike says and examines his pizza. It looks authentic enough, even though I don't think much of anything is real in this place. Okay, before it gets cold.

It takes a bite, chews, and eventually swallows. Deciding it tastes edible enough and is worth the risk, he quickly gobbles up the rest, while Jenna remains more reluctant and takes her time with her food. It's too dark in here, she says, looking around. All of the ceiling lights shut off hours ago, but the people didn't even seem to notice. We'll try to get some sleep in the arcade, Mike tells her. All the games are still running. I think that's the most light we'll get.

What's going to happen to this place? Or maybe eventually the dream ends and we wake up. Even the guy at the Sabaro didn't speak, or ask us for any money. Yeah, Mike then deadpans a joke. No wonder the chains die enough. They sit, drink, and eat quietly for another minute before the video ends. far number 17 this one takes place entirely

inside the mall's old arcade which closed in 1998 the only sources of light are the flickering cabinet screens of games on their demonstration modes but there are so many that the place remains the brightest locale of the mall at this point

Mike holds the camera this time but I don't know what he's trying to archive other than the miserable conditions the two have found themselves in He makes a few rounds around the arcade cabinets, muttering incoherently to himself. Kids and teenagers fill the large room with a carpet featuring planets and stars, but none of them move. Some have their hands on joysticks or buttons,

or others just stand and stare with arms at their sides. Mike tries to elicit a response from one of the kids, getting the lens right up into their face. Their eyes are glazed over, looking straight ahead as the light of a fighting game reflects off their large pupils. They're just as catatonic as everyone else. Mike throws a swear at him before going over to the price counter and getting a shot of all the toys he'll never be able to claim.

Went to a good university. He tells his audience of one and turns the camera on himself so he can speak angrily, directly into it. I had a good job lined up. And I like the 1980s. The 90s, so what? It doesn't mean I want to be stuck in some shitty, bizarre version of nostalgia. God, I never want to visit them all again.

The camera battery, I should have died a long time ago. But the icon says it's still full. God, nothing is right. It's all wrong. We're never getting out of here. Still filming, he goes over to one of those large cabinets that you can sit down inside of, some privacy and immersion. It's an old racing game with the steering wheel, and Jenna is curled up on the seat,

facing the wall, sleeping or trying to. As this fire was created five hours after the previous, I get the feeling that Mike couldn't sleep, or just gave up trying. He decides to let Jenna be, and slumps down under the carpet. Several cabinet screens are in frame, the kids in front of them now lifeless silhouettes. Mike can be hurt getting emotional for a few minutes over the noises of the games Suddenly he hears a loud metal clang outside

echoing down the mall's corridor He jolts up and points the camera at the darkness outside That only the neon lights can penetrate His breathing is shallow and rapid Nothing shows up but at least nothing he can see But he still ends up running into a small utility closet Without alerting his girlfriend to a possible danger and closes the door.

Following another few seconds of a pure black image filled with the digital noise and dead pixels, the video ends. I assume he eventually fell asleep in that cramped space and that the experience was beginning to wear on his sanity by this point. File number 18, the camera is aimed up at one of the skylights where early morning light is coming through. It's possibly about 8 a.m. or so meaning Mike and Jenna are nearing 24 hours spent in the mall. Mike pans down to show the mural and the fountain in front of it, where Jenna scoops up a handful of water and washes her face.

Around her are the mindless shoppers, all of them still idle, despite the fact that the place seemed to have never opened or closed. This version of sleepy pines, whether it really existed in the past or not, just is. I've come to realize that it represents the memory of, more when people are there to remember it. Times where it is empty and dormant don't factor into this corrupt amalgam of its golden days of service. The speakers are still pushing out some sort of noise, but now all I can hear a tonal crackles. Mike approaches Jenna, leaning forward

and staring at her reflection in the fountain. She looks at him as he draws near, now looking incapable of ever smiling again. I still worry about Mike's mental state, but she doesn't seem afraid of him. She's just tired, or starting to resign herself to their imprisonment. Jen, are you hungry? Mike asks flatly.

The Cinebin still seems to be running. I could get you something. She shakes her head and replies. Mike, we need to find out. find a way out today. Whatever it takes. We can't give up. We just can't. I know. We'll try something else. I was thinking maybe the air vents. Jenna looked like she's about to say something, but instead goes back to looking into the fountain. After several seconds, she takes on an inquisitive expression and leans forward. She stays in frame, but I get the impression that Mike actually

was looking elsewhere while the camera remains pointing at her. Jenna takes out of one. She takes out one of the coins from the fountain and studies it. I can barely hear her murmur. Michael, look at this. But Mike doesn't hear her and shouts, Jen, run. The camera swings around and I see the perfume lady aggressively approaching at a fast and unstoppable walking pace,

the Dillard's far behind her. It's the first time we've seen her leave the invisible boundary. of the department store and mike and jenna seems shocked about this as well the large woman still has a perfume bottle in one hand but there's no telling what she really wants not ready to find out the couple start running file number 19 an hour after the previous video ended jenna gets the camera going again to show mike crouching down between some washing machines and peeking around the corner of one of the big white cubes. They're somewhere inside the Sears store. I think we finally lost her. Mike sighs and slumps against the machine.

Crazy bitch. Why is she the only one still moving around? He shakes his head and looks up to see that the camera is recording. Mike, Jenna says quietly, there might be a way out or something. He grumbles back. What are you talking? about. Don't get your hopes up, but I found it... Here, just look. She hands him a quarter, and he checks both sides of it. He looks at Jenna like she's crazy at first, but then realizes why she sees it as important. He's got the state art on the tailside. Well, that didn't start

until around 2000. Yeah, it's from 2005. I don't think the coins in the fountain were affected by any of this. Something to do with the water, maybe? That doesn't make any sense. Yeah, none of this does. Maybe there's something we can do with the water. Yeah, whatever took us to this bizarre version of the past, maybe water's the answer, a way out. Mike frowns. So what? Should we jump into the fountain, hold our breaths and hope for the best? Do you want to open up all the faucets in the mall and flood it. How does this big revelation help us? We have to keep trying Michael. We need to talk. We need to understand what happened to us, what this place really is, and why we're here. I don't think we're really in the past. Didn't you notice how early it got dark yesterday?

There aren't any holiday decorations here, and all the fake people are dressed like it's summer. But the day didn't last any longer than it did before. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm I guess. I think that device somehow recreated local history by altering all the nearby material. But it isn't perfect, and it can sustain it for long. It's not stable. It's all breaking down. We're running out of time.

That's insane. Do you have any better theories? Do you think we actually went to the past? Mike takes on a rather vapid expression as he thinks for a few moments before we're going. replying well then what's the deal with a perfume lady i don't know maybe she's got in the place maybe she's the thing keeping us here she's hunting us she's a threat so i say let's just try to kill her how he asks and rather stupidly in my opinion we could start by trying why don't we bash her over the head and see what happens. She's not real, Mike. None of these people are real. All right. Yeah, fine. We'll smash her head in

and see what comes out. He tries to act tough for his girlfriend, but he can't back it up. After he agrees to commit some form of homicide, the two hear a noise, and he panics just as much as she does when they see the silhouette of the perfume lady against the light of the Sears exit at the parking lot. I'm not sure whether she was just standing there looking menacing, or had started chasing them again. The clip ends just as the couple start running. File number 20. With only four files left of view, I know that Mike and Jenna's journey is coming to an end. This one opens with Mike holding the camera at himself, and behind him are boxes of shoes.

He's at a palest or a foot locker. He had his free arm wrapped around the camera. tripod from earlier, which rests against his shoulder. He must consider it the best weapon he could find. We think it's been over 24 hours since this all started, he tells me. We're prepared to take on that perfume bitch now, mentally and physically. We don't know where she is at this moment, but you've got to see this. He gets up and goes to the store entrance, where Jenna is standing guard and looking into the hall. She's holding a metal bar in one. hand, I think taken from a clothes rack and a fire extinguisher in the other.

Look at them, she murmurs. They're getting worse. Mike gets a little closer to one of the nearby kids, but still keeps a safe distance. Thick, black ooze, moving as slowly as hot tar, is dripping out of the boy's mouth. Smaller streams of the stuff come out of his lifeless eyes. Mike pulls back and pans the camera to reveal that the surrounding adults are suffering from the same affliction. Still, they all do nothing but stand quietly. Jenna walks into the frame and says,

That's what I'm talking about, Mike. This place is falling apart. First it'll be the more complex things like the people, then the rest of it will follow. The whole building. Yeah, but not us right. Jenna doesn't have an answer, but there is doubt in her eyes. They move away from the store, Jenna ready to strike with her crowbar.

Everyone they pass is disintegrating from the inside out, but none of them act aggressively or move in the slightest. Mike points the camera up to the skylights, where a miasma of black specks is rising and beginning to smother the sunlight. As he pans back down, he catches on film one of the shoppers losing their arm. It simply breaks off and falls onto the floor, where it slowly melts into a pool of black liquid. At this point, they're out of expletives and just accept it. Even the movie theatre's marquee has been corrupted, or is glitching like a crashing computer program. The only two legible

titles are Casablanca and Gongo, neither of which came out anywhere near the supposed emulated time period in which the two were trapped. The other spots on the marquee are jumbles of letters and numbers, and a pile of them is building up on the floor by the box office. Mike turns away and focuses on the fountain they're closing in on. The mural behind it has lost all its elements and is now a solid black. Jenna runs over to the water and looks down into it. She dips a hand in, and then steps in fully, submerging herself to just below her knees. You really expecting something to happen?

Mike asks as he catches up. You're just getting soaked. Might be hard running in wet squishy shoes, Jan. Maybe we won't have to run anymore if this is our way out. She looks down at her feet and mutters. Come on, do something. What are you hoping all happen? I don't know.

Maybe for my shoes to change back? Mike gazes into the first. fountain, bringing the camera close to its surface. He notices the coins and takes one out to look at the year it was minted. You were right, he admits. You've been putting more thought into all of this than I have. I guess anything's worth a shut at this point. He points the camera straight up for about a full minute, leaving a bit of his hair in the frame as the clouds of dark particles thickened above. He is some time to think his deep thoughts. He is some time to think his deep thoughts. and he swings it back down and gets a shot of Jenna's shoes again.

There's still red high tops, and she expresses her disappointment with apparent anguish. Well, I don't know how long she stayed in the fountain, since the video ends a moment later, with Mike trying to be considerate and offering assuring words. File number 21. Over two hours later, Mike gives me a shot of the skylight again, only now the dark particles are burning away.

into a thick mist that almost completely obscures the sunlight. It moves like boiling water, forming a wriggling cloud across all the top half of sleepy pines. The writhing mass reminds me of the worms crawling on the wall from earlier. When it gets worse, the camera sweeps down to the walls of the atrium, where large tiles are breaking loose as more black ooze pours out and spreads across the floor. Chena walks toward the camera, trying hard, and trying hard, not to step in the gunk. She stares at Mike for several seconds

and then keeps walking past him. The place has gone to hell. He mutters into the microphone. He then asks Jenna. We're doing another walk. Nothing's changing with the doors. The people in the stores are almost gone, but the doors are still solid, Jen.

If everything is burning off and melting, then there has to be a way out. It has to emerge. Yeah, maybe. We've been going back and forth for a few hours now. I'm going to go to the food court to see if there's anything left. I'm not sure that's a good idea. He follows her anyway, and they cross through a hallway

that looks more like a moving, dripping cave system of black magma than anything human hands had made. I think it's all being reclaimed by the device that projected a version of the mall that emulates its past, but one that never really existed. They make it to the food court, now nearly pitch black as its primary light source, sunlight, has all but been completely blotted out. The food is darker still.

The sub-sambishes, Chinese noodles and rice, and Sabaro's pastas and pizzas have lost their color and form as they turn into slag. There's nothing left, genocide. God damn it, I'm so hungry. I just hope that, you know, what we ate before passed through us enough and we don't have any of this nasty stuff. inside us. The two look down at one of the shoppers' heads on the floor, separated from his body and still staring ahead mindlessly in a pool of his own gun. They don't remark on it. It must really be a common sight by now. Mike, Jenna says while the camera is still pointed at the floor. What is it? That kid, you've got to be shitting me. What about him?

Mike worse off, only bringing the camera back up when he's a few feet away from a young boy, five or six years old. His gooey insides are still intact for now, and he looks blankly into space like all the others. I put the pieces together on why Mike suddenly sounds so upset just before he confirms it. Jen, that's me. Why am I here? Why? She comes over to get a good look. at young Michael and then tries to comfort the adult one as he keeps the camera on the kid's eyes.

It doesn't mean anything, she tells him. How can you say that? Whatever created this place just, it just pulled from a pool of faces, maybe full of everyone who ever came here. But that could be over a million people. Why did I just now find the young me? Where was he? How does whatever this is know who I?

am this is all so screwed up god it's messing with us you know we're never going to get an answer let's just go back to looking for a door or maybe focus on staying safe until another path opens for us Mike takes a deep breath and turns the camera back around to show the two of them again both clearly exhausted he works out the confidence to say the next time we turn this thing on, we'll be filming our escape or already back in our hotel room. God, I'm sick of this place. I think we'll be taking our channels in any different direction after this. Both lock eyes and share a brief kiss before this video ends. File number 22. Unfortunately, Mike lied.

Created another two hours later, this one starts with another shot of the skylights and part of the wall right beneath them. But now, finally, it seems things are reverting. The thick fog of particles has disappeared, and there's a few feet worth of the more recent age of atrium wall between the ceiling windows and the black goo, which is no longer actively moving. Instead, the material is now like a dried, flaking crust. A few chunks break off of the mass and turn to dust on the way down.

It's as if the 2013 version of the mall is emerging from a cocoon. Hey, it's us again, hopefully for the last time. Mike says and gets both of them back in frame. Their eyes are half closed and they look ready to sleep for a week. Well, we still couldn't find a way out. It's starting to look like we just have to keep waiting a little longer. Sleepy Pines is returning to normal. Very slowly, Jenna adds.

Yeah, look at this. In a sweeping 360-degree shot, he shows off the atrium on the three main hallways. It's all coated black, including the floor, turning the place into a demented dali painting. It absorbs all of the colour and most of the light, but there's enough sheen to the crusty darkness to make out its melted wax shapes and texture. The pair stand to avoid sitting on the stuff, since all of the chairs and couches are all so gunkified. Even the fountain has been affected, and it's now just a solid black basin that still holds its water.

All the people are gone melted into the floor. Mike's eyes. The fragrance fiend has been MIA for a while now, so I think we scared her off or something. And it's all coming to an end. I begin to feel some relief myself, after having an elevated heartbeat for nearly an hour from the safety of my office chair. I start hoping again that they made it out, but just drop the camera on the way, maybe.

I look at the little thing on my desk. My mind's still trying to process the idea that it had been twisted into a very different size, shape and model before being twisted right back again. Mike goes on to say, we still don't know what happened to our phone, so hopefully we'll be able to flag down a car and get some food, get back to our hotel,

room, close the curtain, and sleep. Sound good, Jen? Jen. He looks over to see her staring down at her shoes, when she quickly gets into frame. They've changed back into a modern pair of sneakers. Mike, it worked, Jenna murmurs. Yeah, yes, just took a long time. Did you feel anything? my feet tingled for a second and then I look down and she stopped suddenly as a loud, thundering crack echoes through the atrium. What the hell was that? Mike exclaims and swings the camera all the way around to show a large segment of the mounted black wall near the KB toy store breaking apart. Jen, I think it's speeding up.

We might be able to get out in just a few minutes. Oh, thank God. she breathes out the wall cracks again and then a torrent of ooze which never dried comes pouring out mike takes a step back and the three of us watch in dread as an inky arm emerges from the opening his claw-covered hand grasping the side to tear open the rest of the chrysalis like a grotesque insect emerging from inside four more arms spring out and quickly rip apart the shell A deformed, hulking dark mass over seven feet tall, lurches forward, its four legs and nine arms wriggling about as if they're trying to free themselves from the true owner of the body. The disgusting and horrifying chimera has five mouths, at least that I can see, but only a single eyeball manages to protrude from the dripping fleshy shadow. multiple voices all of them dissonant and guttural managed to gurgle out no false sound jesus christ mike yells out and grabs for the tripod resting against one of the lounge chairs before he can grasp it the monstrous creature emits a loud buzzing sound the camera picks it up this time

for mike and jennar it's so painful and deafening that they have to cover their ears And in doing so, Mike ends up flinging the camera away. It lands at an angle in the melted floor, where the dried ooze covers a part of its lens. The moment the shrieking begins is also when more dead pixels start to appear, much faster than when it happened previously. Every two or three seconds that pass, another one pops up. I'm still able to see enough of the scene that follows to discern what happens next. though in pain the couple managed to get their weapons and as the creature stumbles into the frame Mike hits his body in multiple arms with his tripod several times with as much force as he can muster

Jenner jams her metal bar into its body but it gets lodged into the mass and starts sinking into it when she realizes she can't pull it out she begins spraying the creature with foam from the fire extinguisher it seems to slow it down but that isn't enough for either of them They know they need to destroy it or at least try to. Its body covered in foam and maybe blinded by it, Jenna shoves the entire red canister into one of its mouths. Mike bashes the extinguisher in deeper with the tripod and the handle audibly gets squeezed within its more. More foam is dispensed directly down its gullet, paralyzing this abomination. Jenna grabs Mike's hand and gestures toward the fountain,

I guess seeing it as their best option, though I lack the information to know exactly what they expected to do for them. Even so, they run off into the background of the shot and visibly jump into the water. They don't emerge before the video ends. In the last ten seconds, after the foam stops pouring out of the creature's mouths, it collapses to the ground, where it starts crawling towards the fountain, screeching and sprouting more arms as it does so. With other half of the video's pixels either dead or showing nothing but the blackness

the lens is sinking into, the clip finally ends on its own, likely because the camera is too badly damaged to continue recording. File number 23. Well, I want a conclusion, but I should have expected that I wouldn't get one. My PC never generated a thumbnail for this final file. so I knew in advance that there'd be something wrong with it. The warning about it being damaged doesn't deter me from trying alternate ways to see inside it. I mean the file size is over 25 megabytes, so there has to be something within its bits. Eventually, after trying several restoration and video editing programs,

I managed to extract some information. It's nine seconds long, though that means little when everything about the file is corrupted to begin with. The audio is nothing but a loud buzz similar to that creature let out. Nearly every frame of video is just a mess of the jumbled greens and blacks of more unreadable data. Even so, I want to say that I did everything possible, so I go through the video frame by frame, all 60 of them for each second. Only two frames, one five seconds in and the other just near the end. Survived and are decipherable,

despite still having a flood of pink dead pixels. The first is a single frame of sleepy pines during the day, looking normal with a few shoppers walking about. Many of the stores are closed or empty, but the arcade is still open, placing this image sometime before 1998, but after the events across the rest of the files. The other one takes me back to where it all began,

showing the totem in the lost and found room, blurred by camera motion. It's a duplicate frame from File 10. The remaining several hundred frames remain corrupt, and the data created for No. 23 defaults to the Unix time of January 1st, 1970. Well, I don't think that last file was created by pressing the record button. My guess is that it was generated via hardware error, possibly while the camera was reverting back to its natural form.

But that doesn't explain where it could have bought that picture, of the mall in decline taken years later. I stay up another hour into the night, researching anything I can think of about the mall, or Mike and Jenna. I find the commercial we saw being shot by the Corvette on YouTube. I almost believe I might see the couple walking about in the background. But I go through the retro 30-second spot for the mall several times,

but none of the featured smiling shoppers look anything like them. Even so, seeing all the air appropriate clothes and the appearance of the mall make me appreciate just how accurately the strange, unknown and missing device managed to recreate the place from the past. And then, at 4 in the morning, as I'm starting to crash, something casts doubt on the genuineness of everything I just saw. Although Mike never posted about it on what little social media presence he had, I find out through another student's Facebook posts from Mike's university days

that he attended several special effects classes in his junior and senior years. I go to bed thinking about what this might mean and how it really could have all just been in an elaborate underground art project. Maybe Mike had melted several cameras and placed them about in abandoned mares to attract attention to himself or become the star of some new urban legend. well he and Jenna could very well be missing on their own accord, just to make it all appear authentic. Even with those doubts, I go through the files several more times across the following days, looking for any giveaways that everything was faked, albeit very well.

But I'm not very good at spotting the tricks he could have used, or seeing the imperfections in any elements you'd need a computer to render. I have lunch with the buddy who gave me the camera a week later, and tell him all about it. We end up having a laugh, and he gets me out of a rut that resulted from my viewing experience by telling me that he was almost certain it was all fate, because it just sounds too Hollywood horror to be true.

In a few years, Mike, and maybe Jenna as well, would surely emerge as modern artistic visionaries, and everyone that had found a copy of their videos would have something worth a small fortune on their hands. But despite saying all of that, As we head out of the restaurant, he does mention two final little details. The camera, it turns out, was somehow found embedded inside one of the mall floor tiles. Oh, and one more thing.

Early in the demolition, the crew found a metal bucket in one of the food court kitchens with several unexplainable bite marks around its edges, like someone with a strong pair of chumpers snacked on it. He gets quiet for a moment after revealing these findings, but then grins and at, maybe those kids were just that good. Maybe. But I can't bury the part of me that believes everything I saw, a nose deep down that what happened to Mike and Jenna is, in fact, a mystery.

While I'm still in the area, I drive to what remains of Sleepy Pines one last time. and on this visit I get a really good look at the mural, coming up close to it, while my mind fixates or might have transpired on the now barren grounds. I try to remember what it was like when I was younger, back when I first visited them all and had studied the intricate swirls, finding secret critters among the dark forest. At first I think they're all still there,

just waiting to be broken apart and tossed into a landfill. But on closer inspections, I find that the elegant brushstrokes of the night-time wood suddenly end and are not present in the last third of the mural on the left side, where it was still blank and incomplete in Mike and Jenner's videos. Oh, the paint is still there, as are the trees and dark colours of that ominous forest. But the subtle texture only the touch of human hands can create

has been replaced by something mechanical. What was changed and then changed back is now an unfeeling reproduction that could never get right the true authenticity of real historical art, made by someone who cared. Sleepy Pines. I'm writing this story in response to another that has recently made its way to the internet called Dead Mall. As unbelievable as it sounds, I think that it's likely that it happened. But I don't know where Mike and Jenna are,

and I'm not sure if I can provide any answers as to what transpired at Sleepy Pines Mall in 2013. What I do have is my own first-hand experience from when the mall was still open and fairly busy. Past its prime, yes, but still functioning as a place to shop and be with friends. Right off the bat, I should mention that some of my memories around these events may be unreliable. I do have very good long-term recall normally. I can remember things that happened when I was just two years old. However, these memories were buried and forgotten until recently. I think I should start by talking about how I remember the moment.

mall itself. For a long time I hadn't at all. Not really. I only had vague childhood memories with a fog of confusion, existing in a place where I couldn't be sure if I was misremembering a dream or something real. I always knew that I'd visited multiple times as a kid. We have pictures to prove it. I think I even have a few toys and clothes as keepsakes that we must have bought there. Until I read about Mike and Jenna's exploration of the mall's dying husk, I couldn't record anything truly solid about my own visits, like the memories were always hiding just above a dark storm cloud. I'd partially blocked out my history with the place, because something traumatic happened to me there, and it would have defined my childhood and growth had it been allowed to

actively circle around in my mind during those crucial years. Let's start with how innocent my own journey to the past began. The modern classic movie Home Alone had them all seen. I mean, did right. Even now I can't let go of the belief that such a scene existed. Before I take a detour into cursed lost media territory, I'll explain. I first saw the movie in November 1990 when it had just come out, though I still don't have many clear memories of the showing, even after my mental floodgates were open. I know I went to the sequel when it arrived as well. I only ever saw either movie in parts on TV for several years after that. As I steadily increasingly They were grain themselves as American Holiday movie Staples.

I think it was 12 when I finally watched it in full again. On a videotape we rented for a family Christmas get-together. At an age when it's easier to remember and understand your personal history and the world around you, the fuzzy uncertainty of all things that we have when we're younger goes away. So I clearly recollect asking my parents about the mall scene. What? My mum replies. Right around the time the bandits start getting tortured by a psychopath kid.

"'Honey, there is no mallsy.' "'I couldn't accept that. "'I remembered seeing it when we first all went to the film together "'at the mall in 1990. "'It's probably the only part of the film I could remember pretty well "'from that viewing in a dark, crowded theatre. "'As the credits rolled, "'this time in a living room with a roaring fireplace,

"'I was perplexed. "'My older brothers and sister called me dumb "'for getting something wrong "'about what was clearly one of the most important hall-mour in cinema. Obviously they would, being annoying teenagers. Years later, when DVDs came out, I eventually rented the movie again and watched the deleted scenes included in the extras. Certain I'd vindicate myself. My thumb was on my old flip-phone's digits, itching to call at my sister who was in college at that point, just so I could rub it in her face. But the scene

never showed up. For some reason, this persistently bothered me much more than it should have. I even talked to my parents about it and asked them to think really hard about the day we saw it back at sleepy pines. Had we seen some rare cut of the film? Was I just losing my mind? The thing is, there was a point in this conversation where they both looked at each other, clearly worried just for a second. Then they assured me that I was probably thinking of another scene. My young mind back then got it mixed up with other movies,

or the experience of seeing it at a mall to begin with. To be fair, there is a part of the movie where Kevin McAllister, while on his own, goes to a store to act grown up and buy some essentials. It's not at all like what I've seen in my head, which was more elaborate and featured his entire family. I'd always figured that the segment took place before the infamous pizza dinner that gets Kevin sent to the attic. Kevin's been dragged out to the mall for some last-minute holiday shopping, where his siblings and cousins get all the attention. his mom forgets her credit card so the dad has to pay for everything the parents are out of character

acting agitated and impatient and they end up frightening Kevin almost as much as that childhood nightmare fuel basement furnace at some point Kevin stops and looks into a dark hallway it's some part of them all that everyone seems to ignore and camera tricks make it look much more ominous

than it should be the unlit corridor becomes one more thing in the movie that scares Kevin's young mind and that's it I was never sure just how long this shopping scene lasted and I can't recall how it ended now this deleted scene that I suppose

really does not exist is important to my own story and how I once perceived what I experienced that day as I grew up seeing as how I'm telling a story that deserves a proper build-up I'll start from the beginning I don't expect everyone to believe

that these things really happened but at least writing all of this down may help me finally move on. It was late November, just before Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Well, not quite as big in 1990 as it got to be later on. The shopping weekend was still the annual main event for businesses back then. Malls across America were ground zero. My parents couldn't stand those sorts of crowds,

so our visit to Sleepy Pines that year happened a couple of days before the turkey was served. I grew up in Ohio, and not the American northeast where the mall existed, but many of my grandparents and aunts and uncles live there, so I was used to taking road trips from my family several times a year. This time we were spending Thanksgiving weekend with my dad's brother, his wife and their two kids. My cousins were both a bit older than me, my siblings, the girl being 15 and the boy 17. They were fun to hang out with when I was younger,

but by then they were jaded teenagers too cool to acknowledge me. Similarly, my siblings were also separated by two years. My sister was the oldest of us at 13. And as my clothes were mostly her hand-me-downs, I typically showed up in our family photos from those years in T-shirts with outdated 80s cartoon characters staring at the camera. She usually just ignored me, or at least mostly called me annoying. Meanwhile, my brothers, 11 and 9, often worked together to plot up new ways to tease or prank me.

I was nearly 8, but still the baby. My parents doted on me when they could, but I was so busy with the other troublemakers that they had little time to give me guidance or structure in those days before my siblings started heading off to college. And so it often felt like I was given free rein and could get away with anything. But that also meant that if I got myself into trouble, I'd usually have to get out of it myself. I think that early independence toughened me up, most a bit more than most kids of that age. Still, most everyone cries the first time they scrape their knee, then the pain and fear aren't so bad with each new injury. I could be as terrified by an unfamiliar experience as any kid. I'd just get over it fast and be able to face those scary moments head on should they happen again.

I like to put on a brave face against adversity, and that gradually helped me get my brothers off my back once they realized that I wasn't going to be the butt of their jokes anymore. There are some things, though, that you simply can't get over. You either have the fortune to learn how to forget, or you're haunted and maybe change for the worst. Thankfully, I did forget, for a long time and while it mattered most. As an adult who's gone through other hardships over the years, I can better weather suddenly remembered trauma that's separated by such time and distance. I now reside in Hawaii with my boyfriend. I have a good life and supportive friends, so don't worry about me.

I only wish it were possible to go back in time and be. tell my seven-year-old self that everything will be okay that night. Somehow, I survived it. Though my resurfaced memories are spotty, so I may never be certain of every detail, and I'll do my best to fill in the gaps. Shortly after we arrived at my uncle's house on a chilly afternoon dotted with snow flurries,

all seven of us kids piled into my parents' minivan. Being the youngest, I was already used to sitting in the back row, not so much being squished in the middle seat between my sister and cousin for an hour-long drive in a vehicle with barely working heat. Well, it sucks. Nothing starts a big family visit slash shopping day like being thoughtlessly crammed in among kids that are all older than you. It feels like you don't exist. But sleepy pines on the outset of the holidays was a sight for my young eyes.

The parking lot was nearly full despite my parents' effort to beat the rush. The mall was packed with shoppers carrying bags full of presents, and the ceiling, walls and storefronts were decorated immaculately for the season with ribbons and giant candy canes. In the atrium by the fountain and mural was the mall centerpiece for the next month. A big Christmas tree that nearly reached the skylight covered in more ornaments than my entire extended family would ever own. To think there was a time when most malls in America looked so glorious towards the end of the year. Time lasts longer when you're young, so to me it must have felt like we'd shop for eight hours, but it was probably closer to half that. We went into a dozen clothing stores, along with a couple of shoe and bookstores.

I know a few places were closed up, but, like I said, the more must still have been at least profitable back then. All of this shopping was boring for me and my brothers. My cousins and sister loved it all and made the three of us wait around while they tried out new threads. None of us had these new things called Game Boys yet, but we were stuck with coloring books and small eight-color crayon boxes for entertainment, while the teenagers had their fashion fun. Once the four adults finally noticed how bored some of us were, we got to visit KB Toys for a whole ten minutes.

Being with happy kids our age and getting to see all the shiny toys we wanted for Christmas recharged me and my brother's spirits, at least until the teens started complaining that we were going to run out of time to check out the rest of the important stores, what with a movie coming up? The parents wanted everyone to stick together all day too, so it wasn't like we could split up with one group doing the monotonous clothes stuff

and the rest of us getting to spend more time at the toy store or arcade. When you get that bored from unending tedium as a youngster, your mind starts to wander and you look for anything at all that might stimulate that need for new information. You may start to notice things that you normally wouldn't.

Like how surprisingly clean a mall might be. Exquisitely so, in fact. No, seriously, spend enough time on the floor filling in other people's drawings with coloured wax and you learn to respect the cleanliness of a carpet. A small detail, the lack of stains in the store carpets or the flawless wood floors, was always one of those random childhood memories

of the place that stuck with me. Even the pillars and tile out in the mall space was perfection. all polished and shiny. It was unusual enough to stand out in my mind. That kind of eye and effort for spotlessness in what was just another middling consumer marketplace in rural America. You wouldn't expect such detailed workmanship

in any building that didn't already have gold leafing on anything. Yet somehow, I only ever saw one custodian during the whole long visits. Yes, places have cleaning crews that work at night. But this guy somehow struck me as someone who did everything on his own. and liked it that way. Sleepy Pines was the old man's second home, his pride and joy.

I just don't know how he would have done it, even if he worked there 24-7. I must have spotted him walking around four or five times over the course of the day, trying his best to sink into the background in his beige uniform. I repeatedly saw him picking up trash on the floor, and he took on this angry scowl in each instance that made him look scary. As people passed by and ignored him, he seemed like he was cursing the world and the filth they left behind. There was something else I noticed. There were security cameras all over the place, and this was 1990 when they were often less ambiguous and hiding inside ceiling-mounted domes,

so they were easily visible, despite being mounted high up. It didn't feel like the shoppers paid them any attention or cared. Maybe all of the posted smile you're being recorded. recorded signs put them at ease, like this level of security was normal. But, like the custodian, I never saw a single patrolling security officer. It was as if they considered their CCTV system enough to keep the place safe and ward off shoplifting. I can remember my younger self-thinking that the worst stop of the day was Dillard's, one of them all's two anchors and a huge department store full of clothes and more. My sister, mom, aunt and cousins must have tried on half the

outfits. Meanwhile, the rest of us wandered about the store and at some point I caught my dad and uncle staring off into space as if they were contemplating on the chain of events that had led them to spending at least an hour there. Memory that sticks out the most was our visit to the perfume section, where one of them remembered that their wife wanted something expensive, a fragrance for Christmas. I've never forgotten how the smell there was so intense that my brothers gagged or that I had a coughing fit which lasted for a while. Oh, and now that I'm writing this out and thinking about the nefarious perfume lady in the Dead Mall story, I can suddenly see her and her smile again in my mind, along with something else that probably traumatized me.

As my dad, uncle and brothers were all too manly to sample the perfume, I got to be the guinea pig. That large lady must have dripped a half-dozen smelly liquids on my wrists before the big strong men finally picked one. I'm sure my brothers just loved that. The planned last stop of the day, at least before seeing home alone, was back at the atrium by the fountain. Santa's chair was set up, but he wasn't around yet. I'm guessing not until December, so I didn't get to sit on his lap and ask for something basic like my own new clothes. But there was one thing that I got to finally do as a reward for being patient all day. I got to ride on the holiday train rides. For those too young to remember something that might still exist at some more, but were once more prolific.

There used to be miniature trains that ran on a small looping track through a faux winter wonderland. There was a long line, and our movie was starting soon. I think we already had the tickets, but I could tell that everyone else was anxious about getting in on time and finding good seats. This wasn't hurt by the fact that my brothers were too old to go on the ride and got irritated because they had to wait on me.

Even though the younger of the two could have gone on it, I vividly recall that at the time he always insisted on acting as grown up as his big bro and wouldn't have ridden it out of principle. Knowing how I was back then, must have felt guilty about it, like I was doing something selfish. There was one thing about that mall

that really creep me out. It did so when I first visited the few times when I was very young. It still does when I think back on it. The mural in the atrium, by the fountain, the settlers and the natives in the dark woods that once covered the area.

Most people didn't seem to mind the artwork or pay much attention to it, but there was something about the people depicted on those tiles. Their flat expressions and their eyes that stared off into nothing. The nighttime trees behind them, which did look like they were made by another artist, well, didn't bother me as much. I've heard and read about others' experiences that mention the subtle brushwork in the background depicting mythical and real forest creatures, just waiting to be found by astute observers.

But I never got close enough to see. search for myself. I did have plenty of time to bask in the figure's gazes while in line for the train, though. Those eyes were unnerving me by the time I got to the boarding area. To make matters worse, which was the theme for the day, our parents forced my brothers to stand in line with me, even though they weren't riding. It made them even more agitated. When they get like that, I become an outlet. They weren't always mean back then, and we have a good relationship as adults. But when they were having a bad time, they were experts at making me have a bad time too. Teasing, pranking, mocking my age and height, a general racking.

Anyone with older siblings can relate, I'm sure. Typical stuff, and I wouldn't bother mentioning it if their behaviour wasn't so important later on. Well, at least I did get to ride the train, only for a minute or so. Afterwards, we rejoined the rest of the family after they'd moved their people. purchases to their cars outside while I was in line. We then rushed into the small movie theatre, grab some snacks, and because we showed up just as the film was starting, and it was crowded, we had to settle for seats in the back row. Oh, my brothers blame me for that, too, and they conspired with my sister and cousins to get them peeved as well. I would never

tattle or whine to mum and dad, but, well, not about petty things like that, nor did I fight back much, instead, suffering in silence. I didn't let myself cry either, but it still hurts to get gaslighted into thinking that you're to blame for everything. I wasn't the one in charge of organizing and overstuffed and exhausting shopping extravaganza. The movie provided a distraction from all that, though. I could relate to poor Kevin, being picked on and forgotten, but the idea of getting a chance to take things out on a pair of burglars by elaborate traps was nothing more than cathartic fantasy. The rest of my family probably didn't see the similarity.

and to them it was just a comedic holiday film. It was just annoying that I had to get a whiff of those stinky perfumes every time I took a bite of popcorn. Afterwards, we had dinner in the food court as a long day came to an end. All of us kids and teenagers were more than ready to go home. But two. But then, Mom suddenly needed to buy just one more thing.

With only a few minutes until the mall closed at seven, we had to make a final stop because she remembered that we needed a new vacuum cleaner to replace our broken one. I lived with my immediate family in a rural area that was far from any department stores, so squeezing in such a purchase made sense, even if it made the younger ones more irritable. With all of our many other purchases already sitting out in the freezing parking lots, we made a mad dash to Sleepy Pines' only other anchor store. I'm still not sure just how my parents managed to fit their new vacuum into the van with everything else. They must have taken care of all their holiday shopping in one day.

Turned out that the other kids really didn't like this last-minute decision. My sister and cousins don't always make me into their plaything, stress ball, punch pillow, but when pushed far enough, they'll get in on the action too. After they're pleased to get home fell on deaf ears, meaning that TV shows will be missed and nightly calls to high school boyfriends will be delayed. They turn their eyes to me for entertainment, right in the middle of Sears.

I'm sure I quickly reached my limits on putting up with their crap and got pretty upset, but the adults were too busy trying to buy an appliance just before them all closed to pay us any attention. Again, I do have a good relationship with my cousins and siblings in the present, I swear. Even bad children can turn into good adults. It's just important for story purposes to mention the ridicule I experienced. Though to be honest, it does feel great getting to call them out for it after all these years. and to subtly blame them for everything that happened next. You see, I did stupid things as a kid too,

inexplicable things at times. That's what happens when you're young and lack critical thinking skills, and the idea of consequences is still hard to grasp. I was coming from a place of logic when I did it, but that didn't make it even close to the right decision. To try and get away from their bullying, I'd been walking around the nearly empty sear store at a faster and faster pace.

But the others kept up, and it only turned it into more of a game for them. Then an opportune moment arrived that my dad and uncle started calling for everyone to come back. Not because Mom was ready to make the final purchase and free us, but rather, well, parents just don't like it when the kids are out of sight for too long. But I knew it was only a matter of seconds before my tormentors wandered off again from the vacuum cleaner aisle to renew the pursuit.

So instead of going to the adults with them, I turned around, ran to the major appliance corner of the store, crawled into a washing machine. Yeah, not my best moment. But you couldn't beat it as a hiding place. Back then, we didn't have all the safety features we now take for granted, so it was easy to close the door from the inside. So there I was, hunkered down in a pitch-black tumbler, more scared of my family than my hide-out. Thought about getting out within the first minute.

Then I heard someone walking past and figure it might be one of the older kids. I stayed in there. Must have lost track of time. To be fair, it was the first bit of true peace and quiet I'd known all day. Well, according to the old memory of this incident that I never used to question, the next thing I knew had gotten out. Wondered about the empty seers for a bit, was then helped out of the store by some cops

and returned to my parents amid the flashing lights of the police cruisers. But I never had a firm ground. on the passage of time around the event. And now, I remember why. Much more actually happened. First, I should note a peculiar observation which never left me about the end of that day. During the last 15 minutes or so, before the 7 o'clock closing time, I'd notice the behaviour out in the rest of the mall from the Sears entrance.

Employees were closing up their shops in a hurry and rushing customers out, not even at all that politely. In turn, the owners and workers I could see looked like they were being directed by the general mall staff to hurry things along, the custodian and head of security guys being among them. This also happened much closer to me, moments later in the department store, just before my siblings and cousins started being mean. There was a conversation between my parents and, for aunt and uncle, with the employee helping them pick a vacuum cleaner that's always stuck out for me. And it went something like this. I'm very sorry, but we're going to have to make this quick. A parent asks, what's the rush?

We know you close at seven, but... Yes, but this evening we need to be out of the store within just a few minutes after closing. Has it always been like that? My uncle or aunt replied. We've been here before, and we've never seen them all like this, with shoppers being hurried out. Well, if customers need a few extra minutes to finish up. Further discussion must have seemed like a waste of time to the worried sale associate, and he said something like,

it's like this once a year. We can get in a lot of trouble if we linger around tonight. I remember him looking away as he revealed this, or seeing guilt on his face, like this wasn't something he was supposed to say to customers. It was odd, but seeing as how this was also the first time might ever have been at a mall at closing, I probably just figured that this was the way things were. But later on, as a teenager in the 90s, I hung out more often with my friends and it was usually a pretty lax affair as things closed down.

You normally just finish whatever you were doing and left as the stores rolled down their shutters. Things got quiet, lights turned off, and the place emptied out. But my parents didn't dwell on it for long, because it was easy to come up with a reason and explain the rush and shrug off the urgency. I think it was my mom who replied. Oh, it must be because of the holiday weekend.

Of course. Well, then I'll just have to make my choice quickly. I didn't get to see which vacuum cleaner she chose until I was safely back home. Yes, obviously I did survive that night. It shouldn't have been a night where that was ever in question. Now that the memories have come back to me, I've only just begun to wonder about the scars it left behind.

I think a part of my subconscious has been haunted by what I experienced. even while the rest of me managed to forget for the longest time. Mom sometimes says that I was different before the night I got left in the mall. What my family believed happened would have been enough to traumatise any kid that young. But the whole truth is just so far beyond what they know. I've delayed writing out what transpired long enough. There's nothing left is set up in the story. Revisiting and really processing everything has given me the shakes these past few weeks.

so I might have some sort of PTSD thing going on. But I'm going to try. I don't expect you to believe the second part of this story, and that's fine. Maybe if it's just one person does, and they're the right person, I could finally get some answers. But I doubt they exist. When I snapped out of whatever state of mind I was in and left that washing machine, I stepped into a very dark sear store. It was almost winter and already.

dark outside and the place had no lights on at all, meaning my only source of illumination came from the parking lot lights outside and what little was still running out in the mall. It was very empty and very quiet too. I didn't want to believe that my family would just leave without me. I must have thought that they'd come looking or someone knew where I was. Maybe the reason I stayed in the Tumblr for so long was simple kid logic. I was expecting someone else to find me and let me know that it was time to go. I just had to stay put and safe from my tormentors until the adults came and saved me.

I ran up to the door to the parking lot, hoping it would open and I'd see the van running outside, with mum or dad ready to open the sliding passenger door for me and asking, I took you so long. But the lot was as vacant as the store. You could mistakenly think that the mall hadn't been visited in years, the way a landscape once filled with vehicles appears. The doors were also locked to. no surprise. Not that I was stupid enough to venture out into the cold, only dumb enough to hide in

a washing machine. It occurred to me early on that the mall was going to be closed until Friday, so I might have taken that to mean that absolutely no one would enter the building before then. This realization upset me, and chances are I shed a few tears, but I would have also been brave and try to focus and reach out to reason. I knew my aunt and uncle's home phone number. all I needed to do was find a phone. I could get quarters from the fountain for a pay phone if I needed to, and I knew that there should be plenty of phones around the store as well, not that I would have known what it meant to get an outside line on any of them.

But calling out was a moot point anyway. I did locate some phones as I explored the back offices and found the one at the customer service desk, but nothing had a dial tone. Figuring I was doing something wrong, all the store shut them off at night. I left the relative safety of Sears to try and make my way to a pay phone. Whereas the store felt somewhat safe, despite being a left behind seven-year-old in the dark. Even today, the idea of walking around in an empty moor,

night freaks me out. I may not fully get the liminal spaces craze, but there is something universally unnerving about exploring someplace typically full of people that you're never supposed to see after closing. The Sears wasn't blocked off by a rolling shutter, I'd have no hope of. getting open, like most of the stores. All that kept me inside were a pair of latches on the top

and bottom of glass doors. I found a step-ladder so I could reach the upper lock and got out in minutes. Scared and shaking, yes, but rather proud of my handling of the situation so far and ready to find a pay phone. Being an hour from the house meant rescue would take time, but just hearing a parent's voice would have been enough for my spirits at that moment. The mall itself was better lit than the Sears, though not by much. It was a dark and cloudy evening, so the skylights were pitch black. But what was coming from the vending machines and any storefront signage that had backlighting provided me enough to navigate by? While the darkness was bad enough, it was a silence that really got to me. Most people probably feel that the sprawling indoor shopping

plaza playing its crappy muzac at night would only add to the creepiness, and I might have found it rather comforting in comparison. My sneakers squeaking against the tile, I kept otherwise quiet on the watch all around me. My eyes peeled on the shadows as if expecting a monster to jump out at any moment. I didn't take long to find a couple of pay phones, but they didn't have dial tones either. That must have damped my outlook. I think I shrunk down against the wall and had another good cry. At some point I noticed a warm flickering light down the hall, towards the atrium.

it was them all on fire it would have been a frightening discovery at first like something out of a strange nightmare but I didn't see any smoke or hear any alarms going off and there could have been someone down there some member of the staff who was either fighting the flames or had ignited them I wiped my tears and approached cautiously

and as I turned the corner saw the first of that night's bizarre scenes dozens of candles lined the inactive fountain There was a thin sheen of some kind of dark liquid on the water that had an acrid odour. The image of the mural now stands out vividly in my mind. The dancing candlelight on the faces of those colonists and the natives seeding the land to them. There was something old world about it. Like a part of the past was lingering in this place.

That's when the chanting reached my ears. It was distant, but I could tell it was coming from real people. It was only one more way to go. towards the Dillard's at the other end of the V-shaped mall. I looked round the next corner, and under a largest skylight were a number of figures, sitting on the floor and surrounded by four, load-bearing pillars and countless candles.

People were in silhouette and difficult to see. But there were people, call me judgmental, but I wasn't naive enough to believe that a group chanting in candlelight near a polluted fountain in a mall at night would offer to help a child who may have already, seen too much. Even so I kept still and stuck to the shadows, watching from a distance for a short while. My young mind must have had no idea what to make of the sight. Was this something adults typically got together and did after work? Were they practicing for some kind of holiday

performance? It sounds ridiculous even to consider these things now, of course. When you're a kid whose worldly experiences are limited, every new discovery can mystify no matter how mundane. I should mention how well I can remember this part. I've always been able to, but I just couldn't recognize it as something that really happened. I'll explain why later, but I figured I should preface the clarity I have of this moment. Over the course of several minutes, I'd snuck closer to the group, only stopping and hiding behind a fake plant once I could make out their strange chanting. It was in harmony among the seven people and oddly rhythmic, if not muffled by their masks.

Their mantra was paced like breathing, in and out and muttered in a low drone. It only consisted of two words that I'd never heard before. Words that I knew did not belong to the English language. Well, I can best translate their pronunciations as Yogi Adi, followed by Hadu Nige. Candlelight was too dim to make out their clothing at first, but their animal masks were easier to discern. There was a rat, a raccoon, some bird of prey like an eagle or hawk,

a fox, a deer and a snake. A person leading the incantation were a pig mask, and if everyone was positioned on a clock, he would have been at midnight, with the others at three, four, five on one side, seven, eight, nine on the other. There was no holding of hands, no movement or swaying. like they were in a meditative trance,

saying those two words without thought or end. It was also a source of light in the middle of the group that I couldn't make out yet, as three of the people blocked my view. It was a scarlet glow, and it stretched their shadows across the mall tiles. I realized as I watched this strange spectacle that I actually might have had some frame of reference

for what I was seeing. The time surrounding 1990 was the height of America's satanic panic, which was in essence baseless concern among religious communities that Satanism and other forms of pagan worship were prevalent in all walks of life across the country. In other words, a few people were convinced that their neighbours could be trying to summon demons in suburbia. My parents weren't religious and I never went to church growing up, so I can objectively say that it was nothing more than a form of mass hysteria. Back then, I wouldn't have been sure, I'm not so sure what it all meant, the panic only being something I'd heard about from my classmates at school and occasional reports on the nightly news.

I did have some idea of what such a ritual might look like. It didn't matter whether or not I believed in any of it. If the people chanting in a circle truly did, then who knows what they may have been capable of doing, no matter how misguided. Too much faith and conviction in any belief can give people the power to do and justify almost anything. Having convinced myself that they were trying to open a portal to the place where bad guys went, I didn't want to take a chance on any of that stuff being real. So, I started backing off, deciding to avoid the area entirely. I mean, think about seeing something this messed up as a world-weary adult.

Then imagine seeing it as a child. Surreal, inexplicable, nightmarish, type of thing that would probably never leave your mind. I'm surprised I stayed and observed as long as I did. But, looking back, it may have been because something was pulling me in, tugging at me from a distance, trying to whisper in my ear. Only it was too far away, so its touch was too subtle to quite reach me. I was about to leave, until I heard a familiar sound, the ring of a phone. I hadn't seen it until the big man got up and went over to it.

but there was a phone on the floor next to the ritual site. My eyes had adjusted to the dark enough to see and follow the long cable connected to it, which ran from someplace further down the hall that I couldn't see from my position. As the pigman went to answer it, I got a look at his clothes. He was wearing a business suit of all things, and it was stained in a deep red. Yes, he said into the receiver, in a plain voice as if he was. were talking to a regular person on a normal day. Yes, we're ready.

Understood. We'll begin right away. And a good weekend to you as well. Goodbye. He hung up and his other animal mass friends waited patiently as he walked off down the hall. I couldn't take my eyes off of the phone. That was the only one in the mall that was working. There was no way I'd ever be able to make myself sneak over to it.

But I knew if I could follow the cord, I might find other usable phones near where it was plugged in. Part 3. The pig man returned after a few seconds, pulling over a trolley cart, like the can't use by ice cream vendors around the mall during the day. This is where things got unexpectedly disgusting and perverse. He opened the sliding metal lid of the cart and poured out an animal carcass. I think it was, I suppose, appropriately, a pig, although its head was missing. And no, thankfully he wasn't wearing it. It was easy enough to tell that what he had adorned was a simple rubber mask.

Not that it made any of what I was seeing less bizarre. The carcass had already been slashed multiple times, with deep wounds going across the body that were still leaking blood. As if this was just another typical wednesday for them, he nonchalantly stabbed the pig with a large knife to create another exit wound for more blood to flow from and dangled the carcass over the ritual signs. He also shook it around, making the crimson liquid splash across the tile.

The other people just kept sitting there throughout, not even reacting. Sure, they were hit by blood droplets, but didn't care at all. When the pig was thoroughly drained, he chucked it off to the side, then returned to the cart and pulled off an object that had been perched atop the retracted umbrella pole. When he brought it into the light, I could see that it was a cow skull with horns intact. It was bleached, dusty, and cracked. It had been around for a while. The pig man returned to his spot and held it over his head. Fresh blood and old bone, binding our cycle of life with those that have come before. We ask that you hear us once more. This sacred ancient land,

we respect your bounty. We know our desire. desires to be worldly and petty, small and meaningless in the eyes of the timeless earth around us. We humbly beg your forgiveness for our sins, for forsaking and abusing nature, and for the death and destruction brought by our forefathers. May the old spirits of those who truly tended to and respected this land only no paradise. They did not deserve our wrath against them, but surely their use of your great power was modest and just. But now we live in a modern world, we know it to be a shallow, frivolous place. Yet our livelihoods are, as always, at stake.

Failure of our crops, famine and pestilence may no longer be of grave concern. We still fear failure and destitution. The loss of opportunity. We do not succeed than someone even worse than us will. It will be as if we were never here. The pig man lowered his arms and cradled the cow skull. Could be that his arms were just tired, as he wasn't yet done with his diatribe and requests to what must have been some unseen personal god.

Capitalism has swept across this land and carries with it many sins, but our greed is not in excess. For all of its faults, the industrialized world brings benefits to our health and standards of living, but it requires constant economic growth, so we ask that you bless us with one more year of your generous gifts. We are caretakers of a structure that has brought in income. to many and joy to far more. We are proud to remain independent, not under the thumb of corporate tyranny. Yet, and God knows we've tried, our slow decline continues. Or it not for your charity, our time here would have already come to an end.

We heartily ask that you renew and revitalize our beloved enterprise again. Allow it to persist, and may our days remain full of purpose for as long as you see fit. We cannot be abandoned or forgotten Or bow to those who would dispose of us for profit Look into our history See how we are cherished by the masses And now, my friends Let us pray

With that he set the cow skull into the middle of the circle And the chanting resumed, louder and more forceful this time They continued, how do you yehye, Yodayayay, how do we needne'enay. They continued like this and remained still like they were meditating. I thought that their eyes must have been closed, and their mantra was boisterous enough to hide any sounds I might make. It was the right time to get moving,

to follow that phone's call and maybe earn a chance to make a call. I know you're probably wondering just how I remember all of this so well. I've actually more than memorized the pigman's words. They've been a part of me for decades, lingering and repeating my dreams and thoughts. While I had until recently forgotten the context of that ritual, what came before and after, the scene has persisted in my mind since I first witnessed it. It's an unnatural memory, one that could have eventually driven me crazy if I didn't get my answers. Why did I have so many nightmares about it?

Why would I think about the pigman's speech while trying to focus on schoolwork or during sleepovers with friends or while busy with every other aspect of growing up. The ritual didn't feel like something that had really happened, so I could never explain to myself just where it was coming from or what any of it meant. I've written those words on composition book journals and in text files on computers many times over the years just to test my memory. Got them exactly the same on each attempt. It's like they're burned into my head, no less likely to decay than an ancient language inscribed on stone tablets. That's the whole thing behind all of this.

It's our memories. It wants to survive through them to persist and be rebuilt. The rituals, the personal beliefs, how you view the process, even what you make it out of. It doesn't care as long as it exists in some form and you can give it power. It will bend reality for you and fulfill the closest things as well has to a wish. But the cost? Well, not sure yet what it is. I don't know if it has a name, or if it's even aware of what it is, nor how old the thing is, or who created the first one.

Talking about the totem, an object bound to this land, whether it can be called cursed or hallowed. I didn't see it the first time I walked past it. Not that I can remember. Maybe I did, but in my memories it's nothing more than a burning bright light, like a whole. hole in celluloid that the projector shines through. As I snuck around the seven worshippers, if that's what they could be called, I got my first real look at their ritual site. Other than the cow skull and the fresh pig blood spatters, I could see that there had been a circle on the ground also made of blood, smeared messily across the tile. Dotting that circle were seven smaller hails for the participants to sit within.

In the center of it was the totem, though as stayed. I only remember it at this moment as a bright flare, a burning ball of fire too luminous for the mind to imagine or process. It was there, my eyes must have seen its true form, but I can simply not picture that form in this instance. I hurried around the corner and began to make some distance from the animal masked people, feeling safer with every step. I followed the cord connected to the red phone on the floor into a side hallway

and then to the mall's security room, which was empty. It was a small place, a little more than a couple of desks in an array of black and white TV screens. They must have been connected to cameras across the building, but all of the monitors were off. I don't think the CCTV system was active during the ritual, ensuring there was no record of it. The very long phone cord was plugged into a jack by one of the desks,

and the other desk had a phone resting atop it, just waiting to be used. I knew it had to be working, so I reached out to check for a dial tone. But then it rang. I froze up. I wasn't expecting it to ring, and I was too scared to answer it. What if it was the same person that the pig man had talked to? Or maybe it was someone who could help me, but in my panic state, I just wasn't sure what to do. I hesitated and stood in place too long, and by the third ring I could hear approaching heavy footsteps from someone who must have been wearing boots.

I hid under the desk, making myself as small as I could. The light in the room was positioned in a way so that it cast the man's shadow on the nearby wall. Between the phone's rings, I could hear his muffled breathing from under his mask. He sounded agitated, perhaps offended by this interruption. My heart beating out of my chest, I remained under there, quiet and frozen, as he stood just behind me on the other side of the desk. I believe he was waiting for the phone to stop ringing. But after about a dozen or so rings, I could see his shadow bring up his mask and then grab the receiver.

Sleepy Pine's security, he answered. In that kind of tone of voice I remember my parents using whenever we did something bad, yet they were really trying hard not to yell at us just yet. Well, I'm paraphrasing, but he went on to say something like, Lost child. No, no one's here. Yes, I'm looking at the cameras right now. you don't need to get the police involved your kid isn't here goodbye don't call back you then slammed the phone down and i could hear him mutter out of frustrated

oh damn it despite my terror i could still comprehend that it was one of my parents that had just called they knew i was missing it was just a matter of time until either they or the police would show up suppose it was a good thing that i didn't pick up the phone or i would very likely have been called the pick up the The pigman saw his mask back down and turned to leave, and I planned to return the call as soon as he was gone. The instant I began to remove, however, the phone rang again. Retreated back under the desk, only seconds before the pig man came stomping back in. He ripped the phone right off its cord and threw it at the wall with such force that I could hear its plastic casing shatter on impact. His rage only made me more scared of getting caught. The slightest inconvenience getting in the wall.

way of his ritual was like heresy. Worse, he knew there was a child somewhere in the building, a helpless interloper. He and the others would now keep an eye out for me. Recognizing this, I must have stayed under that desk for a decent length of time before mustering the courage to get up and leave the room. But the only phone I could easily get to destroyed, but also armed with the knowledge that help was on its way. I saw my best option as just trying to get out of the building.

Sleepy Pines was at a central location and served many towns, yet it was still away from the interstate and the gas stations near it. The place was in the middle of nowhere, and there were no other businesses I could run to. Even so, by then, I was ready to take my chances waiting or hiding outside. The emergency exit doors out in the hall were also a no-go, however. Looking back, I think that the mall could be completely locked down by design. Maybe it was important for the ritual that nothing.

could get in or out. Or, well, it could be, they were keeping something else inside. I haven't mentioned this yet, but ever since getting out of the washing machine that night, I'd felt like I was being watched, as if eyes were on me the moment I stepped into the darkness of the Sears store. I wonder, if I'd just stayed in the tumbler, would I have been saved? I'm not saying that the mall itself was alive, but I believe there was some kind of presence in there that night, all around, ground, pervasive, lingering in the shadows and in every corner where light didn't reach. The feeling was never stronger than when I slipped into the utility corridor, its entrance being right by the useless emergency exit. It was a cold, dirty place, left unheated, nothing but

grey concrete, wiring, air ducts, old equipment and remnants of stores that had closed over the years. The long stretch of hallway was like the building's unseen museum. Cell signs, Going out of business banners, cardboard stands, broken shelving units. I'm not sure what the place is that no shopper typically sees alike in your typical moor, but here it was as if the management never threw it away anything. Oh, it was a mess, but at least the flickering fluorescent lights that lined the ceiling kept it from being dark. I'm guessing they were rarely turned on. Never actually got the chance to look for some seldom-used doorway back there, though.

It didn't even take a step past the entrance. The presence I'd felt was almost overwhelming from my spot at the end of a hallway that any kid would be scared to navigate in normal times and for one reason in particular. The corridor was breathing. The night still gets worse but I'm confident that just being in that hall was one of the main reasons my mind locked me out of the surreal memories in the first place. Like the chanting under the skylights,

the breathing was rhythmic and natural, in and out. as if I was staring into a huge monster's throat. It was frigid too, but impossible to mistake for a draught. Wind poured trash and other loose objects away from me, and then blew them back several seconds later. Yet there was no sound other than the skittering of small debris affected by the current. No rumblings or snoring. Only dead, silent, breathing air.

I don't remember how long I stood there, debating whether it was safer to turn back or actually proceed. into the hallway. Maybe only seconds, but I'm sure it felt longer. My decision was made for me when I suddenly saw a rapidly approaching darkness from the other end. This movement was swift and never stopped. It wasn't like the fluorescent lights were taking turns shutting off.

There was an abyssal blackness coming right at me at the speed of a train. It engulfed everything it swept over. I think it may even have generated a shockwave of air, hitting with enough force to push me forward just after I'd turned to flee from whatever entity was threatening to swallow me. Through my body against the door, I'd stepped through only moments ago, before the darkness could reach me, fell to the floor, stumbled about and took off in the opposite direction as fast as I could go. Keeping it all in was impossible. I can recall screaming as I ran away with no destination in mind.

It didn't matter that my panic had given myself away, because the pig man was already on the lookout for a child. He grabbed the back of my jacket the instant I passed the corner, where he had been waiting. He was tall and strong. I think he must have picked me up with one arm, by just the collar of my outerwear. He brought me up to his mask,

and I could see nothing but black through the rubbery pig face's eyes. He muttered in a guttural growl. What brings you to sleepy pines tonight, young lady? Able to hold and carry me with a seat. single arm over his shoulder, like he did the big carcass. He took me towards the ritual sight. My survival instincts kicked in, and remembering what my parents had taught me to do if I should ever be grabbed by a stranger, I started thrashing and yelling in his grip. Not that it did me any good against such a brute. Right, I am. I need to take a break here.

I feel prepared to move on to what happened after that just yet. It will take another round of stealing my nerves to revisit the next part. I do want to keep writing while these memories are fresh, so I think I'll spend the next couple of nights doing a little research and getting down to some objective facts. Pardon the brief interlude. Part four. During its existence from 1973 to 2008,

Sleepy Pines only ever had two owners, the first of which also helped design the building. The second owner was brought in to oversee a revival attempt starting in 1991, but I didn't quite succeed and ended up closing shop less than two decades later. As far as I can tell, it was a typical businessman of little importance, and his only noteworthy accomplishment was getting a good deal on the sale of the land. So let's instead talk about Pierce Colchester, the first proprietor.

I did what I could on digging up information about him before writing this story, but it's no easy task. Whether the world simply ignored him as much as an owner of a moment, mall could be ignored, or he tried his hardest to bury his tracks. His legacy has been made enigmatic. But there are a few things we do know. He was born in 1942, appeared to be quite tall when compared to others in what few photographs of him exist, and was once a college professor in the northeast of all things, teaching a class on anthropological studies as they pertain to the native populations that once thrived in the area. And that only lasted a short while, at sometime around

1970, he inexplicably came into a lot of money. He put his job and bought a large tract of woodland, not far from the freshly laid interstate road. His business dealings were seen as shady, and his construction contracts are seemingly lost, but all of that was brushed aside by the local government when sleepy pines opened in 1973 and brought a cash flow into the area that was little more than farmland in abandoned steelworks. I'm certain I met him that night, because he was he was. He suddenly disappeared in 1990, and a new owner had to be found who wasn't as successful with running the place. The mall's reputation for being clean and safe was hit hard.

Then it fell into disrepair. Benders evaporated, and its glory days became a memory. In other words, I was there the moment its slow death spiral started. There was something else notable about Sleepy Pines that I gathered from a series of small articles over the years written about the place. Stories and observations that never. gained wide attraction, yet persisted while Mr. Colchester was in charge. Excluding the workers who ran both the corporate stores and smaller independent outlets, the mall had been knowingly understaffed during his tenure.

It did function as any other decent mall, only with far fewer people at the helm than usual, to the point where it is noticeable to anyone looking. Managed to thrive in the early days, even so, and that small overhead must have bolstered the monetary success of sleepy pines, and put more money right in Colchester's pockets. He only ever commented directly on the matter once, and never in a written interview. After contacting a few people I grew up with,

and who still live in the area, one of them managed to uncover an old videotape with recordings of local news broadcasts from the closest city to the mall. So happens that Colchester was interviewed in 1988, right in the atrium itself and in front of the mural. He'd made one of his rare public appearances for, what was little more than a fluff piece celebrating the mall's 15th anniversary, and the segment

was less than two minutes long. Hearing him speak was what really confirmed to me his identity. He's standoffish and his answers are to the point, if not a little defensive. I won't transcribe the whole thing, but his responses are worth a mention. He's asked three questions. The first he explains his more success on keeping a small but dedicated and professional staff on hand at all times. To them, the place is more than just their livelihood. It's their sanctuary. His words, not mine.

Even the reporter seemed a little taken about by this degree of reverence. Perhaps thinking that he'd gone too far, he visibly tries to lighten up a little and emphasizes that he just wants to turn them all and the work around it into an art form, something to take pride in, like the Italians and the Japanese do. Now, keep in mind, this is a memory. middling shopping centre in a low to middle-class rural area. He definitely thinks too highly of himself, and it's clear that he isn't much for socialising. Replying to a follow-up question on why he'd hired so few people, he claims things like

efficiency and forming a tight-knit family. I think he just wanted to save money and have the right number of workers that he felt he could control, either keeping them devoted to his cause or leaving their numbers small so they wouldn't consider rebelling against him. After some banter back and forth, and compliments from the reporter about the pristine nature of the place, she asks her final question about the mural. The camera pans over to it, basking in the daylight from the windows above, and because of the low-res video, it's like the figures are watching several children passing by

who have ice cream cones in their hands. Every mall needs a centerpiece, something that defiance and speaks for it, Colchester says. I've visited many across the country and seen things from elephant skulls, and meaningless displays whipped up by a commercial artist. I had this mural commissioned to pay homage to the people that were here first. It allows us to look back at them, and them, us, from the distant past. For anyone that studies the brush strokes closely enough, they will find little secrets.

Fictions of folk stories and forest creatures. I cannot give away the name of its two creators. One did the backdrop the other, the deceptively simplistic figures, but suffice to say they are both modern masters. All this talk of art goes over the reporter's head and she concludes the interview with a toothy grin and wishes Colchester luck in the next holiday shopping season. Myself, an artist in backhanded wit,

he smiles wryly and suggests that she might wish to check out the sale at the pottery barn. She cheerfully closes out, and we return to the local newsroom to learn of other trivial matters. Oh, I do miss the simplicity of the property. that time. It's hard to believe that just a couple of years later, that man was covered in blood, wearing a pig mask, and returning to what was pretty much a cult ritual in his moor with me in toe, kicking and screaming. I can really only owe my survival to a rift among his workers. Some of them hadn't lost their humanity quite yet, and seeing their boss dragging over a small

girl to a sacrificial circle was a step too far for them on first sight. Since I was again near their holy object, I can revisit my recurring nightmare realm where my memories are crystal clear. It was finally close enough to the sight to see the others. I took in their appearances despite being terrified. While they never took off their animal masks, the rest of their clothing was also business attire, and I recognised two of the uniforms, that of the custodian and the head of security, both of whom I'd seen earlier in the day. There were two other men in suits and two women as well that I know I'll never

identify. For some reason, when I was brought close enough to the object in the middle of the circle, I could see it. Or more accurately, I can remember seeing it since from then on. It doesn't seem to burn a hole in my memory. The totem radiated a strange energy. Its structure glowing and containing something exotic and prodigious. There was a red oil floating inside of it, giving off waves of heat like a road on a hot summer's day. I don't think its color actually had anything to do with blood. Rather, that was just how these delusional people perceived it. Nor do I think they dug it up. It was too clean and intact to be some ancient lost relic found in the area. I believe they built it. I was able to watch the Mike and Jenna videos after getting

in touch with the person who discovered their camera files and is keeping them otherwise private, making me one of the few who has watched those mall exploration clips. This was definitely not the same totem that briefly appears in their... video. Its composition, size and materials are totally different. Whereas the object they stumbled upon was tall and looked like a wood carving, this 1990 iteration of the supernatural device was made of bone bound by leather to wood, and in a shape similar to an antique hourglass, with the bone twisting around to form a cage of sorts that kept the crimson sphere inside. Thankfully, I doubt it was made of human bones. They looked like they come from a large animal, and I don't think

that the people were macabre enough for that kind of defarment. Well, not yet. Some of their arguments made their opposition to what was happening clear and gave me hope. That night was already one of the most demented things a child could ever experience. Other than Mr. Colchester, the pig man, I can't be sure of who spoke because of the masks. Their quarrel went something like this. Why is there a kid in the mall? Where did you find her? We have to stop everything at once. She isn't part of the process. But she's already seen too much. No, we can medicate her.

Knock her out. She'll think this is all a bad dream. Her parents must already be on the way. Don't waste time debating. But you know it doesn't let anyone forget. This is true. Colchester tells his flock as I continue to stare in awe and fear at their sacred object. And her family is looking for her.

But isn't it obvious what we must do? This is a sign. The divine miracle is testing us, our devotion, by bringing us this lost lamb. You know what has to be done. Sir, one of the women replies shakily, when you use language like that, it concerns me. The icon is remarkable, yes, but we need to remain rational and clear-headed. We agreed years ago that it would be dangerous to place such blind faith in this thing

that we still don't understand. This remark angus Colchester, and he roars almost incoherently. That is exactly why its power has waned. You never truly believed in the icon. None of you did. Not like I do. How can you take this child's appearance in any other way than there's a pronouncement? No, a holy commandment.

You're never going to sacrifice a child. The other woman says, and she and the custodian get to their feet. This is too much. When does it end? What's next? The custodian asks his boss. Do we put two kids under the knife next year, then double it every year after? Ah, if we must, Colchester rages on.

Think of all the happy families, making memories, buying presents for their loved ones. We need that to persist. This is a small price to pay for success. Open your eyes. But he is only losing followers, and everyone but one of the men in a fancy suit stand up to oppose him. Well, I don't think its power has weakened. sir. The head of security replies harshly. I think that even it can't keep the tide back any longer. Yeah, he's right, my friend. A man agrees. We can't fight where the market is going.

The golden days are over for many businesses, not just us. Let's calm down and talk civilly. There are other uses we can find for this object, and sleepy pines may still be able to sustain itself for years to come, even without its help. The path isn't worth holding on to. Not at this price. None of you ever had enough faith in our blessed icon. If you truly devoted yourselves to it, we would not even be here tonight. This was when the last person still sitting on the floor. One of the men wearing a business suit and hidden by the rat mask stood up.

He took out the knife and the pig corpse nearby, wiped off the blood on his sleeve. My faith is still strong. He grumbled in a harsh tone. "'Good, and show me,' Colchester demanded, and turned with me still in his grasp so I could face the large butcher's tool. The man in the rat mask approached callously, like I had nothing at all to drive that blade into a Charles' heart if it meant another year in the black. But the others still wouldn't let it stand, and they drew near. They recoiled when the rat man slashed the knife toward them and said sternly, "'Get back. I have too much riding on this place.

if you can do it, I will. Ever since my mind opened up and confirmed to me that the memories at the ritual site were real, I found myself wondering the most about the Ratman, more so than Pierce Colchester. Who he was, what he had on the line, and why he was the most devoted of the followers. He must have disappeared too. I think they all did, but the others were just less newsworthy. Whatever his story, the group didn't hesitate a second time, and as soon as he had his guard down, they rushed,

both him and Colchester and wrestled me from their grip. From the floor I heard them scuffling, maybe even fighting in earnest. That were been just the tail end of a long, tumultuous relationship among them all, and I was merely a passerby in the night. Whatever there boiled over disagreements with one another, they were more important to the ritualists than me. I was only the trigger, and also suddenly forgotten for the moment. I could have just gotten to my feet and snuck away,

but I was worried that I still might not make it out. An overwhelming presence in the building remained, and if it didn't catch me, then Colchester or the Ratman would. The two of them were strong and fierce, and in my brief glimpse of their struggle, I saw that they were already close to overpowering the lesser five. My solution to everything was remarkably simple. If this had happened when I was an adult,

I might have overthought it or doubted my ability to do it, but easy, impulsive solutions are what being a kid is all about. and so I did the only thing that made sense to me throughout that night. I got up, went over to the totem, and crushed it with my foot. I furiously stomped on it repeatedly, breaking the bones that comprised it with satisfying snaps. Upon hearing those sounds, and then seeing what I was doing, Colchester expressed his extreme disapproval by flying into another rage. He broke free from the others and came charging at me, but his anger was short-lived and quickly turned into some sort of physical. or mental anguish. Once the totem was completely shattered, the floating red orb in its center

turned black, melted into a liquid that oozed onto the tile, and then seemingly soaked into the tile. The substance had disappeared within seconds, and I think this caused a reaction in Colchester. He spazened and started choking on liquid. Black fluid dripped from the pig-mask eyes, and then he vomited up a torrent of that disgusting black gun from the fountain. The others backed away from him, and I'm guessing they didn't know what was happening either. But he was obviously in pain and suffering as his body tried to purge something unnatural. This was always where my repeating nightmares ended. With a turtum destroyed, it no longer had a hold on my memories,

and the rest of the night becomes a blur again, though I now remember the rest just as well as any other fuzzy childhood account. Colchester ran off, clutching his chest or stomach, there's a chance that everyone else just stood around a moment longer, looking at each other and me as if wondering, well, what now? Didn't last for long. Since the mall was dark, the flashing red and blue lights that had suddenly appeared from the other side of the nearest locked doors filled the halls and scared them off.

After they also disappeared from my life, I ran to the door, feeling overwhelmed by panic and desperation to get out of that building. I'm not sure, but when I destroyed it, the totem, all of sleepy pines may have trembled. If it wasn't from me severing some otherworldly grip on the place, then perhaps it was that unseen but omnipresent entity I'd felt since the start of that night. Either way, I'd return to the world of reason and everyday normal adults doing their jobs. The police officers that had come to my rescue weren't able to get in touch with any more staff for reasons obvious only to me. After I ran up to the doors, they ended up

breaking glass to get me out of there. My parents were waiting nearby in the van, and we had a tearful reunion, and I got the back of the vehicle to myself on the way home. I only have bits and pieces of these last moments of the night, so it's likely I passed out as the adrenaline dissipated, and they brought me straight to bed. I never told my family everything. I knew that I'd been trapped in a mall, alone at night for hours, and that was more than enough to warrant some child therapy. and after a few months or so I must have shown good improvement because they no longer saw a reason to keep at it so long as I didn't visit them all again

I don't remember much from my sessions but I don't think I ever told my therapist the full truth either who believe it what would it add if anything I'd just be seen as delusional or confusing the resulting nightmares with reality people in animal masks worshipping bones and pig blood while therapy taught me how to manage my emotions

and not let past events control me, I mostly credit my recovery to my mind quickly burying the reality of what transpired. I can't explain how it did so exactly, but it could have something to do with the unbelievable things I saw, and part of me just couldn't accept them as real. Or maybe the totem can remove or rewrite memories to disguise its nature and make finding out what it is difficult.

In my recurring flashbacks and dreams over the decades that take place at the ritual site, the totem itself never actually appeared until recently. I'd forgotten its form. My theory is that the enigmatic object is a lock and a key. It can hide itself away from perception, but when I read Mike and Jenna's story and saw the videos, the totem unlocked itself within my psyche

and freed other memories about the day as well. How it can do this is one more mystery as to its origin. I think any physical form it takes is tenuous, only as strong as the person that creates it, but it knows how to linger and wait to be made again. I can't even begin to assume anything about its powers or true purpose. I haven't seen any of the people at the ritual since then, and I never returned to that more.

We did visit my uncle's family a couple more times, but I stayed at the house when the others paid a visit to sleepy pines. It had to have been understandable for my parents that I shouldn't need to relive something so traumatic. A few years later, Later, once both of my cousins were adults with their own lives, my aunt and uncle moved from their small town. We had no reason to go back. Before I wrote this, I finally asked my mom about her perspective of that night, emphasizing that I remembered everything she thinks happened to me again.

Re-awakened old guilt, but I assured her that I'd moved on and forgiven everyone for leaving me behind. Her answers gave me a clear understanding of how things went wrong, but I can't really blame my parents anymore, at least not fully. It was an accident, something that could happen to any large group at the end of a busy and chaotic day. It wasn't as basic as driving a van full of kids home and not noticing that I was missing. There was actually some miscommunication between my parents and my aunt and uncle about who was riding with who. Presence filled up both vehicles and meant that passengers had to be split up. In the confusion, each driver must have thought that I was with the other car.

Specifics about which siblings and cousins were in which vehicle are lost at time. Not that it really matters. However things panned out, no one noticed I was missing until a few hours later, when it was time for bed. My parents rushed back to the mall after calling the police, and their response time was such that both parties arrived at just about the same moment, despite the difference in distance. Life moved on for us after that, and the incident became just another one of those childhood disasters that big families get used to. All of my siblings have horror stories of their own as well, none as strange as mine. Not that I've divulged to any of them the full truth. I don't believe that the ritual site was ever discovered, or it was cleaned up in a hurry.

No local newspapers had a story on any of that, well, not that I've found after an extensive search. However, I did manage to track down the words that the ritualists were chanting after repeating them in my head enough times and thinking about Colchester's reverence for local tribes. They're from the Seneca language, used by the Iroquois people in the area. You hogged a headee, meaning the earth and I want you a need to breathe. I'm not certain of the pronunciation, and they probably weren't either. It probably didn't have to be.

It's the belief that counts. That fed the totem. But if there truly is something special about the land up there, the breathing earth, I wouldn't be surprised. It would track with what I felt and witnessed for that one night in November. The one last thing I don't understand. top off so many other things, is that I had to have been in that washing machine for at least several hours since my mom swears that I didn't go to bed until midnight. There's no way that I

would have willingly stayed in there that long, so I must be missing time. I either fell asleep without knowing, totally spaced out for a while, or something else happened the moment the more closed up that defies explanation. The totem can screw around with space, it's not a stretch to say that it could also play with time. The danger is great, but I have a feeling that it will be eventually remade again by someone with a different point of view than a few guilt-ridden capitalists

in charge of a dying mall. Maybe then we'll get some answers, because, well, I have none, only guesses, and an outsider's story. Until then, I've recently found that sketching my own version of the totem on occasion is strangely soothing, makes me feel calm.

I kind of like it. I think it would look best if created with something artistic like clay. But I'm also aware of what it might do if fully realised. So don't worry about me. I'm fine. Everything in moderation. Dead pines. I'm not one to keep a journal.

I don't do social media and I don't even like talking about myself. But I feel compelled to share this in case something happens. I'm hoping I don't end up on someone's strangest disappearance this video, or make a record for most amount of body parts found in different states. I must already be coming off as paranoid or traumatic. Well, I'm a nobody, really. I keep to myself and live and work in a quiet part of the Northeastern US. I'm a bit of a recluse who hides from the world, and I like conformity in a safe space.

Over the past couple years, though, I've tried to come out of my shell. I traded my night shift for daylight to force myself to interact with people. I'm even sort of trying to make friends, which isn't easy in your mid-thirties. But one old guy, the worst co-worker I've ever had without a doubt, set me back. Well, I've regressed. You're probably familiar with scary stories about night security guard who notices weird things going down at the building he watches over. Well, that's somehow become my reality. But close to a decade, after I lost both parents, I fell into a mental and social health spiral that had me living out of my car and drive.

having cross-country working temp jobs. I didn't want to form connections or put down routes, so I stayed adrift. I'd say about seven times out of ten I worked in night security or stock shells, so I could avoid people. Now, the problem is I was never completely alone. And when it's just you and one or two other people, they tend to reach out eventually. Get chatty. I want to buy you a drink or something.

That was my cue to move on. I know. You don't have to tell me it's a shitty. way to live. A few years ago I wanted to change. The reasons don't matter. Suffice to say I was trying to turn a page. So I settled down in a small apartment and got a day job at a large distribution centre for a retailer you're all familiar with. There isn't much nearby it, but it's off the interstate and it's an easy drive. The first few weeks were miserable for my socially awkward self. The job kept me on my feet all day, fulfilling shipments, and most of my

coworkers were always trying to strike out conversations with the newbie. It would often go into survival mode whenever a symbol hello was thrown his way. It was hell, and exactly what I needed to rejoin society. Four months in and I was improving. I asked for extra shifts and made decent money. It wasn't a fulfilling or mentally stimulating job, but it was rewiring my brain and helping me pull out of my pit. And then he came along and ruined it.

With wages being what they are and saving difficult for some, a lot of old folks need work, I get it. But why pick something physically taxing? And with the way he behaved, how did he get hired in the first place? I won't say much about him unless I get a lot of requests to do so for whatever reason. But his behaviour got on my nerves enough to make me change jobs. Same location, since there wasn't much else in the area that appealed to me. And I ended up filling a vacancy in the night watch. In other words, I'm right back at a familiar spot.

With any luck, it's only for a little bit. And I'd rather be doing the same old than happen to deal with a commodgian for one more day. If you've made it this far, you must be wondering what's the point of this story? Where's the meat? About a week into my new posting, I started to notice strange things happening. This sounds cliche, but I need actual advice here if anyone has some. I get that it's my job to watch the screens all night, to do the rounds, and investigate anything out of place.

And I am a veteran at this. Well, I've never had to beat someone up. I've caught the police five times over the years at other sites and even used pepper spray once. And when I first started, the guy who trained me told me a story of when he found three homeless people who'd been hiding and living in a grocery store at a distribution center.

They scared him when he found their home in the warehouse, and he got ready to fight for his life. But in that case, they just ran off and were never seen again. ever since I heard this story I felt prepared from my own similar discovery this is coming from a very non-confrontational person why would someone like me

repeatedly take this job you ask for the other 99% of it and nothing happens and I get to spend a nice night alone in a place full of products that I wouldn't otherwise know existed and are well I don't know interesting to look at the truth is while I dread the day

I have to fight an intruder once fear and adrenaline and pumping through my veins, I'm actually pretty level-headed and even chill in tough situations. These kind of events that would make others panic. I'm not sure why I'm like that. Some quirk in my survival instinct, for better or worse. I hate a steadily creeping problem or worrying about a future hypothetical bad time, but once I'm in the moment and being tested, I mostly stay calm and logical.

Anyway, there are the things I've noticed in no particular order. Moving shadows briefly appearing in the camera feeds. Motion sensors going off, but nothing is on screen in playback. Several times I found a door to the outside a jar or unlocked. Missed-placed or used items like tools, bandages, painkiller pill bottles and various food in the grocery section. I found discarded wrappers and drink containers in cold storage, but nothing yet in the frozen section.

I sometimes found trash in the bins in the brink. break room which are emptied at the end of each day, so for some reason our prowlers on occasion deal with their litter. And after all this, I haven't seen anyone on the nearly three dozen cameras that monitor the interior and exterior of the building. Nothing valuable has gone missing yet, but the thefts have been bad enough for management to notice inventory discrepancies. Screwdrivers, drills, crowbars and saws are among the more popular items. Sometimes while I'm doing my rounds The security office phone will ring

Which I have to answer Now this forces me to abandon my patrol Giving someone a chance to sneak by And no one's on the phone when I get to it Usually when I work this job I'm paired with someone else I don't know why the company Or at least this location won't give me a partner

Only one other guy has this job currently On the weekends He's told me of similar occurrences Management has replaced locks and added a few cameras, but has yet to take any serious action to tighten security. I'll also mention that the building has had repeated issues with isolated black mould. I found a few hotspots myself, even though there's never any sign of dampness in those areas. Trues have come in during the day to take care of it, but it keeps happening.

I haven't asked about the mould, but I've heard management referring to the colonies as stubborn. I'm not certain if it keeps coming back or if it's just hard to scrape off or kill in the first place. Well, the mould is a separate issue, but I figured I'd add it to the list of unsettling crap that goes on here. The building is in otherwise good condition. Well, how should I handle this? I hesitate to get the police involved

until I have some solid evidence of repeat intruders or squatters. It always turns into a big thing, and if the cops can't do anything, and I'm the one seen as not doing the job rights. I don't get paid enough to try my hand at detective or forensic work. I'm almost ready to call the police haunted, which might explain a way the motion sensors going off and the shadows, but not the thefts and half-eaten food.

Sure, I can go back to the day shift and let someone else deal with all this before my failure has become a problem, but I really don't want to be around that creep. Is it something I'm not thinking of here? some easy way to find what's going on. It's far-fetched, but maybe current or former employees are raiding the place and know how to avoid all the cameras. But that's a lot of effort for some low-grade criminal antics. Still, I'm thinking of setting up hidden cameras of my own to catch them.

The problem with that stupid idea is that if they're found, I could be accused of spying on my co-workers or whatever. If I want to go down that route, I might have to set them up and take them back down. every night. Or I may get some footage the first time I try, and also avoid getting stabbed by drug addicts. The second post, made six days after the first. Well, this blew up. I didn't think so many would be invested in this. There are some good suggestions on what I could do. It looks like most of you want me to go ahead and put up cameras. I'll just have to be smart about it. No, I can't afford infrared ones. nor will I be cracking open a kit from the warehouse. Losing my job I can handle,

but I'm not going to spend any time in jail over this. What surprises me is how many of you want to know more about the weird old dude that made me move to this position in the first place. Well, fine. He's in his 70s, I'm pretty sure. He's a stubborn loner who has to work the floor in his own ways. There's nothing of teamwork or cooperation and responds to us in what basically amounts to grunts,

or at best barely coherent mumblings. He's also bad at social cues. At lunch, if there were no empty tables in the break room, he'd go hide somewhere to eat. He glared us from across the sorting machines and mutter angrily if anyone made a mistake. About the only thing he didn't do was physically touch anyone or file complaints of his own,

but it's clear that he doesn't really like anyone and must hate the job, despite always showing up on time and working all day, even while keeping to himself. He also has a habit that's just annoying, in that he complains about everything contemporary. I say that he's out to constantly remind his younger generation co-workers about how the old days were better, but he isn't even really making a point to any of us, or care who is listening. Remarks about the halcyon years, whenever they were for him, just get mixed in with all his other ramblings throughout the day, every day.

no offence to all the Gregs out there but it's never been a name I've been fond of so I'm going to call him Greg instead of revealing his identity no matter what someone does I'm not going to put them on blast for the internet though he probably isn't even online enough to find out about whatever doxing and shaming might be done to him

potentially because of me now Greg isn't about to be fired any time soon as he has an annoyingly strong work ethic so when a position on the night shift opened up I took it, and I'm still hoping it'll just be temporary. Beats having to put up with him all day and hearing about him from everyone else, but I don't want to stick to the solitary position for too long, and go back to being a socially inept vampire.

Now I'll add that I've never said a bad word about Greg at work. If he has a list, I shouldn't be on it. Whenever people joke about or ridicule him in my presence, I just nod along and keep quiet. It's not that I don't think on the reasons I dislike someone. but I'm too much of a wimp to say stuff out loud or confront anyone. I guess it could also just be caught having manners or not talking shit. Either way, I'm sure I'm just another face to Greg.

He likely hasn't even noticed yet that I stopped showing up during the day. That's about all there is to say. It's not like I'm going to interview him. As for the updates, I'm wishing I'd already set up some cams because last night got really messed up. The past few days were otherwise. fine up until then, nothing out of the ordinary weirdness. Another problem with this warehouse is the acoustics.

Sound bounces around so much that it's like I'm in a mirror fun house for audio. Makes it difficult to pinpoint sound sources. I'm sure that the person or people I'm dealing with scatter the moment they make enough noise for me to hear them. Case in point, last night. There was a guy wailing at the top of his lungs for a good five minutes or so, I still couldn't find him before he disappeared. Maybe if I'd already been on the floor, I would have had a chance, but I was up in the security room when the wild pain scream started, and so I lost some time. I swear these cameras are useless.

There are so many, but none of them are pointed where they need to be looking. Now, imagine you're me, working alone at two in the morning, in a huge building that's just about the only island of light in an area surrounded by darkness for miles. You check the feeds and wait for motion detectors to go off, while you browse. your phone. For no reason, suddenly somebody's filling the place with echoes of bloody murder. You look at the screens and see nothing. No choice but to leave the safety of the office and head down to look for a potential maniac. Then the screams stop and you're soaking in the silence again. Could it be a co-worker or a disgruntled guy that got fired or quit? If they're homeless, what the hell are they doing out in the middle of nowhere? How'd they get this far out into

the boonies. This isn't some building in a city that people can slip into on any given night. We're out here because of the central, if not remote location. This route to two dozen stores in the region and because we're easy for trucks to get to, being right off the interstains. I looked around for a while and didn't find anyone, no surprise. On occasion we take a late delivery that I need to supervise, and this was one of those nights. Once I was alerted that a semi had pulled in, I headed to the back to unlock the roller shutters, where I get to watch two dudes unload pallets of cat litter and trash bag boxes. It's when I'm nearly at the shutters. I finally locate the murder scene. Okay, not really, I mean, I hope not. There was a big pool of

blood on the floor, along with some shredded gauze. Not enough blood that someone certainly died, but still more than I'd ever seen in real life. I took a picture and went into the loading area to assist with the delivery. Maybe my priorities are messed up, but I wanted to get that out of the way. Once the forklift was back in its spot and the guys had headed out, considered my options. Short term, my night would be easier if I simply cleaned up the blood and didn't report it. Attempting, but I knew what I had to do. This had gone far enough, and it was time to get the police involved.

Now it was warranted, even if I was going to get chewed out for screwing up or slacking off somehow, as if any of this was my fault. I returned to the office to make a call, and on the way I found something I hadn't noticed earlier. A set of knives had been torn open and left on the floor, and only a single blade was missing, the big butcher one. There were two crazy people evading me. One had just tried to kill the other.

If it was only a single person, they were even crazier. If this wacko's goal was to unalive himself on the property to see him. send a message or whatever, why address the nasty injury that left all the blood? Leaving behind the box of knives in case they were needed for evidence, I went back into my safe room and made the call. It took the cops an hour to get out there, no surprise. And while I wish they hadn't, because it would just escalate things further, they brought an ambulance with them.

When they looked around, asked questions, reviewed the footage, walked the building trying to get the injured intruder to come out, drove around the parade. room into looking for ways that they've gotten in, complained about coming out here again, and nothing. Just like me, they had no success. Dawn was breaking by the time the office is left. I found a report and prepared for the worst. Though I have no idea how my current boss will respond, I've had experience with short-fused managers in the past who really don't like it when any incident happens on my watch, no matter how well I think I took care of it. Well, I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Oh, and I'm not freaked out by the thought of the local vagrant having a knife now. He takes anything he wants, so he basically has all the knives in the building already. Again, I'm oddly calm under pressure. Dretts and scare tactics don't phase me. I'll be all right. The next day, another update is made from the original poster. This time it also shows up in a different community that might be of more help. I've got some suggestions to bring this topic over to your random Deadmore subreddit.

So here it is. I don't know anything about you guys. I just gave into beer pressure. Okay, here's what I originally wrote from here out. So I woke up to over a hundred new comments to read through. Guess you never know what might go semi-viral. Can't believe that a few of you actually want to donate or buy me some IR cameras too. It's a little amazing how many people are getting invested in this.

I was going to wait and post again in the afternoon after something would presumably happen tonight but it's now four in the morning out here and it's being quiet for a change maybe the cops spooked the intruders they might have left all together or could be just lying low I know all of you want probably to be the latter

so that the drama porn train can keep on rolling well I did get a wireless camera kit before work tonight and set up six of them across the building in good hiding spots where there's no existing coverage. I also aimed a few at areas where I tend to find trash or torn open boxes with stuff missing. I don't think I'll catch anything tonight though. It's dead here. And now that I'm spending the last couple of hours before the morning shift starts by tapping out a post on my phone, I might as well talk about a few developments worth of mention. The evening shift

here overlaps with my solo work a little one. I get settled in and help with closing so I can chat with a few of my former co-workers and get up to date on recent happenings. News about the blood and police being called out here had spread. And while I didn't have much to add, I did get to hear about just how unsettling some of the co-workers found the whole thing. Big conversation started all day, apparently. But also, not the first time something bizarre had gone down at this place. There have been years worth of weird stories that started long before the warehouse was built. First, all I'm wondering is why this is the first time.

I've heard about them. I love urban legends and local rumours about the dark and depraved. They could have kept me entertained while I was sorting and packing. The stories about this area go way back. One of the older employees interjected, after overhearing me asking about them. Now I'm paraphrasing here, but he said something like. Before the mall, there were the old steelworks that were said to be haunted since the

1930s. Before that, it was the same thing with the farms. and before that, well, history gets murky, but the local settlers refused to build anything important out here, even after they drove away the natives. I reacted by asking, there was a mall here. Not that I'm sure why. I'm not a big fan of the places, and I really don't get the nostalgia for them. It was called Sleepy Pines, he said, and now it didn't seem so eager to give me the details. He headed off and clocked out.

I had a dreaded meeting with my boss to get to, but still had a little more time to hear about this more from the others. Before I could get more info, they shifted the subject to a more interesting and relevant topic. Yeah, did you hear that Greg hasn't come in for the last few days? I think it has anything to do with someone being stabbed here. A guy was always so weird. At a chance he did the stabbing over being the victim. He disappeared, I exclaimed, too loudly, making it awkward.

I didn't say that, but maybe he did. Not like any of us have his number, or would call him if we did. Hey, if he really does never show up again, you think he'll ask for your old job back? I wasn't sure yet. I was still processing. I didn't like the guy, but I wasn't going to wish that he was actually hurt just so I could work during the day again. Thankfully, my boss wasn't pissed off. She was mostly just glad that I did my job without putting myself at risk.

It was nice and a little surprising to not have to report to a total power-tripping asshole for once. The shocker? Turns out my position has a high turnover rate. The weekend shift is generally fine for the part-timers that take it. But the weeknight seemed to take a toll on whoever's on guard duty, to the point where it's difficult to simply get two people here at the same time, explaining why I'm doing it solo. It's the little instances that build up over weeks.

she explained to me. There are people in town who had the hijab and still talk about the things they've experienced. The police have been out here over a dozen times this year that none of our team members have been hurt. It's all paranoia. I don't know how to describe it.

Sounds, mild hallucinations, and on occasion something real like a skittish intruder or malfunctioning equipment. The men around here just aren't as tough as they used to be, I guess. Great. My job slowly drives people insane Or stresses out others enough into quitting before they reach that point

I'm not one for nightlife or hanging around in bars So I don't have much exposure to any circulating ex-employee stories in the nearest small town Which is about 20 minutes away Whatever If Greg doesn't show up for another week I should be able to leave the night watch behind Before I see anything really messed up All right dawn's breaking and another shift is

about over. I need to collect my cameras. I'll look through the footage tomorrow, which is Saturday, when I'm not working. Wake up around three in the afternoon, EST, and I'll reply to any big questions or comments before skimming the recordings. The next post is made at 406 p.m. Oh, wow. I'm sorry I'm a little late, but I just spent the last hour replying to a bombardment of DMs about sleepy pines. Guys, I'm not terminally online, and I don't do much research. before settling into a new area. Remember, I had no idea there used to be a mall out here until like 18 hours ago.

I wouldn't know that it was cursed, haunted, or a corruption in reality, or whatever was wrong with it. I got messages from around 30 people while I was sleep, telling me how dangerous sleepy pines was, and how the land itself may still be screwed up. Look, you can stop, I'm in the loop. Maybe not as yet as deep into it as the fan club, but I get it.

Disappearances, cults, capitalistic pagan rituals, neat stuff. I'll be the smart character in a horror movie who leaves the hellhole the first chance they get, but I spent most of my money getting out here. I need some time to recoup first before packing up again. But fine, I'll look into the stories today. Just stop digitally shouting at me about totems and a couple that went missing. Give me time to sort through the law myself. Which it looks like I'll have to do the old search engine way.

Why isn't there a wiki for Sleepy Pines if it's gotten so infamous? Hey, someone get on that. Well, I plan to be back later tonight. The follow-up, made around midnight. Well, here, everyone, I lost track of time. I found myself excavating the rabbit hole more than I expected to. Don't worry, I still got around to doing my homework. I played the footage from my cams in a small window in the corner of my screen at two-time speed while I researched.

well, I'll get to that. Took a single night to just about make me a true believer in the insane shit you guys dumped into my lap. After I read the two central stories about them all, I tracked down other accounts made in response. No experience comes close to matching the really out-there stories of Mia, Jenna, and the girl who visited in 1990, and nearly got sacrificed by the self-hating rich freaks in animal masks. But I still really got into all the glitch in the Matrix observations, from others too. The vast majority of days, the place seemed to operate normally.

Then there was that 1% of visits where something inexplicable happened with the staff, or a strange anomaly was seen in the corner of a shopper's eye. It's obvious when I'm reading a troll post or fan fiction, since they play up the horror and dark unknown aspects too hard. I want to mention all the Times' rumours recirculated about Mike and Jenna GoPro footage existing on some obscure site, and people claiming to have seen it. The guy that found their camera hasn't uploaded it. Best we can hope for is a high-budget recreation.

If you want to see it, find an abandoned mall and make the movie yourselves. Now that I should be as up to speed as the rest of you, and respect your efforts and devotion, I'll give you an update. It's crazy that I'm now involved in this story, but only a few days ago I was a total outsider with no knowledge of sleepy pines or perfume ladies and all the rest. I admit, got its claws in me. That's for the footage from my own cameras.

There isn't much, sorry to report. I know it sucks to be disappointed, but I'm doing what I can, and I'll keep pursuing this with newfound seriousness. Across eight hours of video from each of my six cameras, there was only a single noteworthy occurrence. At about two in the morning last night, I caught in the upper half of one of the recordings a moving blur of someone running.

Yeah, I have footage of a pair of legs sprinting in the distance, about three seconds were. It's not worth sharing, but I think it confirms that at least one of the trespasses, if there are multiple, is still lurking in the building. Also the member who was nice enough to order me, the IR camera, set paid for rush delivery, and it's looking like they might arrive Monday before I go to work. So maybe an interesting update is on the way Tuesday morning. Lastly, it's not like this has been a problem yet I figured I'd get ahead of it Please don't come to the warehouse to try and get access

Just because you've got a guy on the inside working here I don't need the trouble And to be honest I don't really want to hang out with any of you in person For me there's nothing more socially cringy Than meeting someone you only talk to online I'm a professional Let me handle this

I want thanks in advance Following a quick up update on Monday confirming the delivery of the cameras. The original poster returns on Tuesday in the afternoon for an eagerly awaited catch-up. The thread has been buzzing with activity since the morning. But let's get to it. I set up the four infrared cams along with my six normals again last night. I'll spoil it right away by telling everyone I didn't catch a hair of our interloper. They've been quiet recently. However, I still have a new discovery I want to talk about that I don't know how to explain.

I remember our black mold problem that comes and goes. Well, along with the IR cams, I also got a lens attachment for my phone so I can look for heat signatures on my patrols too. Now, here's the thing. While messing around with it late last night, I picked up a glob that was a few degrees

warmer than the surrounding environment. I moved a few boxes to investigate. It turns out that there's a large patch of the black stuff on one of the walls. I hate mould, so I've never touched it, and wouldn't have known that, well, that it's warm for some reason. Is that normal? I get that it's alive, but still, this is strange, isn't it? It's also the biggest colony I'd seen yet.

I've already scheduled another visit from the cleaning crew. The building is supposed to be getting HVAC work done to hopefully help with the problem, but those guys are booked up. I don't know why, but we definitely need a new air system. Oh, and the mould is nasty. When I was looking at this dull red glob of heat on my camera fund, I noticed flex of the mass breaking off and floating away into the air, and larger flakes settling into place to join the colony.

Not damn gross. I hate to think I'm breathing this in. But it gets worse. I lowered the range of the infrared display to see the more subtle fluctuations in temperature, and the whole screen lit up. There's specks of this warm mould drifting everywhere, looking like snow flurries or irradiated dust. What hell's going wrong with this building? It can't be happening only at night.

I'm going to start wearing a masterwork, and I'm hesitant to tell others to do the same, at least before I bring this up with the manager. I want to cause some sort of panic. This isn't normal right. To have mould spores a couple of degrees warmer than the air floating throughout a building? I mean, I guess I could be looking at. at harmless dust particles, and that doesn't explain why they're warm. Or do tiny airborne things just show up like that, and I'm freaking out over nothing.

I only have one more announcement today. We'll consider his position vacated, and guess whose job it is to clear out his locker? As long as what's inside isn't something I need to report to the police first, like say a dead body, and that could make for a good update. Don't set your expectations too high, but given how strange he was, I figure there has to be something weird in there. Two days later. Guys, what the hell?

You're all the only reason I'm still even working in this building at the moment. Since I have a crippling fear of disappointing a horde of people on the internet, I'll never look in the eye. Last night I discovered that four of the warehouse cameras have been tampered with. But it's strange. Their time and date still ticked to hide the fact that the actual video is frozen. and when I'm glancing at over 30 feeds, it's not like I'd really notice of what would you call it, a glitch,

or some kind of corporate espionage. But I'm not sure yet, but my boss is looking into it. I can't say when this started. Me fighting out was more of a fluke. These four cameras are pointed at low traffic areas towards the back of the building and don't monitor much shelved infantry. We got one aimed at an emergency exit door.

Two covering what's basically a utility corridor where things like circuit breakers, climate controls and the janitor closet are, and then one more looking at a rolling shutter loading door and just the corner of a gardening supply shelf. On the night of my discovery, I mapped out their coverage areas and realized that these outages meant that we had no eyes on a pathway from a never-used door to a loading and stock area with access to building systems on the way. and it's possible someone could have been sneaking out or in by using the blind spots for months, or maybe years. Certainly a security gap, and it's hard to believe I'm the first to catch it. Oh, I did isn't all that interesting, but I know some of you are curious.

Just after official closing, someone rammed a gardening shelf with a forklift, knocking down several heavy bags of potting soil. It wasn't time to clean it up at the end of the night, and I wasn't expected to do it alone, so it would be dealt with first thing in the morning. About 11, an hour and a half into my shift, I was mindlessly checking the cameras like I do countless times a night.

It jumped out at me. Right where they were supposed to be broken open bags of dirt, on the feed with the corner of the shelf, I saw nothing out of the ordinary, no mess at all. At first I'm thinking maybe someone did go ahead and clean up before heading out. It's not like it's urgent enough to investigate right away. But when I'm later doing my first walk of midnight, I go back there, as far from the security room as possible.

I see that the soil is on the floor. Hmm, weird. I return to my chair, and now the camera is showing the spill. But I know what I saw, and I don't often second-guess myself. I rewind, and the spot becomes clean again. And right as the timestamps clock hits 12 with 4 zeros, bags are on the floor like they're supposed to be. My investigation was basic.

We have safety cones that I knew would be easily visible on the monitors, so I spread them across the warehouse wherever cameras were pointed and found the four feeds that didn't update to show them. After I marked the trouble cams and packed away the cones, I skimmed the recordings in reverse. We keep 48 hours of video, so while I couldn't go back too far for a deep dive, I felt confident I get an idea of what was happening.

These cameras have now been taken down for full investigation. I'm glad that my boss seems to be taken this seriously, like a true security concern. Seriously, something this specific can't be just an obscure malfunction right. I have to think that the cameras were sabotaged directly, or the software that controls them was altered. I just can't wrap my head around why. The laps could give a thief free rein for two hours,

but only in a specific part of the warehouse that isn't even near valuable stuff. If they were using an emergency door to get in and out, should have been setting off an alarm. The rolling shutters could theoretically be opened, but even if I haven't had eyes on them, they're loud. I'd be able to hear them from across the building. On top of all of this, we've only had the minor problems with missing infantry. Sorry to bore some of you with all this menial but creepy-ass stuff,

but I wanted to be detailed because I'd appreciate some input. Whatever ideas you got, I'm all ears. Since we have no footage of that blind spot at all until we get some new cameras, I know where I'll be putting my personal set. The next day. Nothing on my cams from last night, but I'll keep at it. Not much else to say, but at this point I want to keep you all in the loop day by day. really the only thing to mention this time is that I went to work a few hours early

so I could talk to my boss about getting my old position back what with Greg unlikely to return or don't get discouraged I plan to work the afternoon to closing shift so I'll get to keep up to date with whoever takes my spot when we're in the building together for half an hour I'll tell them about my investigation and let you guys know how this all plays out

I'm not doing anything amazing here or out of the ordinary and as I'll give them my cameras as well Well, not speaking of, I thought I'll put a little present for everyone. Just thanks for the help before I'm darned being a vampire again. How about a live stream tomorrow night? I'll give a tour of the warehouse and even open up Greg's locker. I hope you can appreciate the idea, since I've never done any sort of streaming before, and it's way outside of my comfort zone.

Also aiming for no technical problems. The Wi-Fi is pretty good at work, but it's supposed to be storming tomorrow night, so who knows what might happen. Makes for good ambience, though. No, I wouldn't even have thought of doing this if I had a hard-ass for a boss again. Don't think I'll get in much trouble, even if she finds out somehow.

What other bit of news just worth a quick mention? When I was at work early to put in the request, I found out that the landowner was in the building. Ask some employees, and apparently he stops in once a month to look around. He's not otherwise involved with the company, company as far as I know. I don't know. Maybe it's nothing unusual and I'm just grasping for straws. It sounded like he was asking management about the security problems. I guess if people are getting

hurt, breaking in and stealing on his land, that's enough reason to poke around and find out what's being done about it. I wouldn't bring this up if it weren't for the fact that he put me really on edge. Maybe more so than Greg. The showrunners here were chatting with him like they were old friends, but this guy, he's tall, a slicked back hair, looks like he never smiles, and was overdressed in a dark business suit that could have come out of the 80s. Real Patrick Bateman energy. I get accused of exaggerating my first impressions, but I feel like I've always been sensitive to a person's vibes, and his were off. This place, I feel like it's trying to move on from a past some might see as cursed or haunted, yet it can't help attract. It's a track

acting the strange ones. All right, enough of that. To anyone who wants to stay up late with me, the stream begins at midnight tomorrow, EST. Technically, as soon as we roll over to Saturday. Treat it like one of those ghost hunter shows. We'll probably start off with high hopes of seeing something scary,

and then nothing happens. Manage your expectations is what I'm saying. Either way, it should be fun. Within the first minutes, of May 25th, 2004, the late-night stream goes live. What begins as an amateurish and dull broadcast with less than a dozen viewers,

unexpectedly over the course of the night, reaches many esoteric and darker corners of the internet, and peaks at over 10,000 viewers. Secondary recordings of the stream exist online, and debates on both the authenticity and explanations around the following events are ongoing. At first, the operator gives viewers time to join, as he checks his setup and confirms it's working.

Typing can be heard over the sound of heavy rain on a metal roof. The camera is pointed directly upward at a dim ceiling light. At 12.10 a.m., the broadcast begins proper. When the camera pans around the security room and is tilted up and down, the motion is smooth. Either out of shyness or desire for continued anonymity, he's careful not to reveal his face. His opening words are light and timid.

He'll gradually speak with more. confidence as the long night wears on. Okay, test, test, you hearing me? Looks like the chat's saying yes, all right, cool, well, there aren't many watching yet, so I'll start things slow and see if we get those numbers up. Still, I'm not bad for a first-time live streamer, maybe.

I normally think this form of entertainment is stupid, but heck, it kind of feels like I've gotten to know a few of you over the last couple of weeks. So I'm, I don't have much of a rig going, going here. No lights, no external mic. I do have a gimbal, so it should look nice for everyone at least. And I'll stay in landscape. Can you hear the rain? A little scary out here. News is warning that there could be a flash flood in the area. No worries, though. Wilding's up on a mound. Worst case, I get my own island for the night. Oh, yeah, so I might be in over my head here. Maybe I should

have loosened up with a few drinks first. Anyway, this is the security room, where the magic happens. He pans the camera to show the monitors that survey the warehouse. Oh, you guys want to see me crack open Greg's locker? That'll be in a bit. I'll get like 30 people watching first. We'll start with that tour of the building. It'll be that exciting, but, you know, I figure some of you might want to see what occupies

a space where sleepy pines and its many stores and memories. once existed. So, fun fact. I compared satellite photos and mapped out the coordinates. Turns out that my office up here sits at about where the mall's main entrance marquee used to be. The warehouse is also around 20 feet higher up than the mall was. Hmm, no one else seems to be joining yet.

I guess we'll start. He proceeds down the stairs and walks the building, throwing in minimal commentary as he gets documentary-style footage of the sorting machines and endless shelves. of various bulk products. To any outsider, this would be a very uninteresting stream. But for the Sleepy Pines enthusiasts watching, there's a subdued excitement around simply getting to see what exists where an infamous shopping mall once was.

The chat is buzzing with dead mall memes and trivia. By 1230, he arrives at the rear corridor where the security cameras had been tampered with. He slows down his movements, giving the viewers a chance to inspect the area for themselves and perhaps see something he'd miss. nothing stands out at the audience and he soon arrives at the shelves that were just out of view of the cameras that once monitored the area and here's where the dirt incident happened no evidence

left of the soil i read some theories that maybe there's a hidden entrance or something here like into the shelves or between them that's kind of out there guys but i did check anyway well as you can see it's all pretty solid and crowded with heavy bags of mulch and dirt he jostles the stacked metal for a moment, then walks around the large tower of gardening infantry. You can barely see it, but these shelves surround one of our load-bearing columns. Just concrete and rebar back there. I already spent a few hours looking around this spot, trying to find some reason for the hijack cams.

Nothing. Moving on, here's something you all wanted to see. Oh, one sec. He switches over to the IR lens attachment, painting the world in mostly cool blues and purples, with a few warmer regions of dark red. The crew was here just yesterday and scraped away all the mold, so I can't show you any of it. But if I dial up the sensitivity like this,

and you can see the hot dust still floating around. The bitrate isn't crap, that is. Well, like I said, this dust is everywhere, wafting throughout the building. I don't have this problem with the infrared camera at home. What do you think it is? I reread some comments from last night and was reminding about,

what if this dust or spores or whatever was in the air back at sleepy pines? Only no one noticed because IR Tech was too expensive for most people. And that's where the theories that maybe this mold actually let stuff on the walls in the original dead mall story. Could be.

You know that can... What's the word? Like, transmute matter, to the point where it reverts a place into what it was in the past? I don't know. Without a totem, Like a real one, shaped by a true believer, well, he trails off, then returns the camera to normal and checks the feed.

Okay, cool. Got some more viewers. I guess we can get to it and open Greg's locker. When we find, like, weird sex toys in there, we'll all have a good laugh and I'll wind things down. Well, I still have to do my job, and, following some distant thunder, the lights in the building flicker and go off. He keeps still and quiet As the dim glow of backup lamps appear Though it's too dark for the phone camera

To pick up anything but specks of light Damn, almost gave me a heart attack Only a storm for those just joining I'll check the circuit breaker While I'm back here And we'll probably have to wait for the lights to come back I'm not opening that locker in the dark Wait, hold on

The glow of his phone's light hits the breaker box Which he opens with a key He checks the large array of switches, remaining calm throughout. A few of those in the chat seem to be genuinely concerned, but most simply laugh off the power outage is a nice little boost to the stream's spooky factor. Ah, well, it doesn't look like anything flipped. You can see the crazy number of circuits you need to run a place this big.

Oh, wait, this last switch was tripped. Oh, he shines his light on the label of the switch in the lower right corner and hesitates. apparently it's disused I don't know what that's about I'm not going to be touching it All right back to the office He shuts and locks the breaker box and continues on Now lighting the way with a dedicated flashlight

The camera only picks up the shapes and shadows That the beam illuminates Making for an eerie journey back to the comfort of the monitor room Our host doesn't seem bothered Some of the chat members, whether role-playing or not, are getting a little uneasy. It used to be they'd shut off most of the lights in a warehouse after dark. Now most places don't bother.

It's all LEDs anyway. Cheap to run and they last... You hear that? He whispers sharply all of a sudden and swings the phone and flashlight around back toward the rear corridor. Nothing is audible on the stream. No?

None of you... Damn, I definitely heard something. It looks around. found a few moments longer before resuming his track, now with a speedier gate. The chat slows to a crawl as if to keep it quiet for the host's sake. By now there are over 50 watching, probably still mostly from the Deadmore subreddit where the stream was announced. After navigating around and between hundreds of tall shelves in the dark, the lights come

back on just as he reaches the stairs, and a sigh of relief is hurt. And they're back. I didn't plan any of that by the way It goes up the steps and surveys the warehouse From above for a bit Don't see anyone or anything moving out there Let's be sure For the next ten minutes of the stream

Nothing remarkable happens Our host and his audience Spent some time looking at the camera feeds After he runs a post-reboot system check Everything appears to be normal Likely to the disappointment of a few watches Finally, just before one in the morning he gets on with the show by fetching a hefty pair of bolt cutters from a tool rack.

Okay, sorry about the delay, but I needed to check out the security system anyway because of the power outage. Let's crack open that locker and see what Greg's been hiding. Back downstairs. On the return tripped to the floor, he appears to hear something again but says nothing. The camera lingers on the warehouse rose, and once more the phone fails to pick up any audio. He proceeds into the employee lounge, and then he continues to hear the employee lounge, and then, into a room full of narrow lockers. Greg's unit is in the back

and doesn't stand out in any way. It's painted in plain grey like all the others. Now, as you can see, it hasn't been opened, he tells the audience and gives the padlock a tug. Now, just to be safe, in case there really is something messed up in there,

I'll open it off-screen and get a glimpse at the contest first. I also need both hands to use the cutters. The camera is placed on the floor, and the sound of metal getting sheared apart can be heard. The locker door creaks open, and our host is quiet for longer than expected. Whatever is inside has taken him off guard.

After several more seconds, he lets out a low mutter. Just... What the hell? Guys, you aren't going to build... Oh, man! Unable to find the words, he picks up his camera, and shows the audience. Packed tightly on the locker shelves are dozens of clay creations of all sizes.

Some are simple, others are intricate. A few have carvings that depict nothing discernible. Most are small, but several are sizable. Those on the top shelf are the biggest and most detailed, almost looking like actual art. They're also the only ones that seem to be made of brown clay instead of the more common light grey. But something is off.

They look artificially colored as if stained. Look at all these, he says and touches some, knocking one to the floor. And they're just dry and like not even bait. What was he doing in his spare time? I assume we stock clay somewhere, but did he bring these from home? Yeah, I see the chat. You'll jump right back to totems, but come on. How would he even know about them?

It has to be some weird art project. The commentary begins to scroll faster than anyone can read it. But at a glance, there's clearly a division between those that think this is all just fake or a setup, or an example of a genuine urge to create idols. It remains unknown if such a desire stems from knowledge of their prior existence, or from a form of psychosis that can arise in certain individuals who spend time on the land. They aren't as serious as the totems in the stories. He continues, while examining a few.

and tossing them on to the floor, since they're destined for the trash regardless. These ones on the top shelf. Shit. That's gross. You see what's under them? Like pools of dry blood, I think. I won't be touching those.

If he's been mixing freaking blood into this clay, and I could get like hepatitis. Okay, fine, I'll look at one, but not here. If you guys are making me, I don't know, evaluate it. I'm going to do it right. There's a workbench upstairs. He reluctantly but carefully grabs one of the stained objects and carries it away.

Weird ass old man, swear to God, if there are fluids in this other than blood. Upon returning to the viewing deck that connects to the monitor room and where a large window offers a vista of the warehouse, he places the object on the table. After shoving aside equipment that was being repaired, he turns on a lamp and studies the purpose. averse statue. It's the size of a typical flower vase. Well, it feels and sounds hollow, so maybe there's something inside. I read through all the theories about these things. Who knows how

they actually work or what they do? So, for science, let's open it up. These engravings don't look all that interesting, but maybe more thought was put into the contents. There's something rattling around in there. Using a hammer and several hair. every tips, his object breaks apart and its materials spill out onto the table mat. He zooms in for a closer look. All there is to see are nail clippings, strands of hair, and a tooth. Oh, gross, but I expect it worse. It's definitely his hair, so he must be using parts of himself to give meaning or power to this thing.

That might be both disturbing and narcissistic. Anyway, see, a lot of you really want me to open. up more of the totems. I was planning to end the stream around now. If you really want me to, I guess we can break a few more. He stands up and turns to head down again, but immediately freezes upon noticing a sudden change in the warehouse. It's now bathed in darkness.

All of the lights past the few nearest rows of shelves have gone off. What the hell? When did that happen? I didn't hear any thunder. The audience watches as the next. another section of lights flickers, dims and goes out. It's as if a growing void is encroaching on the last illuminated area in the large building. The host, though perturbed, still doesn't panic. Okay, that's not normal. I'm going to check the monitors to see how this started. It's like

circuits are going down one after the next. He rushes into his office and narrates what the viewers see while tapping on the keyboard. Most of the cams are down. Rewinding, see that? The lights begin shutting off just minutes ago. Starts from the back, spreads fast, then slows down. Yeah, screw this, and I'm leaving. I mean, if I can.

He switches to the external cameras, and they show him the bad news. Under the pouring rain, the outdoor lights reflect against a growing lake of water. shit am I trapped two more interior cameras lose their connection and he leaves the room to update us on the warehouse the darkness is coming closer

swallowing in the light as swathes of LED tubes go dead it doesn't budge from the perceived safety of the second floor's observation area no these are not special effects of me setting off timers or some shit this is really happening he snaps Now I'm marooned.

Tell me I didn't do this. That totem was pathetic. Me breaking it didn't cause this. He picks up one of the landline phones, but no dial turn he's heard. Of course, I'm ending the stream to call for a rescue. I'll try and... All of the remaining bowl was go out. The video feed becomes a flat black.

Not even emergency or backup lights can be seen in the abyss. After several seconds of breathing, things resume in infrared. Our host approaches the glass for a closer look. What he sees out there, in a chasm with no light visible to the eye, is chilling in several ways. The walls, the floor and ceiling are covered in a dark purple, showing that they're cold. Even the shelves and infantry have retained some ambient heat.

What's more, the building now has a rough cave-like structure, as if coated by a rugged material. At the same time, the dust is hotter than ever and eerily suspended in the air, unmoving. He stares as his camera does, unsure of what to say. The only sound is heavy breathing. We watch as the myasma of mutagenic dust

throughout the building begins to glow like a field of stars, hotter and hotter, nearly blinding the infrared sensor. For one small moment, it's quiet. Then with no warning the dust rockets in all directions, slamming into the ceiling, walls, floor and everything in between, pelting the viewing window as well. The specks move with such velocity that less scattering is only captured on two frames of video.

It's unknown what happens immediately afterwards. It sounds like a powerful shockwave hits our host, but there's no shattering glass. Whatever he is struck by, we hear him hit the floor with a thud, and the stream goes offline a few seconds after the dust, activated in whatever way it did. The chat window explodes with reactions, and once it automatically shuts down,

the viewers swarm the thread for the stream to continue their debates and concerns. Some still say it's an elaborate prank, maybe even shot on a soundstage against a green screen. But that wouldn't account for the fact that there is flooding in the area, and when the leaked number for the security desk phone is tried by numerous users, they only reach a dead line. While waiting for the stream to come back, or any response from the guy who's become the new major player in the Sleepy Pines saga,

the story spreads like wildfire around the dead mall community and a bit beyond as well. Though given the late hour, its power to attract the uninitiated masses is muted. What's good to see is that while many want answers and beg for more video, many more send their well-wishes and hope the streamer is okay. Efforts are made to contact the nearest rescue crews, but the flooding is not. knocked out a bridge and even further isolated the already rural corner of the state. A silver lining emerges when newer forecasts show the rain starting to dissipate. Although better weather won't do much for our friend if he's already met with a strange,

unique, terrifying fate, or if the building has collapsed from the full activation of a totem, which has quickly become the leading theory on what happened. But from where and by whom is an unknown. After 93 minutes of anxiety and getting friends to wake up and join in on, the event, the stream miraculously resumes. The video is lowering quality and drops frames often, but it remains decent enough. Our survivor continues from the monitor room, led only by a backup light. Notably, from here out, he mostly speaks in whispers.

Some copies of the recording have incorporated AI to enhance his voice. Is it going through? How's the picture? Wow, you're all flooding back. Sorry to worry, everyone. black out, or maybe I did. It's more like I've just lost time, about an hour and a half. Guess that's a symptom of this sort of thing, isn't it? Like when the sleepy pines go was in the washing machine and never mind, I got knocked off my feet. Next thing I know, I check the time and as you can see, the power is out. So no cameras, but maybe mine are still out there. No Wi-Fi

either. Over my cell connection holds out. I've been hiding here, working up the nerve to go into the warehouse to see what's happened to it and, well, trying to find an exit. I think I can do it if you're all with me. It's weird, you're not here in person, but it's like I have a personal army of my command. Geez, there are thousands of viewers now. With that, he stays fairly quiet for a while, letting the viewer's experience what's ahead without unneeded commentary. The journey will speak for itself, and he seems to know this in advance. For those who've spent years drawn in and captivated by the mystery of sleepy pines, the land, totems and their belief-fueled power, and what it all means. This night is already proving to be a holy grail of an event.

And the chat box reflects this solemn solidarity. Despite the thousands of viewers, text usually scrolls by slowly. He returns to the viewing booth and picks up the biggest flashlight you can find, which he uses to send a revealing beam into the darkness. The observation area has been spared from the transformative effects of the black matter, but outside, past the thick particles of dust now easily visible even without an infrared camera, it's a jungle of amalgamized corruption where time and space is imploded into a fractal-shaped mess of geometry that vaguely resembles gnarled tree roots with limbs that terminate in objects and samplings of places from the past. At this distance, it's difficult to make out finer details, but it's certainly clear that

the warehouse is now without definition. I bit explorer breathes in and leaves the room, grabbing a crowbar on the way out, for anything potentially crawling around. The totems have the ability to create hollow mimics of living beings, at least for a brief time, and the extent of their behaviour and potential falsility isn't fully known. Upon reaching the ground floor, he looks for any available ways out, but the inelegant eruption of the black matter has covered all of the doors. He's left with no choice but head to the back, all the way on the building. his other side. Within a minute since his arrival on the ground floor, he already sees the night's first

anachronistic anomaly. The light sweeps over a large box, and he brings it back so that we can examine an unpowered vending machine, partially emerging, or forming from, a mound of dark goo. The design and art of the machine is impeccable, looking straight out of the early 90s. It's also empty of food which is just as well since anything edible will have previously been something that was not, a shelf perhaps or the toaster oven it held he soon has to start walking on twisted melting material to proceed crunches like snow under his shoes

and he checks his feet often with the guide in the camera by now his gimbal is basically mirroring his every head movement and he may no longer be fully conscious of it being separate from his body the camera work is excellent in other words and the chat never complains A source of light stands out after he rounds one of the intact rows of shelves, or more accurately, a row that has only been partly converted and transitions from warehouse shelving to a mishmash of half-realised furniture and appliances. The light comes from several arcade machines, freshly hatched from the gunk and lacking any artwork or buttons for that matter.

Screens flicker rapidly between blacks and blues, their power source are mystery. proceeding deeper in he observes and highlights the empty racks for the audience and says what's on our minds oh the infantry's missing all those everyday items must be like fuel gives a totem raw material to mould into things like that he adds as the flashlight and camera point upward dangling down from the unseen ceiling is a particularly large tendril and attached to it is what appears to be an entire random a nondescript corner of some part of sleepy pines. The tile is shiny and clean. The two walls are solid without cracks or seeping goop.

There's even a single pillar that supports nothing. The thing is, the geometry is warped and nothing is in its correct proportion. God, what a mess. Euclid fans are wincing, he jokes. At the end of the row, we reach a break in the warehouse between sections, where a forklift is now mostly embedded into a poor, creation of the sleepy pines fountain. Its basin is dry as the tar-like mutagen cannot create water and in fact seems resisted by it. The fountain can't hold any water anyway as it's split in half

by a fissure that descends into light-absorbing darkness. Also in the area, a classic seers sign that has melted into the floor, though its letters are slightly off and only the E is illuminated. A payphone is attached to the side of a column by a single, thread of gunk, showing the strange matter's strength. The mall's famous red corvette has been remade and phases through a stack of wooden pallets, and even if it hadn't, it's still twisted and deformed into shapes no industrial machine could make. Nearby, a circular clothes rack that holds nothing but duplicate pairs of blue jeans, has manifested like an artificial tree sprouting from one of the building's cleaning stations. Why is it like this? Our host whispered,

and scans over the object several more times. It's like two locations are just crammed together. Wherever it is, maybe the totem that activated is malfunctioning. Did it trigger on its own? He pauses his thought upon hearing a strange croaking sound from somewhere. Light and cameras spin around to find the source, but see nothing. It was unmistakably organic, however. There's at least one being or creature in this place.

As he scans his surroundings, there's another notable occurrence. A second source of light suddenly fills the immediate area, and he quickly finds the reason. One of Sleepy Pines, his old skylights is materialized directly above, letting in some moonlight dulled by cloud cover. The transforming effects of the totem are extending to the building's exterior. It's a sight worthy of attention that he doesn't linger, since the light has made him further stand out to anything moving around. He goes on, deeper into the warehouse and potentially closer to the source of the corruption. This is where we begin to delve into uncharted territory. Past the mall, before Sleepy Pines.

The more distant history of the land, violently pulled out of time and poorly reconstructed. There's a well-defined space where this transition begins. We go from the mall's grand opening banner, draped down from a tower of copy-pasted front doors, to rusted industrial pipes and girders. They blend together with a span of a few feet, like smeared three-dimensional oil paint. We find ourselves trapped within a nightmarish factory of some kind that, like the distorted mall segments before it,

continues to fuse with the warehouse of the present and the tar-like substance that has birthed temporal chaos. A lopsided sign raises any doubt on where we've stepped. The words, Vicar Brothers, steelworks, hang down from chains that fade up into darkness. The totem is pulling from the days of the foundry that operated between 1939 and 1964. Mortar shells were cast there during World War II. The building nearly burned down twice and cost 14 workers their lives over the years.

The worst of the accidents, a large spill of molten metal, claimed three victims. I'm not mentioning these facts to claim that the site was cursed, but out of curiosity concerning the nature of the totems, if they have one at all. Why capture such a miserable time and place? Did someone want to preserve it as people did sleepy binds? Were they even aware of the strange instruments or have the urge to create them? It's likely the totems are merely observers, forms of data storage, and advanced 3D printers without allegiance or disposition.

And whatever they are, they have long memories, and the one that's active now, or was destroyed upon use, seems to have dug into the collective memory of glowing metal, which appears as bright reds and origins in the dark. molten steel pours down shelves and misshapen elements of the factory. It doesn't flow. It's all frozen in motion. Nor does it seem to exude actual heat despite the glow,

and our guide demonstrates this by holding his head near a stream of hot slack. Upon feeling nothing, he touches it directly to no effect. He even pushes it inward. It has the consistency of a gel. Weird, he remarks. And it's just like room temperature. Another croak. It's coming from above somewhere nearby.

No time to dally. It's possible he's already being haunted. Only seconds after he leaves the moonlight, there's yet another worrying incident. Even for this twisted place, it's unexpected, and I wager most of the viewers are as startled as the streamer. Gunshots ring out and echo across the cavern. Muzzle flash lights up some of the back half of the building, but it's too far away to pinpoint. And they're shouting as well, coherent and human, yet also too muffled by distance to make out clearly.

Audio enhancement will later reveal the shouting to be something like, Get out of my way, move mindless things. Our story's protagonist freezes up again and waits until the danger may have passed. Whatever creature is lurking at the top of the shelves is lured in by the activity, and it can be heard clumsily scrambling away. There's no need for our friend to give us his thoughts. It's obvious that one of the intruders is about, they're armed, and they seem to have some familiarity with the imitations of life that may be up ahead,

or is at least not afraid of them. When he does press on, it's more cautiously and quietly than before. It isn't long before the twisting pipes and metalworks of the foundry section begin to transform again. Some of the rows of shells become fences or warp into twisted windmills and portions of grain silos. He passes through the front of a 19th century barn, his doors bent out of shape and spayed open. Oil lanterns glow dimly and hang from the building rafters, but have no living flame inside. There are small fields of pumpkins and dead pigs, not that they were, ever truly alive, though maybe they could squirm about when first created earlier in the night.

Totems can restore material, but their full effects don't last long. While we aren't sure of one's true potential in the hands of a proverbial master, we know that the dredged up past Mike and Genesaw was only stable for a few hours, with complex life forms degrading the fastest. What isn't known is what occurs when the imitation world shuts down completely, and what all it might take with it. Mike and Jenna weren't heard from again after they witnessed that ending. And if our friend can't escape, he might be the next to find out.

Oddly, the visit to the land's agricultural pass stretches for only a few hundred feet or so, despite the area hosting farmland for well over a century. Theories developed after repeated viewings of the stream that the length of time doesn't correlate with the size of a place's representation. Rather, it may have been how beloved or remarkable that place was to those that knew it. The idea that I more subscribe to is similar. It's really about the number of people that once passed through this corner of the world

and kept it in their memories. That would explain why the rural display covers less ground than a once popular mall that survived for a fraction of the time. Whatever the truth, after the sampling of farm life, we leave civilization for good and are on the way to the expected epicenter

of the night's events. Once he passes by a few log cabins, his sweeping beam of light only illuminates the solid black bark of large pine trees. An entire forest, endless at first glance, stretches outward with little room to maneuver. The actual canopy and pine needles aren't visible, if they exist at all. Like an AI-generated mistake, the giant trees seem to be all trunk and disappear into the dark ceiling. They might even keep going into the night sky, but we're all trapped inside and can't be sure. A few steps into the woods,

more croaking. It's deep and deranged, the noise of a monster. His video feed is shaking as his nerves begin to finally fray. He aims the camera upwards. His light hits a solid black creature, hanging from the bark at least 50 feet above. We aren't certain if it's blinded or already falling to pieces and bumbling, but either way it comes crashing down and nearly crushes the explorer. His bulk explodes on impact.

and what's left writhes and contorts as new masses grow and split open. The grotesque scene culminates when a melting human head of an obese woman briefly emerges from the thing's shoulder, nets out a guttural groan and vomits up. Empty perfume bottles. The creature then goes still and silent and continues to degrade, with some of its inky flesh dissolving into dark smoke. After witnessing this, our narrator responds in a way that may have finally broken some of the the tension that night, which had left viewers at the edge of their seats.

I remember let Aaron laugh while watching live and filling the role of chat moderator. Okay, he mutters, stepping over the corpse and continues on. Oh, really what else is there to say? The trees are deceptively non-labyrinthian. As big as they are, they were formed from rows of shelving and consumer goods, so there's still a straight path through them. The only thing of note in the forest trek is the occasion. occasional odd chanting in a dead language, source unknown.

By four in the morning we emerge from the woods and step into the inner circle of the corruption. The lights ahead are the strangest yet. They aren't what's getting the attention right away. After entering a dimly lit area and immediately ducking behind a tree before the audience can see it, he makes a quiet announcement. My cams just pinged my phone. They're in range. Hold on.

Just have to minimize the stream and... check. Lost four of them in the mess, but two of the regs and one IR are still running. Signal's not strong enough to see their feeds, though. I'll have to get closer. The problem is, well,

look at this. He pokes the camera out, and we get our first glimpse of what we will come to call the ritual lands. I compare it to an animatronic tour from hell. Understandably, he hesitates to step into this domain, but there's no

other way through. The performers do seem too invested in their activities to pay anyone walking by much mind. Time periods have converged in this place, and may be due to the closer proximity to the totem. The moving imitations of humans here are immaculate. At least for solace, mindless copies of people the land is remembered. As he begins to navigate the twists and turns around each site, we quickly get an idea of just how blood-soaked the cyclical hocal history has become. There's no order or organisation, and the characters and their duplicates don't appear to acknowledge those outside their divided set pieces. But we can see how many times these rituals have happened, and all their many forms. In an untouched old growth forest, a forgotten tribe shamans in circle of radiating yet frozen fire.

Inside it is a wooden totem, or perhaps in this case an effigy. They pray and watch it burn. In another iteration of this ceremony, they instead sacrifice a hog and wrap its entrails around a totem of bone. Later in the walk, past further animal sacrifices, the tribe covers their faces with crimson as they kill one of their own, for the sake of their coveted dark god and an ongoing desire to preserve their land or village, or to transform it into something else. And this time, some tribesmen turned towards the camera with questioning or threatening gazes. It's frightening.

It makes our friend move faster. But this also happens with other groups on occasion. Yes, every group of people that came into contact with or became aware of the land's nature eventually created their own ritual to give power through belief to an object that seemingly willed itself into being created and used. We see destitute and desperate farmers,

killing one cow two, well, who can be sure? Make the rest of the herd healthy? enrich the soil, bring rain, instantly sprout a crop, maybe just build them a few barns. The steelworkers became particularly cruel in their bid to keep business alive. The rugged men covered in heat protective gear and soot go from making totems out of steel to bashing in a goat's head and finally dropping one of their own into a vat of molten metal. Sacrifice is always where it leads,

as their beliefs become more and more demanding an insular. Inflicting pain shows their devotion and power, and then mysteriously, each rain comes to an end and the land goes quiet for a time, as if it devoured everything about them. Sleepy Pines, being a shopping mall that existed in an era of connectivity and communication, survives in memory because of those things. But little's known about the local tribes, farmers, and steel mill. Why is it the records of strange objects and ritualistic groups just don't exist? it shouldn't have all been so secretive as to disappear from history entirely. I think the breathing earth, as it was referred to by Sleepy Pines' owner, eventually sates some need for hunger and takes it back.

The gifts, the power to mould and create, all of it. It inhales more deeply than usual and leaves the land a blank slate, with no trace remaining of those who knew of the nature of this place. And so a once beloved shopping mall slowly dies, and the people who managed it, were never heard from again. Of course, the mall's ritual site also appears many times, more so than the ceremonies that happened before them. Pierce Colchester and his little group of capitalists performed many rituals over the years,

using a variety of animals, but failing on the one night they tried to offer up a person. It was difficult for me to see those rituals on the stream, those business types in their animal masks, spilling blurred across the white tile of the mall. kept bringing me back to that night where I met them back in 1990. Yes, that's right. You hadn't figured it out yet. I'm the girl from the prequel story. Living still on a tropical island far away from all that,

but still entranced by a piece of land. Someone had to write up a report or a story for that night at the warehouse, mostly because of my first-hand account, the community voted me to be the author. Since said story isn't really my own, I'll keep it going. Among those in animal masks, the man who sees himself as a rat seems to track the camera each time he appears in one of the annual rituals to improve or revitalize them all. I don't know if a videographer notices.

His pace is now frenzied, and he voices his concerns about becoming a sacrifice himself. Near the back of the warehouse, the ritual site stopped manifesting. There's nothing left but the black matter. and warped remnants of the shells. Maybe the eye of the storm, where there's too much chaos for anything to be created. Yet even here, a few things still survive in the tar-like muck. I can see my camera feeds now,

from the ones that still work, he says quietly. Not sure where they are. They show my flashlight. They're covered in dead pixels, too. I think the IR ones pointed at me. Yeah, I see myself waving at it. Hold on. I'll try sharing the app screen. After some tech fumbling, he mirrors his phone, we see a thumbnail array for his cameras.

Those that haven't been mutated or crushed by the event have a whole mess of pink dead pixels. On one cam, they're clustered on the left of the frame, on another the right. On the infrared one, more to the center. So, when a camera's pointed toward an active totem, its sensors get gradually damaged I wonder if we can use the dead pixels to like triangulate where it might all be in this mayhem, and then I could destroy it. The chat agrees with this idea, and he sloppily starts flipping through the three remaining feeds

and using his beam of light to see where the cams are aiming. There's nothing visible to the eye, no glowing idle that would be easy to spot in the darkness, so this is all we have. On the fifth switch over to the infrared camera, two figures are suddenly seen static. standing behind our explorer. While he's warm,

they're bright hot. Oh shit! He nearly screams as those at home jump in their seats. He turns around to confront the pair but doesn't say a word.

We're left with a third-person view made up of cool and warm hues for a moment. He composes himself, lets out a cough and switches the stream back to his phone camera, lit dimly by an indirect glow

from his flashlight, we see the faces and eyes looking back at us. They are pale and their expressions are vacant, but they're otherwise just as real as any of the people in the ritual displays. Michael, Jenna? He murmurs in a kind of solemn reverence. Can you understand me? What happened to you two? They're quiet.

We don't know how closely they represent the real missing couple or what they're thinking, if anything, they could be sizing up a potential ally, or prey. It's Jenna that blinks first, so to say. Her eyes drift over to something off-screen, but the camera doesn't budge. Down there, she says flatly. It's below. Below, what?

You mean the totem? It's underground? Mike then speaks just as stoically. If you stay. When it all stops, you go inside. Destroy it or run. Hiding won't work. Jenna stares right into the camera and a glimmer of life flashes in her eyes. You're doing what we wanted to do.

Do people remember us? The land remembers. Mike adds. This is the scene in any ghost movie where a character struggles to have a conversation with a spirit. Not something anyone could prepare for. Still he tries, telling them. Yeah, of course.

You two are, you're pretty much legends. And over 10,000 people see you right now. Mike works his face into an eerie smile for the camera. But he smiles nonetheless. He even raises an arm as if to wave, but looks disappointed as it instead crumbles away into dust. Neither one of them is stable enough to stay for long. And we know they're only mimics, copies of the originals, wherever they are now together.

Even so, to see something like this live, I'm at a loss for words that can describe the feeling and reactions from the community. There are at least a few dozen questions we all want to ask the echoes of Mike and Jenna, but we can't be selfish when a life is in danger. While it's subtle, it seems like the two expend a great deal of effort just to speak at all. Our ghost whisperer moves on, leaving the original explorers in peace. Not long after the flashlight finally hits the back of the building. He's made it to the rolling shutters and looks around for a way out, which may not be so obvious with the exterior lights also gone,

and it being dark. We don't see it, but he finds something else first and reports. I find one of my cameras. Hold on, I'll try it. Damn, it's really stuck in the black stuff. Or is that just a melded shelf? Maybe I can... We hear him.

strain a bit, but it's unclear if he frees one of the wireless cameras. The next time he says anything, it's after his flashlight reveals the circuit breaker box, which is mostly melted into dali painting ooze. Guessing that's why there's no power. His beam continues on, scouring the scorched and deformed wall for an exit. Come on, give me a way out. We can barely see a loading door as it's coated in the goop. then another one warped and bulging inward so much that it obviously can't open

but the last of the three near where the gardening supplies once existed a forklift has been used from inside the building and its prongs are dug into the shutters to force them open partially forklift must have given out or the rollers jammed there's a gap at the bottom some two feet tall more than enough to escape through somebody already done so or someone else let inside the camera doesn't waste time thinking about it and runs over to his chance at freedom

kneeling and sticking the camera out into the night air to show his audience a potential end to the nightmare he can tell by his breathing that he's excited more than ready to go and chat urges him to get out and yet he hesitates he's doing the worst stupidest thing he can do picturing himself as a hero,

maybe even the one person who can put an end to the centuries worth of rituals, obsession, and mindless cruelty. Guys, I know I should do the smart thing, but... He turns his camera back to the darkness. What if I could look? I see the message is,

you want me to save myself. This isn't an ego or pride thing. The thing is, is I've got no real family or friends. I should be the one, right? I bet a few of you want me to just run so nothing changes here, so the curse can continue, and you get more stories. Well, that might happen. No, no, screw it, I'm going for it.

Against his better judgment, he leaves the exit behind and starts looking around again where the totem could be. Not many agree with the choice, but he still needs our support. Hard to imagine being completely alone at this point. With the choice made, a chat gives suggestions about how to find a way underground in a building without a basement? Is there a hidden staircase somewhere? Maybe even an elevator.

It's actually me who reminds him about the camera sabotage room before, and that he must have been on to something. Being a moderator, my message is more noticeable, and he responds a few seconds after my comments. The blind spot, yeah, the back of the gardening shelf, it's worth a second look. Now that they're all empty, assuming I can pick it out in this mess,

with everything blending together, it should be right. The search yields results when a thin sliver of light at ground level and facing the back of the building shows up on the feed. It gets closer and we see the warp metal shelving blocking it, cleared of all stock like the others. Not only that, the large storage fixture

has somehow been moved as if he could swing outward on a hinge. Well, because it can. What the hell, he mutters, then grabs the support bar and moves the whole big thing along its axis as it audibly scrapes against the floor. It's like a hidden bookcase door, and the pillar behind it. I see the line of light down there, but... Come on, there's no way.

His beam shines across one of the building's vital columns, and he finds an unexpected metal latch embedded into its coat of black matter. His hand reaches out and, with effort, prides it open. A large curving door that must have been, well hidden for years, he's gradually pulled out from the load-bearing support. Behind it is a small room that takes up a fraction of the total size of the column. It's a tight squeeze. The camera pans up and down, revealing nothing but an inactive light bulb and a ladder

descending into a dimly lit hole. Even in his bewildered state, he has a good conscience to not point his light down there and announce himself and actually turns it off entirely for a moment. Oh, wow, he whispers even more quietly than before. but directly into the microphone so we can hear it. This is insane. This couldn't have been added later. This, whatever it is, was built with the warehouse.

Doesn't look like any of the black stuff got inside. But if there's a light on down there... Shit. Barely taking any time to think it over, he holds his breath, gets on the ladder and starts a tricky descent, given that he's still holding a gimbal and phone that must be wearing on his hands by now. It doesn't go down too far, but the signal's probably about to get worse. Man, what am I doing with my life? He lands on solid ground and turns toward a very strange room.

It's more of a concrete corridor, maybe 60 feet long, but only 10 feet or so high and not much bigger wide. The low ceiling makes what's inside feel even more out of place, because the narrow room is designed like a classic old movie theater, the kind with crappy seats that existed before stadium seating. The chairs even look ripped out of the 1970s or 80s, and while only two fit on either side of the aisle, the rows fill up the space all the way to the front of the room where a dirty and damaged silver screen hangs.

All the selling lacks is a projector and speakers. Each new thing more and more bizarre, our friend remarks and looks at the ceiling. There's string lights on the walls, maybe the disused circuit can power them. Only source of light I can see right now are a few lamps on the floor between the, what, theatre seats?

Are those oil lamps? It goes to the third row from the back for a closer look, which includes a touch test. The chairs, no cup holders in sight, are in various stages of disrepair, some leaking foam. There's no black matter to be found in the room, and none of the stuff breaks off

from the plain brown and tan help holster. I think they're real. Maybe these are from the malls. It reacts to the sound of approaching voices from ahead, by ducking behind a seat and poking the camera lens out into the aisle. Well, the voices are combative, but muffled, and it isn't clear where they're coming from. We get answers when two figures emerge from the movie screen itself.

It's hard to see in the low light, but carefully watching the footage reveals a large rip down the middle of the screen that acts like a hidden entrance. I'll mention that the stream is of an even lower quality than before and is lagging and frame-dropping badly, but the audio still comes in clearly. That's Greg, our friend whispers into the microphone. That tall guy he's arguing with. Can't see his face. Is he wearing a mask?

The stranger raises his voice and we can begin to hear the conversation. And why is this hideous fake theatre still up? I told you to tear it down. I want this room to be empty. It's too important for a little trip down memory lane. Seats alone make it smell like a garbage dump down here. You still don't understand, Greg fires back in his scratchy voice. You never have.

The gift requires love and devotion. You can't make a shrine of emotionless cold concrete. You have to want to be here. Yearn to come back. The cinema was my favorite place at Sleepy Pines. Gave me an escape. What good was your mastery over this land done for us? Have you looked at the damage above?

Rejuvenation is about finesse and humility. Whatever you did with the totem tonight instead caused so much disorder that this side will likely be a total loss. It'll need to be demolished and we'll have to sell the land again. I hated this place, but it takes years to build something I can use. I have to know what you did so it doesn't happen again. That's the owner. Our interloper whispers sharply.

The toll of the old men prattles on. You know I can't do this without you, but your artistic talent is waned like your judgment. You made a powerful sacrifice for the totem, but blood and swear are only part of the equation. Where's the craftsmanship you had long ago? It's just you and me now. The others even Pierce are all gone.

I'm glad it's you still here, but what were you thinking bringing this so close to the composer? The masked man is seen kneeling into one of the rows closer to the front, and picking up a large object that's unmistakably another clay totem, which looks different than the rest. God's sake, I can feel it trembling even at this distance. You've got it within ten feet of the slab.

You've seen what that does. You can get an arc flash. You stuck a fork in the outlet and your second-rate conduit malfunctioned spectacularly. Composer, slab! What the hell are they talking about? I wasn't getting results. Greg argues. I didn't know what else to do, so I try to jumpstart the composer. I don't think it's dormant like you theorized. No, it's just not motivated. I kept telling you, but you wanted to sell the land and get you fuel in any form, so you settled for a corporate warehouse.

Where is the love, the desire for success, the connections of the land? It's disposable. No one would care if it disappeared. Where's the sincerity in this ugly building? Maybe you're right, old friend. But everything's factory assembled now. Solless walls, hardless construction. We should have tried harder to hold onto the mall, I admit, but I'm not ready to give up. Hey, hold this, would you? The masked man hands the totem to Greg, and without warning, swiftly pulls out a pistol and points it right at the camera.

We at home are as stunned as the videographer. I know you there, security guard. Come on, get up and come over. If I cared about you hearing any of that, I would have stopped talking a while ago. He grows impatient and adds in an agitated tone. Come here, where I'll kill your entire family.

Not entirely surprisingly, our friend doesn't budge despite the threat. After a few moments, we can see Greg tell something to his partner. I see. You don't have anyone. Fine. I can always just shoot you instead. What are you waiting for?

Gonna make a run for the ladder? I just want to talk. Can't let you run off into the night. Drop the crowbar and come over here. The camera is picked up off the floor and its owner slowly steps toward the two. Out of shyness or fear, he keeps it aimed mostly downward, so we're denied a good look at anyone's face. Come on, good, closer.

What is that? The taller man asks. Some sort of stabilizer. Hmm, so you're filming? Of course you are. Well, hand it over. There's no point, our friend meekly replies. Our zo, I might be the savviest, but I know how to delete a video.

None of this is your fault, but you stumble into a whole world of things that others aren't meant to understand. Better you leave no records behind. I've been streaming all night. my battery's almost dead. Thousands have been watching all this time. Look, do you not know that people have dug up everything about this place? The secret's been out for a while. You two, you were doing the rituals for them all back in the 80s, right?

Look, I don't know what you're trying to do, but, Jesus, Greg. What happened to your hand? Our friend finds some spine and aims the camera at his co-worker. His left arm ends in a stub, and the object in his remaining one reveals, why. He showed his piety by cutting it off, entoming it in clay

and sticking the appendage on top of his new, this blood-soaked and double helix-shaped art piece. It's Greg! That's how the old man replies, as the phone camera begins to accumulate bright dead pixels from the enigmatic totem. The masked man sighs and grumbles.

You've been broadcasting. I showed the world the secret of this land. Why am I not surprised? You, young people, and your need to put your lives on display. Fine, fine. You know what? It doesn't matter. Only a few people know how to truly use the land's gift. I don't want to remake some gaudy shopping centre from the golden age of excess. I only wish to show the world something truly beautiful before I leave it.

That can be created with human hands. Monument to childlike wonder. a complex masterpiece of architecture. Anything to fight against the bureaucratic and the mundane. But now I may not even have the chance for that. You said thousands are watching. Then let's go ahead and show them something to goddamn believe in. Now move.

During the monologue, the man had shuffled behind our friend and must now have the gun to his back. He's forth through the movie screen, down the other half of the hall, and enters into a large hexagonal-shaped room. lit in warm hues by more oil lamps. The chamber has a single other element, dead centre. Holy shit, it's the mural.

It was never taken down, never left the grounds. The last remnant of sleepy pines, once seen by hundreds of shoppers a day, is right there, painted on tile and buried under a warehouse. Its detailed dark pines, with their intricate brushstrokes, and the lower effort settlers and natives in the foreground are streamed right to our homes. Stay at the entrance, Greg, the masked man orders. Don't bring that thing any closer a second time. I'll figure out what to do with it in a moment. And you keep going. Don't be scared.

You and your fans want to see the real deal, don't you? The totems are nothing in comparison. They're just conduits, a tool and means to translate our ideas into a language that it can understand. The mural? That's this... pose a thing? No, no, that just keeps what's behind it hidden. By the way, do you like it? He's the painter. Good eye for expressionism, but not so much the human form or historical accuracy. Not that it matters now. I need to take a look under the hood anyway. It's been too long

since I've seen what's underneath. I know I've piqued your curiosity. You don't want to disappoint your viewers. I'll just put this away a moment. He walks into frame and we see him from behind as he holsters his weapon and picks up a sledgehammer that have been resting against the mural. He then calls out. To be brutally honest, my old friend, I've wanted to do this since the day we revealed this artwork to the public. I put my heart into that piece, Greg replies submissively. The man in the mask is unmoved, takes the hammer to the mural. It smashes into the painted tile, breaking off big chunks with each swing.

our friend really does have a chance to run but like the rest of us he wants needs to see the big reveal of something we didn't know existed he documents the destruction of sleepy pineses in turn centerpiece unflinchingly a large section of tile crumbles off after several hits taking about a quarter of the mural with it and this is when the art critic tosses the hammer away

grabs an oil lamp and shines it on something underneath Go on, let your friends have a good look. He says mockingly. I'll never see anything else like it. But don't get too close. Nervously, our host brings the camera in. Despite the crappy bitrate, we can make out what appears to be

thousands of tiny motors, no, more like miniature rock grinders, turning in unison and pulling in air towards whatever lies deep inside the intricate mechanism. Each saw-like component is as dark as the black matter. it reflective enough to show up from the light hitting it. It's like a retro-futuristic clockwork monster, but despite being an infinitely complex engine or demolisher, or both at once, the strangest thing is, it doesn't make a sound.

What is that? We don't know for certain. You aren't sure how it runs non-stop. What's past the hungry spinning blades, or who put it here and why? When Pierce and the rest of us dug this thing up in 1970, and an accompanying old totem that my friend here carelessly misplaced. All we discovered before we started having visions of the totems

was that it's massive and immobile, going down at least 500 feet, and the teeth covering it, eat everything they touch. The man demonstrates by bringing the edge of the oil lamp into the gears that move like wriggling dark flesh, and they immediately grab onto it, pulling it in. Metal is effortlessly crumpled. The glass shatters into dust, and even the fire itself looks like it's consumed.

The lamp is gone within seconds. You can see why it's impossible to move, and we build a box around it. Only the very top of the structure must be like this, or it would have dug to the center of the earth. Every now and then it expels very fine particles of varying compositions. Maybe it's thoroughly digested material, or it breaks down matter to learn about it. The only clue about its age is from what it ejects. We had some radio carbon dating done and found the dust to be 30,000 years old. And it, what, grant's wishes?

If they're possible in a purely physical form, in a sense, if you render it down to the simplest terms, and the totems are the keys to the engine. You use something this alien to make and maintain a shun. shopping mall? Just as the natives used it to prosper off the land's bounty, like the farmers after them. We ran the place with minimal staff and upkeep and made families happy while we made our fortunes. It was fun, for a while.

Then things started spiraling, just like they did with the steelworkers before us. The two of us ran and disappeared into the night, but the others, they couldn't resist coming back to try and revive their faded hut. I assume they lost their minds and succumbed to the corrupting power here, but we were smarter. We waited for memories to grow distant, for the land to be free of attachment and primed for creation and reshaping once more. Why are you telling me all of us, everything? Neither of us has much time left.

This may be our last chance to leave a lasting mark on a world that is changing too fast. We once thought people would hold on to a world. design more for the rest of our lives, but even the composer itself couldn't save it. Now we're in an era of mass-produced buildings that go up, come down, and no one gives it down about. I only want to put one final unexplainable thing into this world. I will try. But like I said, if I can't succeed, and at least the world would have seen this. You're going too far again, Greg cries out. Just let him go. We can figure it out without any violence. The reason for the sudden desperate shouting isn't clear, until our friend turns around and sees that the masked man is back to pointing the gun at him.

Now our favourite night security guard has his back just inches away from an anomalous monstrosity that could break him down into tiny particles. I don't want to shoot you. If I did, I wouldn't have kept you around so long, or anyone else that did your job. I'm sorry that you got involved, but I need you to do something for me. That's just like you after all these years. Greg can be heard stammering from the back. Always a cold calculating businessman. Only pretending to feel anything. Do it the easy way.

Get others, the true believers in miracles to put the heart in. And when it isn't enough, show your devotion by hurting people. Shut up, would you? We kept our friend around in case we needed a sacrifice. And this is the moment. You're a true cynic, you know that? You never want something enough to put your whole self into it. Well, instead of acting insulted, the man, whose mask we still haven't seen in good light or in full,

merely shrugs his shoulders. I won't deny it. Now, friend, I need you to want to step into the composer. I have a feeling most sacrifices in the past were done willingly and are far more impactful. Well, I'll force you if I must, but I'd rather you offer yourself. You can help bring some elegance back into the same. world. Come on now. Is your life really so great? Prove your worth. The person we believe in fiercely declines with, no fucking way. Ah, shame. If only you had nostalgia for a sleepy pines in

his pride. The camera pans downward, showing only the concrete floor now. We lose our visual on what's happening at the worst possible moment, and our audio isn't much better as things suddenly devolve into shouts and panic screams, mixed in with a few final justifications for performing just one more ritual. Many of us have been trying to get through to emergency services for hours, but the flooding, their repeated visits to the warehouse, and the power outages have hindered the effort, and now we feel helpless amid the chaos. Several gunshots ring out. There are sounds of pain and more screaming, and the camera and its gimbal dropped to the ground with a thud. All we see is one of the oil lamps. There's nothing helpful in the frame. For the next few seconds we hear only the ongoing

struggle and shuffling feet. A bright flash then fills the room and momentarily blinds the camera. When the light fades, the sensor has degraded to the point where the image is badly scrambled and pixelated, but we can still see a mask drop into frame. It's shaped like a rat's head and it blocks the view further. The video appears to freeze, though there's further audio that sounds like a conversation. A little over a minute after the rat man's mask fell on the floor, the stream goes off-life. Some people claim to have waited and refreshed for six hours or more. It doesn't come back.

As dawn broke, the viewers closest to the area descend on the narrow valley where sleepy pines once stood. Others join them as the morning wears on. It's a clear blue day with a pleasant temperature. They're eager and ready to spend all of daylight searching the area for answers, and our friends. There's just one problem. There's no way into the valley. The section of interstate that passes through it is closed and the two smaller roads that go into the area are partially washed away by floodwaters. As traffic in the region backs up and is diverted, someone in our community

gets a drone into the air so they can survey ground zero. The aerial footage is also live street. What we see is it flies over a forested hill is astonishing. Where a large building once stood, there's now a massive sinkhole that has taken everything except for a small corner of the parking lot. Nearby, the highway overpass and on-ramps have collapsed due to the rupturing of the land surrounding the void,

which is deep enough that the tangled warehouse ruins just barely reach the surface. Fire trucks and construction vehicles are on the scene, with crews who probably don't know where to begin. Hope diminishes, and we resign ourselves to the loss of our group's favorite new member. The stream is re-watched and every moment analyzed,

but the motivation to post and chat like we used to is dampened. There's nothing left but more questions, and what seems to be another tragic ending in Sleepy Pines' legacy. And then a new video is suddenly uploaded two days later. The quality is different. Worse than the phone camera's highs, but much better than its lows, because the footage isn't from a stream. It was saved in the memory card inside the wireless camera our friend had freed from the black matter,

and must have stuffed in his security vexed. vest's pocket. The recording is shaky and only ever faces whatever direction he does, putting it in the style of found footage. We don't know how it was recovered, as the uploader, another of our regulars, posted it without commentary. Nothing new is revealed by the second camera until the streamer phone drops to the ground. Picking up from there, we watch amid that panic shouting as the man in the rat mask appears

ready to shoot, but instead turns around and fires several shots into Greg, who had been sneaking up on him from behind for the last few seconds. The injured old man keeps going undeterred, and he and the rat man are soon pushing at each other. A struggle in shoes and words of hate are exchanged, revealing the bubbling toxicity between the two. It's not all clear, but Greg throws out words like, fool, and never trusted you,

while the rat man calls him a traitor and even a postate. Our friend takes the opportunity to get away from the composer, yet he doesn't run. He turns back to the men as more shots go wild. The fight doesn't last much longer, and the slightly spry a rat man overpowers Greg, knocking him to the floor. He mumbles some glib remark we can't pick up

and takes aim to finish off the old artist. When our host, who has had a transformative experience over the last few hours, tackles him directly into the shattered mural. We have our flash of light the instant he makes contact with the inescapable. teeth. But if you go frame by frame, you can see the former cultist, who long ago once insisted that I be sacrificed, briefly share with us an expression of shock as his mask begins

to fall, very nearly revealing his face. We think the composer reacted the way it did because a large mass or a living being produces excess energy. Maybe. Once things have settled, our friend Niels to check on his co-worker, who is gravely wounded, but perhaps seems to be at peace with his little rebellion. What he tells us confirms that this was no recent crisis of conscience. I wanted to put an end to it all, he says weakly, and rolls over so he can point to his totem. Please, I think if you feed that to it, I tried. I tried. What do you mean? What will... you think it will destroy that thing?

I couldn't get close enough, wouldn't let me. I think once you say, serve it. Powerless to fight. Maybe if an outsider... I get it. You don't have to say any more. I'll do it. He picks up and the camera points to the unassuming totem left by the sanctum's entrance. He isn't afraid. He isn't trembling and his breathing is steady. Nor is there much build-up or time spent thinking on what to do or what might happen. He barely hesitates at all in going over, grabbing the bizarre idol and taking it to what remains of sleepy pines. There is no resistance in his return walk, seemingly no contemplation on whether or not he can use this still barely understood power for his own benefit. He stops at Greg for just a

second. His trouble expression changes into a feeble smile, and we can hear him murmur. Best one I ever made. The top of the buried monolith is dead ahead, and after a final deep breath, our hero tosses the totem into its all-consuming gears. The result is an explosion of vibrant, continuous flashes of many colours. He's thrown backwards and struggles to get up. He knows he has to, and after some groans and coughs does so and gives us our last glimpse of the composer structure. It's on fire, and for some reason the flames are blue and violet.

Greg, closer to the blast, has found redemption, but is almost certainly no longer with us. Even if he were, I think we all know he'd only tell his co-worker to run. The building is coming down. Even in the hidden basement, the walls, floors and ceiling are cracking. The tremors make it hard for him to find his footing, and the camera itself is being bombarded with invisible energy. Our AI video software will later do its best to clean up the worsening dead pixels and distortions.

The results are far from perfect, but the quality is good enough to at least let us see how the story ends. After scrambling up the ladder He shows us the warehouse Before making his escape It's turned into a vision of hell The black gunk is breaking up into smoke So fast that there must be some kind of exothermic reaction

It too has caught fire Of the regular colour The entire building is a crumbling inferno And the muricked ritualists and other people Have devolved into burning, crawling Still menacing blob-like creatures They come towards the camera reaching out, either trying to grab him or escape themselves.

He remembers that he no longer has an audience, and from here on out moves at a full survival speed. With the structure moaning and heavy metal crashing down all around him, he crawls under the opening made by the forklift and makes it outside, now bathed in pre-dawn light. Right outside the shutter doors is a sloppily parked black luxury XUV, whose owner won't be coming back for it. the ground buckling underneath him he runs over to his smaller white hatchback

gets in and starts it and peels out of the otherwise empty employee parking area the asphalt is coming apart and knocking down the lot streetlights and at this point it becomes noticeable that the land is sinking what's ever going on hundreds of feet below the surface everything in the area is about to collapse into the abyss the ride is rough and bumpy but he makes it to the side road that will lead him to safety

If only there weren't floodwaters surrounding the building that threatened to swamp his low-riding car. He stops and considers if he can make it through. Luckily, because the ground is breaking into deep fishes, we watch the waters drain before our eyes in a matter of seconds. He slams on the pedal. On his right, a segment of the building siding bends inward and the roof partially collapses, but he makes it off of the premises as we root for him for the future. It really feels as if he's going to make it, and he's all really. ready in the clear. He heads toward the highway, only to capture video of the overpass falling apart,

blocking the easiest escape route. With nowhere else to go, he goes into reverse and doesn't even get a chance to turn around, giving us a view across his dash at total destruction. The distribution centre drops below the surface as the surrounding field pulls further downward like an ant-lion pit. At what must be the edge of the forested foothills about half a mile away from where the road used to be, he feels safe enough to come to a stop and just watch. The land swells up as if from an underground explosion before undergoing a final collapse. This is followed by many rising plumes of thick black smoke that dissipate into the dawn sky, which circle the new hole in the ground and look a little like Venus flytraps in

snaring tendrils. Just when we think it's over, the fireworks end with the bolt of lightning despite the clear weather. When reviewing the footage frame by frame, the powerful discharge can be seen rising from the centre of the sinkhole. The camera then shuts off amid its owner's heavy breathing, either from its battery dying right on cue or by getting fried by the energetic outburst. A last view of the area is an expanding cloud of dust, debris and smoke. But what happened to the star of that night? Was his camera found by one of us? And did the footage show his final moments. I happened to be among a few dozen antsy members who watched the video as soon as it was

uploaded, unaware that text was being tapped out all the while. All we had to do was refresh the thread. Hey guys, it's me. I made it out, even though I was trapped in that valley with nothing to eat for about 10 hours before a cruise all-terrain truck was able to bring me back to town. My poor car is still stuck in the valley, and I probably can't get it out until the bridge is repaired. To the local commuters. sorry about the highway. Might be out of commission for a while. I can't believe the whole place came down like that.

Also fell into a sinkhole, huge. I would have gotten back to you all sooner, but my phone's buried under tons of ruins. I even lost my apartment key because I leave my main key at my desk. I know, stupid. I haven't been able to get back in just yet or use my laptop, so I've been staying at a motel.

Lucky for me, one of our members tracked me down and let me use his phone and account to upload the video and post this. Meeting one of you guys in person wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Well, my life's a mess and corporate is going to ask me a lot of questions about what happened, but I'm resilient. It's only been a short while, but I can't say I feel any strange effects from that night, other than a little PTSD, no doubt.

No urges to create a totem or chop off my hand. I think there'll be still more mysteries about this area to look into. But it's really possible that whatever was here for things, thousands of years is finally gone, unless it has the power to return someday. Or there's, you know, somehow more of them out there. I may never look at a fancy, very clean building the same way again. I guess things will move on like always, even after the destruction of a cosmic horror or forgotten alien machine.

But I admit I'm curious about what might, in time, show up in that valley next. So I'll check in with my awesome viewers occasionally to see how the story continues. Oh and Greg, I was wrong about you. Thanks for what you did at the end. If you see Mike and Jenna wherever you are, tell them, I don't know, that we made a good team. Okay, I really need some sleep. Later all, the idea that all of this had, or still is happening elsewhere in the world, hadn't really been brought up before.

Sleepy Pine Saga seems like it would have been something truly unique. Who can say for sure? There's so much to still wrap her heads around. Like the fact that we're all there, live, and saw the conclusion of a miracle that lasted tens of millennia. Personally, I think at least one place where the earth breathed has exhaled for the last time. As I wrote this story, I realised that, for the first time in years,

I felt disconnected from sleepy pines, like its long-distance grip on me had vanished. Now all that's left are some good memories of family visits, bright colourful clothes, fountain coins, Santa, skylights, indoor trees, a little bit of faint muzac, vibrant neon and the pleasant kind of getting lost in a space feeling. If you were a kid of that area, you get it. And even if you're of a younger generation, you might still feel nostalgia for an age of optimism you missed. People made that time and place special on their own.

You still can and do. No costly wishes necessary. And so once again, we reach the end of tonight's podcast. My thanks as always to the authors of those wonderful stories and to you for taking the time to listen. Now, I'd ask one small favor of you. Wherever you get your podcast wrong, please write a few nice words and leave a five-star review

as it really helps the podcast. That's it for this week, but I'll be back again, same time, same place, and I do so hope you'll join me once more. Until next time, sweet dreams and bye bye.