The Dark Somnium - I Work Overnight Security at a Mall, and I’m Not Alone | Scary Stories from The Internet

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

Hey everyone! I hope you had a good weekend! Here is a new story for you by Brandom Caldwell, Let me know what you think!  00:00 - I Work Overnight Security at a Mall, and I’m Not Alone  10:00 - The First Night Shift  25:00 - Something Isn't Right  40:00 - The Shadow in the Corridor  55:00 - Confronting the Unknown  ►Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darksomnium Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, like the title says, I work overnight security at a mall. I won't say exactly where, but it's a large one in the Midwest. Something I can't explain happened to me while I was working one night. Before I can dive into that, though, I have to throw a few things on the table so I can illustrate a bigger picture for you. I've never lived alone before, moved from my parents to a single bedroom with my high school girlfriend at 20. I'm 26 now, and I've been on my own for a year now.

I've gained a taste for solitude and some other tokens of adult life, like nesting, for instance. The geometry and symmetry of my living room, how many inches sit between the orange area rug and each wall, the diagonal angle of my olive green sofa, my glass coffee table shaped more like an artist palette than a surface to place the TV remote on. I love the mid-century aesthetic, that 1960s American dream gripped by fear of imminent nuclear Holocaust vibe. Which is why last week, while patrolling the second floor, I walked past this home goods store.

I passed this store a few times a night. 12 a.m., and then 2 a.m. and again at 4 a.m. Anyway, I saw this pair of table lamps, yellow, glass, even the shade, all sunshine and bubbly optimism. I have a nice floor lamp, the kind that hangs over the couch like a bug's antenna, but a room Some should have at least three light sources. The right ones can make everything else look different, change the entire character of the room. For the fifteen seconds I stood at that display window, I imagined how they'd look ascending the

caramel stain of my acacia wood side tables, decided they'd look good, and then resumed patrol. They drifted near the edge of my mind for the rest of the night, flickering on and off in the dark. I almost considered picking them up after the shift when the mall opens. And I recall the number printed on the price tag tucked under the base of one, deferred price. The lamps don't have anything to do with what happened. Well, at least not in the way you're probably imagining. When I recall how things worked out, I always circle back to the lamps. The first chartable, observable thing I did that wasn't part of my job description.

My job runs on a loop, Sunday nights or early nights. You'll hear the metal clatter of the gates around 655, and I have to spend the next 20 minutes asking people to leave the food court too loudly and waving the air behind old people who only come to the mall to walk circles in the AC and call it exercise. From there, it's walking routes, locking doors, checking gates, switching off lights. Usually I end up walking one or more of the girls from the makeup and body stores to their car after having to stay late for inventory or a new floor set. I always like doing that.

For lunch, I always stopped by the food court before closing, so I can pick up hot wings in a drink that I'll keep on ice in the security room fridge until break. I always get hot wings because they also have wet napkins, and I can ask whoever is working to throw a few handfuls in the bag for me. You see, I have a problem with germs, bad enough that it became work for everyone around me, like my ex. I won't go into specifics, but I'm better now, and the parts that stuck around, counting, clocking, cataloging turned out pretty helpful for this job.

I was on the second floor in the security room, wiping the orange ring of heat from around my lips after finishing lunch. I crammed several packets into my left pocket after I finish wiping my hands and step out of the office. The first stop on my route is the north exit of the parking garage. I whistle along to everybody wants to rule the world as it plays over the speakers. I love this song. Actually, I'd argue it's one of the greatest songs ever, tooth and nail.

I aim my flashlight through the window after giving each door a solid rattle, until 214 sits to the right when I turn around. It's been empty for a few months now. What used to be one of those fast fashion brands that sewed together tissue paper and call it a t-shirt was now nothing but a concrete box with exposed ventilation. I pushed through the employee exit between the shoe and jewelry store and take the stairs back down to head to the south entrance and restart my loop. The mall has four main entrances, two stories, two escalators, and more than 260 stores and restaurants.

So you can imagine I spend a lot of time counting, checking off lists, making sure everything is still the same as it was two hours ago. When I reach the bottom of the escalator, I tear open a wet napkin, fold and press it onto the handrail. I watch it turn dark and sheen like a black marker as the grimy buildup from thousands of hands wipes clean. I step onto the metal, just as my mark of purity comes back around. It takes thirty-four seconds to complete the circuit. During that time, forty-three steps disappear into the metal comb.

Forty-three yesterday, forty-three the day before. I never liked those things, the metal teeth. When I was six, one lace from a new pair of Air Jordans, my dad had bought me accidentally got swallowed while stepping off an escalator. The only thing I remember was the sound of the invisible machinery underneath, working with a purpose, I didn't understand. It didn't feel hostile while heating my shoe, just cold and indifferent, like a paper shredder. I step off when I reach the top and toss the napkin.

I dig through my pocket, tear open another, and wipe down my hands, which I also throw into the garbage. I make my rounds, rattle gates, sweep my light over the window displays, make a mental checklist of what every mannequin wears, glance at the titles and authors printed on the spines packed into the cases behind the glass, but I never linger long enough. Eventually, I stop at the Home Good Store, and like before, I stare far too long at that pair of yellow table lamps. My mind searches for methods to acquire them, the same way an attic schemes for drugs. A sigh passes through me as I let the urge die.

After payday, I breathe. I always say that. I make my way back to the north entrance. My life The light sweeps over the empty parking garage through the windows. I rattle the gate and spin, but instead of taking the employee stairs, I walk along the storefronts back to the escalators. I adjust my route once I lock all the doors and gates for the night. From there, it's not about locking everything up quickly, but making sure everything is still where it belongs. Most nights, I complete about five or six laps, maybe more if I'm bored. Tonight I end up doing more than ever. I can't tell you what compelled me on this particular shift that differed from any other.

I execute the same ritual on the escalator going down. The two cross one another in an X shape. One goes up and the other down. I commit to this same loop ten times. Maybe I was bored. Maybe I wanted time to go by faster and was too restless to stare at the wall of monitors with my feet up all night. It was Ride 10 that did it.

I step on right as my marker returns. I'm looking down at the comb. watching the stairs fold out of its teeth, counting each under my breath. 41, 42, 43, 44. I stopped counting. The escalator doesn't. Recount. 44 again.

My brain stumbles. My heels almost hit the top comb, and I feel it nipping at my ankles. I step over, stared down at the teeth. The machinery underneath glows. It's too bright. Brighter than I remember. All at once I get this feeling like I'm standing under a net of eyes. I shake my head, shake the feeling, and turn.

A cold weight plunges through me. Dead elevator. My light slowly dithers over the storefronts, from one window to the next, my hand shaking. The beam shivering. Every single mannequin has reoriented itself and is now staring directly at me. No, not at me, but more like the spot they knew I would arrive at. I break into a cold sweat, my hands fumble. There's a loud crack as my flashlight hits the metal stairs and rolls back.

The sound of metal on metal splitting the air over and over, violating the quiet, reverberating off every angle in the dark. My heart claws its way up into my throat, and I clamber after it in a panic as it tumbles against the stairs current. It loses momentum halfway down, but so do I. The stairs carry me back to the top as my flashlight rolls in place. Every time it falls off one step and onto the one below, the beam switches off, but once the flashlight gains a couple feet of elevation, the beam switches back on, almost like flickering

between two realities. I swallow. Craggy fear crumbles into my stomach. Rock slide. At first, I walk down the stairs, but they carry me upwards faster than I can descend. After several attempts and near topples, I wrap my fingers around the cold metal and the beam vanishes. For a split second, and I know this part sounds crazy, the mall disappears.

It feels like whatever was watching me shows that exact moment to blink. The beam returns. Visual contact restored, and I ride to the top and step off. I turn, slowly, my breathing finally catches up with me. I pace a few steps back and forth. The mannequin's faces don't follow me. They stay locked onto the top platform of the escalator, waiting, reserved seating, for me or someone else.

The idea alone makes the hair on the back of my neck bristle. Because I'm seeing anomalies, and because it's my job, I continue patrolling my route. The beam of my light dithering here and there, my brain suddenly gaslighting itself at every storefront. Was that like that before? The only things out of place are the mannequins around the escalator, I think, at least from what I can see, corrupted memory. I want to believe someone is messing with me, but I can't put together a story where it

makes sense. To move all of them during the time I was on the first floor, you would need access to the mall after hours, the keys to every store facing the escalator, enough time to reposition each individually and a deep resentment for me that goes beyond something personal. I sweep the beam over the parking lot, nothing but gray concrete painted with yellow boxes and exposed pipe along the ceiling. I grab the gate and shake it. I look once more across the row of six white Nissan rogues, the word security plastered

and vinyl across the doors. I turn to my left and start following the wall, but stop just short of Unit 214. A faint light glows from within. A long grid of shadow stretches out from the base of the gate. My body searches for a reason to ignore my mind with every cautious step I take. Administrative override. I grab my belt and steady my left hand while the beam in my right still jitters along the floor.

The air in my lungs is getting heavier. I paused for barely a second to exhale before glancing around the corner into Unit 214. It's not a monster or a room packed with mannequins all watching me. No, that would have been better in some ways, because I can't place why what I see is so much worse. For a second, relief blooms in my chest, but then I take in the wrongness of it all, and the calm inside me wiltz. Above is a mess of exposed pipes put together by something without eyes.

The walls lean over the room. The floor is wider than the roof. Sitting on the floor in the very center of the room, only doing it wrong, the lamp, both of them. Together. No, not together, not both of them. One of them, duplicated, glowing. My eyes traced for any evidence of a cord at all and come up empty.

Despite this, their glowing persists, painting the concrete and overlapping. dropping yellow rings like a figure eight. Unsupported function. My heart kicks against my ribs. Whatever structural piece my knees require for standing gives out. I stumble back. The key ring on my belt chimes. I run.

Back to the escalators. Feet echoing against tile, pulse thudding in my neck. I circle around the landing to run for the security room. I need to breathe. I need to think. To count something persistent. To feel something real and solid in my hands, a reference point. My mind won't stop spinning, won't stop tumbling, but then it lands on a thought like an open

rollerdecks. I don't know why I did it, but it just made sense. My body remembering something I don't fully grasp yet. The flashlight. I gallop down the ascending escalator, then up the descending one, each time counting the steps, feeling lighter every time I complete the circuit. Pressure release. Finally, I'm sweating at the bottom of the escalator, breathing through a mouthful of cotton

and pennies. The 6 a.m. lights bang on and begin their hum. I look around, eyes wide and wild. I spend the rest of the shift sitting in the office, staring at the wall of monitors until changeover, checking the cameras around the escalator, rewinding footage, searching for answers, diagnostic mode. The tapes are clean. Just another regular Sunday night.

me walking in circles, jaw flapping as I count under my breath, but I never stop at Unit 214 for more than a second. Every loop is the same. I check doors, rattle gates, sweep my light over clothing racks and shoe walls. I leave work exhausted and confused, go to bed with questions in my mind that Google can't answer. I try various phrases, keywords, escalators, looping, scary mall experience. I learn nothing valuable. I don't know if it's because I'm searching for the wrong thing or the tools to calculate something like that don't exist. So I start with what is concrete.

I recount all my actions after lunch, eliminate variables. Pretty soon a pattern emerges, one so subtle that I almost miss it, but it's there, real, predictable, and scariest of all, reproducible, a system that behaved the same way every time, like a game. I spend the entire Monday, my only day off this week because I have to cover someone else's shift on Tuesday, writing notes. 1. Mark a section of the black handrail.

It doesn't matter with what, just as long as it survives the machinery. A strip of white tape will work perfectly. 2. Ride the ascending escalator while counting every step. 3. Walk the upper balcony and ride back down while counting again after marking the section of the rail where you step on. Always step onto the escalator when your mark appears.

4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until the marker disappears. 5. If the mannequins are all facing the top of the escalator on the 10th circuit, then the loop has begun. 6. Every completed loop adds one step to the escalators. Observation and acknowledgement of this helps sustain the loop. 7.

Do not allow any part of your body to touch the comb. I don't know why yet. 8. The mall will begin changing after the first additional step. 9. Very important. Always count. If you stop counting, don't panic, just start over.

10. Make sure you pick a song you like, because you're going to be stuck with it. I go into work Tuesday night, my head buzzing. The fear I felt on Sunday is gone now, replaced by a feverish hunger for answers. I shoot a nervous glance from the notebook sitting atop my bag in the passenger seat. the dangling zipper that swings with every motion of the road. A roll of white duct tape, white chalk marker, laser pointer, measuring tape, research tools. The smell of cheap coffee and Chinese takeout slams into me when I open the office door.

My boss spins in his chair to face me. Clocks the bag I'm shoving into my locker like I'm hiding evidence. The hell you got there? He asks, brows pinching together. Just some clothes. I lie. Going to the gym when I get off. His eyes start at my feet and travel up my frame to my shoulders.

Yeah, that's probably a good thing. You look like you'd break in half from the AC kicking on. I'm gonna start pre-shift. I say, shaking my head. Whatever. Just be back by seven. I'm sick of waiting for you so I can leave. I check out a radio and flashlight from the utility room,

head to the food court to pick up my usual hot wings and coke. My boss is already gone when I get back to the security office. I store my lunch in the fridge and clock in. The time clock chimes when I swipe my badge under the red laser. I chase customers out of the mall with far less patience than Sunday night. An overweight guy yells at me when I tell him to keep moving every time he pauses his waddling gate to lean against a wall and breathe hard. The lights finally go off.

The mall's soundtrack echoes off empty walls. Fountains continue babbling in the dark. My flashlight glances off padlocked gates as I walk. The ritual ensues, rattling doors and gates to make sure everything's at home where it should be. My eyes snag for a moment on the yellow lamps in the home goods window as I make my way to the North Park and garage exit. I finish locking down everything, check the remaining boxes off in my head when a familiar

ice spreads through my body, like cold ink. I'm aware of Unit 214 to my right, but I don't want to look. I breathe, a heavy sigh slips out of me, and I turn to face the empty store. Normal, just concrete, exposed pipes neatly exploring the ceiling. I feel a twinge of disappointment, which actually scares me more than if the lamps were there again. I take the employee exit stairs to the first floor and circle back to the bottom of the escalator, execute my wet napkin cleaning ritual, then I fish the roll of tape out of my bag,

neatly tearing off a two-inch strip. I breathe, remind myself I can do this, and slap the white tape on the rail when the smudge comes back. It seals like a glove. My eyes watch, my lips count. Thirty seconds later, the tape comes back. Perfect. I hitch a ride, counting the steps that disappear into the comb.

When I reach the top, I trash the napkin before I circle around the balcony, rinse and repeat, slapping the white duct tape square on the grimy smudge once again. My heart misfires on Loop 10. My grip tightens on the flashlight. At step 23, I hear the music skip for a second. Cold dread beads on my forehead. That was it. The blink.

At 43, I turn around and step over the comb. Somehow my legs already know not to go near it. My stomach tightens. Wet noose. Once again, every mannequin surrounding the escalators is still. staring at the space where they remembered I'd be. That hunger returns, almost giddy and childlike. My legs move before my mind does.

Then I remember. I fish a wet napkin from my left pocket, tear it open, and scrub my hands. I always fold them before I throw them away. I don't know when it started, just one day I was already doing it. I twist to throw it into the garbage and stop. There's already the used remains of a different one sticking out. I pushed the lid open with the one in my hand. Several soiled wet napkins fall to the floor.

Someone didn't take out the garbage. I make a mental note. I walk toward the North Parking garage entrance, slow and cautious. My beam searching, skimming, collecting. I spot the yellow glow off to my left behind a kiosk selling blind box toys. For the first time ever, I don't check the garage doors first. Instead, I turn in face Unit 214. I swallow hard.

The wrong scene has returned. Same error message. Walls leaning inward. World's worst HVAC setup. The glass lamp, sitting on the floor the wrong way, casting overlapping halos of yellow. Four now. They're multiplying. I un-shoulder my bag, dig through for the laser pointer.

My fingers close around the tiny piece of metal. I pull the bag back onto my shoulders and grab hold of the gate with my left hand. I don't know why, in case my legs decide to give up again, probably. I pressed the button. The beam slices through the air and lands on the wall behind the lamps. I slowly lower the red dot until it glances off the glass shade. Something moves on the lamp beside it. At first I thought it was a reflection, but then I moved the laser and it moved too.

Identical, mirrored. Like the room just copied the result without understanding the reason. My stomach folds inward. Collapse display. I go back to the escalators, circle around the balcony to the descending stairs. I watch the glowing comb at the bottom swallow each step. I kneel, pull the measuring tape from my bag, begin feeding it down until it hooks one step. The number climbs between my fingers.

10 feet, 20, 30. Suddenly, the tape is alive, the steel warbling. The numbers flying through my fingers faster, climbing higher, 50 feet, 60, 70, and icy prickle crawls down my back. 100, 110, 120. The tape runs out, the roll yanks back from my hands so violently I sprawled to the floor. I watch on hands and knees. as the tape measure disappears into the bottom teeth with a wet mechanical slurp.

For one second, my lungs forget how to breathe. The six-year-old boy in me that almost got eaten by machinery shivers. I push myself up, stand on wobbly legs. I look around wildly for something else to throw down there. My mind lands on the water bottle in my pack. The plastic crinkles under my grip when I release it onto the steps. It rolls down the steps. it reaches the bottom teeth, it flattens, disappears. Next thing I know, I'm running down the steps

and jumping over the teeth. I dig through my back pocket, unfold the wrinkled receipt I got from buying lunch earlier, I hold it over the combs, the paper flutters at first, then the bottom edges elongate, stretching towards the comb teeth. I let it go, and it vanishes into the metal seam. A terrible excitement balloons in my chest. I start dropping random objects into the glowing jaws, a pen, a palm leaf, a roll of towels from the bathroom, anything I can find that isn't bolted to the ground. I take a chalkboard display from outside a coffee stand and toss it onto the steps. It stretches into taffy before something yanks it below. I throw a table and a chair from the food court at it, which curl into dead spiders before slipping under the metal. Eventually,

the novelty wears off. Something unfamiliar replaces the fun. A slow, creeping anxiety all over. my body. Hairline crack. Where's all this stuff going? The machinery beneath sounds busier now, like it's got more energy after I fed it. I look back upstairs. What happens if I do the loop again? Another ten, maybe.

I do just that. I wish I'd stopped right there, just packed up and gone home, but I didn't, because only one question rings in my head. Not why does the comb eat stuff? wire the lamps I want to buy in 214. How deep does this go? On loop 15, I hear something below me. My first thought is someone broke inside, but then I realized the sound is following my footsteps,

mimicking me. It stops when I do, walks when I do, and I swear I think I can even hear someone counting. The garbage can lids now bulge, soiled wet napkins littering the floor. The music has a strange texture now that I can't place, like the room sounds submerged, a bad cassette. I stop in front of the sporting goods store on my way back to the descending escalator. My back foot sticks to the ground. I stop, stare through the glass. Each mannequin wears the same white tea, blue shorts, and basketball shoes.

I shine my beam past them. The same basketball shoes lined the wall, like the store picked a favorite one. Loop 20. I think this is the part where most people would turn back, because this is the first time you see it. I step onto the descending escalator, lost in my head, muttering digits under my breath while I stare at the glowing comb pulling me closer. When something catches my eye. Something new. Someone knew.

43. I breathe. A voice below me answers. 44. My mouth hangs open. For a moment, I think someone is mocking me. Then I look up. My heart grips fear and runs with it.

Now because of the escalator's orientation, you only see the back of whoever is ascending the escalator, and it's a brief window. That's how I spot the familiar security uniform, the back of its head, jaw absently flapping, the small scar behind its ear where the hair doesn't grow, and then it's out of sight. My feet arch wide over the comb. There seems now glowing orange like heat elements. I reach up and touch the rays mark behind my left ear. A cold fist clamped down on my insides.

The lamps surfacing, like some targeted social media ad, the wet napkins multiplying, the loop running my rituals without me. I'm being remembered, referenced poorly. A worse realization dawns on me. If I go back up, it will be his turn to look at my back. The hair on my neck bristles. What happens if it spots me? And then an even worse or better idea pops into my head.

Camera 14. What if I only have access to the loop's footage while I'm inside the loop? I crouch on the way up, pressing myself against the wall. The urge feels ridiculous, like I'm hiding from a mirror. 30. 31. 32.33. The voice sounds like mine, only wrong, reconstructed from memory.

My heart spikes. The frantic rhythm almost throws off my count, and I stumble onto the second floor, practically diving over the comb. I make a break for the security office. Footsteps echo on the floor below me. There's a loud clattering from the first floor, like whatever rode the escalator down just barreled into a wet floor sign. I reached the door.

Fumble for my badge. Relief washes over me when I hear the chime. The door clicks shut behind me. I sink into my favorite rolling chair. A breath escapes me. I lean over the controls. Camera 14. This camera makes no sense to me. It's at a junction of the escalators where you can see both up and down, but the bottom of the descending steps and the top of the ascending steps both trail off camera because of the angle. I always thought it was useless until now. I rewind camera 14. My finger hovers above pause, play. A horizontal static hiss splits the screen.

After a few minutes, I hit play and wait. The screen glitches, skips frames, me ducking, my back pressed against the metal ascending. Then it appears. My heart skips timing. It looks like me, but assembled wrongly. The first draft. Its face and eyes, they're too tall, its elbows hang below the waist. The security shirt looks tight around the shoulders because it's supposed to fit me, not it.

I rewind again. The video glitches again, skips a frame. The double appears on the escalator from nowhere, and then it finally clicks. I rewind again, but this time farther back. My stomach drops a step too late. I see myself ascending into loop twice. 20. The double me behind me already descending. Updated notes.

1. Always count out loud. If you miscount, start over and pray nothing noticed. 2. Mark the handrail with something that will survive the machinery. Always bored here. 3. 1 step gets added per loop. Always acknowledge it. The loop needs to know you noticed.

4. Don't touch the comb. Don't feed it. Yeah, I know. did already. 5. On the 11th loop, all the mannequins around the escalator will reorient. The loop has pulled you in.

6. Stores simplify as loops compound, only selling one item. This is normal. Memory compression? 7. Objects you interact with gain significance within the loop. This effect compounds exponentially. The mall remembers everything you do, but not why.

8. hear the double before you see it. It was already there. 9. The loop's geometry will prevent you and the double from meeting. Do not interfere with this. I don't know what would happen and I don't want to. 10.

The cameras within the loop only show the loop's reality, not the outside world. 11. Stick to a routine. Acting unpredictably makes the loop chaotic. Before I get into Wednesday night, there's something I should explain. I mentioned I always buy Hot Wings. because it's an unlimited wet napkin glitch. That's completely true still, but not the entire picture.

The actual reason is a lot messier. You see, there are many cleaner things on the menu for a guy like me with a history. I get wings because they're difficult. Because for 15 minutes a day, I have to sit with buffalo sauce coating my fingers and burning my lips. The old me, the sick me, that would have ruined his entire day, probably his entire week. But now every wing is a small, delicious act of defiance, exposure therapy, pretending to be lunch. Then, like a reward, I tear open the little paper and foil square, cleanse my hands, physically, spiritually. Some people say grace before meals.

I drench my prayers in spicy buffalo sauce and call it healing. I've already decided tonight that I'm going further than yesterday. I barely slept after working this morning. The reels keep spinning in my head. Camera 14. Forward. Reverse. It. One loop ahead of me.

Predicting me? I don't like that. But I'll stop if things get too dangerous. Halfway up my ascent to loop 10, I feel the blink. Everybody wants to rule the world loses the key for a moment, then overcorrects. 44 steps just like Sunday. Just like Tuesday. Every mannequin remembers the script, staring at the top of the escalator exit.

Welcome party. The garbage is already full, wet napkins spilling from the push lid onto the floor. A single napkin on top of the bin's plastic dome, neatly folded in the beam of my flashlight. My stomach squeezes tight, cold vice. It's folded the same way I fold them before wiping the escalator's handrail. I hear something clatter near Exit 14's parking garage. I beeline straight for Unit 214, already regretting the decision. A wall of bright yellow emanates through the gates metal slats, stretching across the floor

like a web of shadows. I switch off my flashlight, stick it on my belt, curl my fingers around the metal, and stare. The glitch persists. Only worse now. Eight lamps now. Contamination. Most of them look fine. One is missing its glass shade.

Another has two bases fused together, rendered together. copper pipes running the ceiling like a window screen saver, blindly assembled. The longer I stare, the worse it gets. Each time I circle back here, it picks up right where we left off. A bad save file. At Loop 14, a sound so small I think it's imagined floats past me on the escalator. My shoulder climbs an inch, the false alarm. It almost throws off my count.

When I reach the bottom floor, I kneel, pull a white chalk marker from my bag, draw slash through the four lines I already drew. The twin dolphin fountain bables to my right, soft and persistent. I stand, glanced toward the food court. Some restaurant logos look misspelled, or actually more like misprinted. I stroll along the restaurants, staring at the menus, things that look like words and food at first glance, but fall apart under a microscope. One smell permeates the air, regardless of where I stand. Soybean oil. It almost It almost makes sense when I remember half the stores in the food court are Chinese takeout. After convincing myself I've seen all I need to, I head back for the escalators.

I got too excited, I guess, because my hip collides with one chair. Stumble. The chair drags across the floor. I'm not sure why I did this, but instead of pushing the chair back into the table with the rest, I pulled it away farther, left it like that. Maybe it's because the old me would have put it back. The old him would have wanted it neat, where it belongs. But I'm not him anymore.

A breath leaks out of me. I duck, pressing myself against the wall. I'm more mentally prepared this time when I hear it muttering past me. I peek over the handrail and spot the back of my head riding down the escalator. It doesn't make it easier to swallow. I step over the comb. Music plays over the overhead speakers, only slower, echoing a fraction of a second too late. I circle the balcony and ride back down. Each loop, marking another slash at the bottom

of the descending escalator. Each loop confirming the compounding steps. On loop 25, some of the instruments in the song drop out, like the musician stopped playing, or worse, whatever's playing the song forgot the parts. My skin prickles, missing texture. Stores now only sell one item each. Manikins are incomplete, only shoes, only t-shirts, each one rocking the worst selection possible. Inside the jewelry store, the same 1.8-carat princess-cut engagement ring copy and pasted endlessly in mere display cases. The window banner advertising diamond rings and financing for people with bad credit spelled haphazardly with some letters replaced by numbers. Counterfeit language. Something keeps pressing control, copy, copy, paste on each store.

doorfront. The mall is becoming lazy. No longer any variation or branding. The very concept of inventory losing priority with each iteration. Every store slowly converging on one answer. Loop 30. A cold fear seeps through me like a finger of death. Ice blooming wherever it touches. The mannequins have turned into human parodies, approximations of human anatomy. Four legs attached at the waist, headless. One too many. Torsos stacked together, limbs clipping through the walls and display glass like a failed render. My beam trembles over them, waiting for the rest of them to buffer. Loop 35.

Everything keeps getting worse at being what it's supposed to be. Wet napkins I don't remember using cover the floor. They're no longer just wrinkled and soiled. Sometimes they're folded, pristine. I find them stuffed into planters, packed into garbage cans, wedged beneath kiosks. They're just lying on the floor, overlapping one another like a glitched Windows error box and you drag across the screen until your PC crashes. My throat tightens.

By loop 40, I realize the double sounds different. The voice is lower now, more distorted, lagging, stumbling over its count repeatedly. It's getting worse at mimicking me. Every loop becomes less human. Generation loss. The footsteps echoing on the opposite floor stagger and trip. I hear something crash and then find a kiosk of blindbox toys trashed on the next floor. Loop 45.

I hear a crash coming from the north exit. I head towards a sound to investigate the sound of a fracture crawling through glass. Loud ticking. Cracking. Unit 214 lit like a Christmas tree. It takes my eyes a second to adjust to the mass grave of yellow lamps. Some lit and some flickering. Others crushed under the weight of hundreds more. Like the mannequins, the lamps also have ugly misprints.

Something buried shatters. Several lamps shift and tumble down the pile. An idea surfaces. I pull the bag from my shoulders and once again retrieve the laser pointer. I aim it through the metal slats, press the button. The little dot glows on one lamp. Slowly it multiplies, exponentially, until I lower the pointer. I don't know what made me do it, but I raise the laser again.

this time I give the button three measured clicks. The red dot blinks three times on the lamp. At first, I think they duped me because nothing happens. Then hitting me all at once, like I've got hundreds of rifle barrels trained on my body, a swarm of glowing red dots. They light me up once, twice, three times. The mall tilts, a certainty inside me tilting with it, load bearing. I slowly reverse, adding distance between me and the glitching lamp nest.

A pained grunt escapes me as my back collides with something big and solid. My hand stumbles to regain balance. Cold metal, curved, painted. My twist. My stomach does too. Another impossibility joins the pile. Sticking out of the parking garage doors is the hood of one of the security vehicles. Not crushed, placed.

Not crushed. Placed. Nothing broken or forced, just a car loaded halfway through the wall. I dragged the beam across the hood and into the garage. It's all copied and pasted for as far as I can see. The security vehicles are reproducing in low fidelity. One with a concrete pillar growing straight through its roof. Some intersect as if assembled at the factory wrong.

Some missing details completely. Wheels that are all tire and no aluminum, missing headlights, all hood, no cab, security security repeatedly pressed across the doors like a stamp losing ink. My pulse stutters. I leave because I'm tired of everything I look at multiplying. It's like when you're driving to work and you see a billboard for a jewelry store with a 1.8 carrot princess cut and pain point marketing slapped all over it. Then you get to work and put your feet up to scroll before you have to clock in and

there it is. You never searched it or set it out loud. You just thought about it for one second at 80 miles an hour and something was already Everybody listening. The flashlight's beam pulls me along the wall as I look from window to window. I stop in front of the bookstore. The same book fills every display. The Shining, Stephen King, with odd capitalization and missing letters.

Even the covers are botched. The Overlook Hotel and Howling Snowstorm look more like a jousting match with spectators by a lake than a secluded mountain resort. On the way back down, I see the double again, hunched over and breathing hard between Between counts, its left ear looks like it melted down the side of its head a couple inches, then cooled again. He looks exhausted. A pang of guilt flashes inside me.

I look down, try to stare at my feet until I can see the orange glow and moving parts of whatever machine lies beneath the comb. I give it a wide berth. I don't make it off the metal when my foot dies mid-step. My hand frozen inside my bag, fingers white, around the marker. My slashes on the floor have doubled. No, it badly reprinted. Forty-five before I went up, 90 now.

I don't recognize the hand that wrote them, jagged and clumsy. Not mine. I'll have to rely on my own internal framework. I catch the smell of soybean oil coming from the direction of the food court. My feet follow it there, passing row after row of chairs and tables. I stare up at one menu. Every item has become chicken terriaki with bad spelling and in all capitals, and shown with an image that looks like a suggestion of white rice and chicken terriaki in a styrofoam takeout box.

But that's not the worst part. When I look closer at the flat screen, I realize there's no glow behind the fake words and food. The logo is barely visible in one corner. They're not even real flat screens, just cheap approximations of what fast food menus look like. I turned to leave and stop. The chair I pulled away from the table, there's another one next to it, like it was lonely. So someone placed another. I swallow guilt, because all I can think of is this bad memory of my ex.

Not because of her, she was perfect. I remember hearing the words, communal dining from the hostess and feeling tiny bugs crawling under my skin, pulling my chair to one side of the table and her following me with hers, we were staring across the flames at the other couple and host just sat with us. I just want my clean space. They did the onion volcano, made the flames touch the metal hood over our heads. Everyone was smiling and laughing. Everyone but me. I remember looking at the raw chicken touching the grill, which was also touching the shrimp, which was also touching the vegetables, and feeling my tongue swell and my breathing pickup. And by the end, I'd convinced her, the other couple, and the cook

that we needed to shut down the entire restaurant immediately, because only I can take dinner with my girlfriend and turn it into a cross-contamination event. She apologized to me three times that night on the drive home, in tears, in the kitchen with her arms around my neck and bed before she kissed the side of my head, like she was the one who messed up. Heat rises in my face behind my eyes, the scene blurs into prisms. Why are you doing this? To nobody, to the mall, to me.

To her, maybe, to the version of myself that was running loops long before I stepped on an escalator. Something meaner replaces the heat under my skin, a hotter, smoldering substrate of self-loathing. The old me, the weak me, shows his ugly face. I clench my teeth, tighten my fists. I plant my shoes on the edge of the chair and kick as hard as I can. The sound echoes through the mall, and chair dragging against the floor, gliding with the table and top of the table. more. Then everything is still. I listen to the sound of my own heavy breathing, the slow, melting version of everyone wants to rule the world that's occupying the air. I feel my shoulders

rise and fall, my heartbeat losing speed. A long therapeutic breath slips out of me. Then a chair moves, barely, like someone bumped it with their hip walking past. My watch, waiting, pulse throbbing in my neck. Every table and chair violently pulled to one side of the room, not all at once, gradually. Like the chairs are recruiting others to lash out as well, until it's spreading across the entire food court like a riot. My legs carry me toward the escalator with frantic energy. Chairs and tables fly in front of me. I duck as a legs whistle over my head. Some smash into the wall and splinter, others get stuck behind the pillars and dividers. The sound is deafening, like it's raining two by four planks inside the mall.

I reach the end of the food court. Cold sweat slicks my hands and back. My forehead glistens. I turn back and stare, breathing like I just survived a car accident I caused. The last chair tumbles over, slides slowly across the floor until its legs touch the wall, like it's finally found where it belongs. Updated notes. 1. Always count out loud.

If you miscount, start over. Pray, nothing saw. 2. Always step on at your mark. Always. 3. The loops begin when the mannequin stare. 4. The loop adds one step every cycle. Acknowledge the step. 5. Don't touch the comb.

6. You will hear it before you see it. It was already there. 7. The double copies your behavior. The loop's geometry stops you in the double from ever interacting. 8. Don't look. 9. Objects become important when you interact with them.

10. The cameras only show the loop, not the outside. 11. The mall remembers what you do, not why. 12. Unit 214 contains objects you wanted. 13. Don't give it your info.

The glowing light from Unit 214 turns the escalators into a giant black X, folded forever. against a backdrop of advancing yellow blight. When I think about it, the escalators, they're less of a loop and more of a figure eight. Every time you go up or down, you also have to circle back around, an infinite detour where real and phony intersect in the middle. My mind keeps running the same folded circuit, how the loop saw me pull out one chair and decided to place another one next to it. That's it. I'm the one who filled in the blanks. Like when a psychic tells you you had a very bad relationship in the past.

It's a safe bet, the kind of assumptions you could point at anybody. The trick only works because you do the rest of the math yourself and cold reading. I wasn't lying when I said I'm better now. At least I didn't believe I was lying. My footfalls echo across the floor. I stop at the calm, stare at the glowing seams. Cold static rolls over my neck and shoulders down to my feet. fingertips. I don't know why I keep going deeper, probably because it's easier than fighting

my way back out. Maybe the loop will eventually forget itself and me along with it. Loop 50. I think I finally cracked. I keep catching these little glimpses of something small and red in the corner of my eye, but every time I crane my neck to look at whatever is there, it either darts out of view or wasn't there to begin with. Loop 55. The song stretches into something unrecognizable. Too slow. Bouncing off the wall is wrong. Submerged. Fragmented. Corrupted. Loup 60. The stores are experiencing retail dementia and have forgotten how to be stores. And now they're trying to remember using the only consistent reference they have. Me. The electronic store sells only radios. The clothing store sells a parody of my security

uniform. A kiosk that once sold knockoff perfume now has wet napkin squares crammed into the glass cases. Loop 65. The glow from Unit 214 is brighter than ever. My feet suddenly stick to the floor mid-step to investigate. I spot something behind the vent, just a flash, enough to leave a sharp prickle behind my eyelids. I spot a bench and grab one end, pivoting to the other side of the walkway. I climb up, dig through my bag for the pocket knife, hinge the Phillips out, and start twisting the bottom screws. The first one falls to the floor and taps away. Halfway through the second, the metal flexes out.

I didn't have to keep twisting because I could already tell what was inside, but I deal anyway. On the final twist, the screw falls, so do the wet napkins. They tumbled on my feet onto the floor. I catch one and feel the texture between my fingers. My skin goes tight. Shrink wrap. It feels waxy, like dryer sheets described over the phone. The mall is just guessing now.

Loop 70. Things stop agreeing on what size they're supposed to be. New or tinier seating to replace the old. Still broken and piled against one wall of the food court. A flashlight hangs in the window of what used to be the sporting goods store, the size of a canoe. Nothing looks impossible, just strange. wrong at first glance.

The yellow glow from Unit 214 is so close I swear I could touch it, but the gate, parking garage, feels far. The room's dimensions are terrifying now. Some lamps are yellow approximations. A little bit wrong, different heights and shapes. The pile glows like a toxic yellow waste. The more distance I add between me and what happened at the food court, the more the scar opens. By loop 75, a bad dinner date from a year.

ago feels bigger than this retail purgatory. The ride takes 93 seconds now. The steps under my feet have gone darker, blacker, reflective, just like my flashlight. The metal teeth, bright and searing, devoid of empathy more than ever. Loop 80. The mall runs out of wall, entire texture is missing or unrendered. The mannequins hurt to look at now. No clothing, her retail purpose, just horrific.

attempts at human form, stacked torsos, more faces than a mannequin should have fit onto one head. Too many arms, clipping through the walls, ceilings, display glass. My trembling hand stretches out to touch the fingers on one reaching through the glass. The white fiberglass is gone, updated to something impossible. I look at the pale knuckles, the skin pores, the dotted moles arranged just like my own, the hair on my arms locks into a rigid grid. Every inch of the floor is graffeted with little white slashes in groups of five, some overlapping, jagged, or incomplete. Manic scrawling on prison cell walls, security cameras are growing from walls where they shouldn't be.

Little black tumors. Loop 85. I can't look at it anymore. With every descent, the double looks like someone took it apart and put it back together worse than before. Its footsteps are more clumsy and irregular than ever. They echo wrongly as it struggles to keep up. It cries out randomly like it's confused or in pain. The voice layered, pitching up and down, repeatedly trying to recall my own.

It crashes into clothing racks, tipping and shattering planters. Slowly, everything rots. The mall, the mannequins, the double. Me. On the next descent, I catch myself in the reflection of a storefront. My insides twist into hard, gym. metric knots. For a second, I think it's the double.

My pulse fights like a trapped bird hitting the same four glass walls. Suddenly I'm running the escalators. Each step feels like pushing through wet clay. Every breath tastes metallic, like my engine is burning out. Everything around me both for slower than I can ascend. I don't know why I keep running. Maybe because for the first time the loop looked exhausted, like it was the one suffering. I thought I could outrun reality, outrun myself.

I lost count after 100, but somehow the numbers keep coming. Reality is crashing, glitching, buffering, rendering a nightmare. I slowly step over the comb, now a glowing industrial shredder. A single floor tile catches my eye, yellow, glassy, just like the lamp, randomly placed like a dropped pixel. My flashlight finds another, then there's three of them together, then an entire corner. It occurs to me that they're spreading towards something. I trace the yellow disease back to Patient Zero, back to Unit 214.

The entire north exit glows sickly yellow. The walls and floor nearest 214 are converting. No, updating. The tile, the steel, the drywall all replaced with the same material as the lamp. Even the shadows have nowhere to go. Well, pixelated veins spreading in every direction, turning everything it touches into lamp, like some yellow rot. The car hood and bumper of the vehicle clipped through the exit are completely yellow.

The infection traveling into the parking garage. 2.14 is turned contagious. The yellow texture bleeding toward the escalators, the very concept of the room escaping, expanding. The infected walls are now generating their own yellow light. I switch off my flashlight, my eyes relying on just the yellow glow. The gate groans and ticks, bowing under the pressure of endless lamp production. Something finally gives. The gate folds under the weight of a thousand yellow lamps.

The gate screeching and bending, lamps popping and shattering, shards of yellow glass spitting through the metal slats. Lamps gush from the folded corners of the gate, pouring onto the yellow tile like a river of misshapen glass. Newer versions push older copies forward. Wherever the lamps settle, another yellow tile updates beneath them. I slowly reverse, then notice something on my hand. I glanced down and see a little red dot. I shake it off, lift my arm and stare at the back of my hand. The glowing red dot returns.

One dot, two, three, I stop counting. Then every lamp locked on to the biggest heat signature at floor level. Mine. They cover me, hands, armed chest. They crawl across my uniform like flies exploring something that stopped moving a long time ago. Dozens of tiny red points treating me like a surface. A new absence opens up inside my chest. Every lamp agrees on one thing that I belong somewhere.

I turn and run. The dots pursue me like a swarm of angry bees. My feet echo off the yellow tiles. What napkins fall around me like feathers. feathers. One lands on a yellow square and instantly turns to lamp. My legs kick off the floor harder. Hot breath pulling around my chin, the tang of wet panties coating my mouth. I see the escalators ahead, but I'm not heading for them. Suddenly I hear dragging across the floor, and my shins collide with something hard. I go horizontal, landing hard on the ground. All air exits

my body at once. A pained cry rips from my throat as pain shoots through my left shoulder and arm. My blood curdles when I hear the double wail from the floor below, long and tortured. Something that used to sound like my voice before the mall forgot that too. Crashing into things in the dark, glass breaking, gates rattling, the gate of something that learned to walk from observation, trying to run without knowing how. I looked down at my legs tangled around the bench, the same bench I used to reach the vent. The dots swarm me, my legs, my hips, my chests and arms. I flail, swatting frantically like I'm brushing away insects.

Then I stop. Look at my hands mid-swat. Dot. Dot. What was I doing? I was trying to fight light. My feet are back under me, kicking the ground harder than ever. My heel slips on a wet napkin and I almost go down again, but somehow regain my balance.

I don't look back. Not at the bench or the escalators, the mannequins, unit 214. I run, losing count. Starting over, I can hear the double below me still, doing what it does best. I reached the security office, my hands shake as I fumble with my badge, swiping it. Access denied. I curse under my breath and try again. Access granted.

Updated notes. Run. The geometry is failing. I warned you not. The loop changes reference material. Who's out there while I'm in here. Outside. Reading.

The Lou-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-Lut remembers everything. The loop is guessing. Unit 214 remembers the shape, not the reason. It already has. This cannot be sustained. I press myself against a security room door, my chest heaving. The back of my uniform soaked in sweat and clinging. I look down at my hands, and they tremble.

I keep expecting to see little red dots popping up. but they never do. I case the room. It's just as I remember, completely unaffected by the crashing environment. I crossed the room, place my hand on the back of my favorite chair and spin it. The leather feels cold, real. I stand there for a moment, closing my eyes and counting the pulse in my thumb. I sink into my chair.

The metal ticks out a sigh when I lean back. My eyes leap from one monitor to the next, taking in small corrupt. I interrupted pieces of the mall one at a time. The double is nowhere to be found. I switched through the bottom floor cameras. Nothing. My eyes linger on the screen for camera 14. I drag the chair closer with my heels and lean over the console.

Hit rewind. My fingers hover over pause, play, trembling. Eyes glued to the descending escalators. Something flashes on the screen. I press play. I keep calling it the double. But that was before I saw what 100 loops does to a face. At first I thought his head was tilted, but then, no, my gut folds into a shape with too many corners.

His face, it looked grabbed and dragged. The space between his features stretches and folds, like a flesh accordion. His spine bent like a question mark, elbows hanging below his waist, knuckles scraping the ground. I remember staring at the screen, thinking I'd finally figured out what the loop was hiding. The thing wasn't supposed to see. I thought the face was the problem. No. Slowly, almost cautiously, the double turned its head as we passed one another, but not toward me, toward the camera, straight into the lens, directly into my eyes.

And then, it blinks, out of sync, left, right, slowly. peeling back open. I stop understanding what I'm seeing. Not the double, the footage, as horrific as it was, the face wasn't the issue. It's that something inside the footage just looked back and blinked. Something in my brain starts pulling levers labeled emergency only. My nervous system blue screens. The floor drops out from below me. I lurched to my feet, staggering backward. The chair topples, clattering against the tile, so does something else just outside the door. I spin, my heart catching on something sharp. The room gains gravity and points all of it toward the office door. I stare, eyes wide and white. A single terrible thought occurs. There's only one security office,

and then another, worse. If I'm here, then where's the double? I swallow, my throat clicks. I raise a shaking fist and knock. Nothing. And then I remember the rules. I rotate slowly back toward the monitors, staring past them. Again, I raise a fist. A clumsy, staggered knock answers. Of course it followed me here.

Where else would it go? My eyes search the room frantically for answers. I spot a vent cover near the ceiling above the monitors. My body moves before I can think, climbing onto the console and digging through my bag. I pull out the pocket knife, but when I hinge the Phillips, my hands are shaking so badly I drop it into the black seam behind the console. I curse under my breath over and over, eyes darting, heart kicking against my ribcage,

my keys, maybe the end of one is small enough. My fingers feel enormous and clumsy, the keys tiny and far away. I twist tip after tip into the screws recess. One slips, another, then another, until one finally grabs. hold. The double keeps knocking. Even though the screws are short, each twist takes an eternity. The first one finally falls onto the console, clacking onto the ground and rolling away. Relief blooms, small, hopeful, and then... Access denied. My body stops waiting for me. I twist the screw frantically. The hands attached to my aching wrist don't feel like mine anymore.

The last screw falls. My pulse climbs into my east. like it wants a better view of the terror. I pry open the vent cover with the key in my hand. Wet napkins tumble onto my face and down my front. The vent is packed with them. I start digging. My arms disappear into the vent up to my shoulders, dragging out massive wet bundles covered in dust and grime. They pile at my feet. The door beeps again and again. I keep thinking one of these tries and he'll get the angle just right. Finally, I see yellow light filtering through. I hoist myself. into the vent, pulling myself forward. Legs dangling and kicking, dust and dirt grab onto my clothes.

I hear the lock click and the doors hinge yawning. My heart snags like a sleeve on a door handle. My legs begin kicking harder than ever. My forearms caked and grime, dragging me deeper. The vent floor warbling and flexing under me. I dig through soiled wet napkins until I reach the other side of the vent. There's barely enough room, but I managed to pivot around. My heel drives into the vent cover.

It folds on the third kick, no resistance. One more good kick, and I hear it fall and clatter on the tile below. Sharp and metallic. My feet exit the vent first and are immediately tinged in yellow. I crawl backwards, my legs kicking the air until one foot finds the beam below me. I lower myself and let go. The old me, the weak me. He sees the black under my fingernails, the crime down in front of my uniform,

and almost takes the wheel, almost makes me forget that something has been running my thoughts ahead of me. It pulls me back in. My eyes have to adjust because it's so blinding. The lamp. Yellow, glossy, becoming the new material reality of the mall. Lamps spilling from Unit 214, spreading like a glowing yellow river of magma, replacing everything it touches with the same texture and tone, scaling aggressively. The tile under countless. white slashes updating to yellow glass, mannequins rendering into lamp adjacent structures, walls resolving into yellow lamp surface logic, everything slowly becoming lamp. My eyes follow the beams all converging to the nearest pillar.

I crawl on hands and knees toward it, cautious. The world wobbles below me. I pause and outstretched. A cold draft rushes through me, raising the hair on my arms and waves. I look behind me, back to the vent. The double is already halfway out. Its long, spindly arms fold out from the opening, shittering hands finding the floor of the beam before its legs do.

My heart skips a frame. I look back down, the escalators, a black X under yellow contamination. The entire mall tilted wrong, prospective overriding protocol. The beam starts to feel too narrow, like a place where the rules thin out. I look back at the double. The thing in front of me has become something else. A ship of Theseus rendered with wrong parts. It climbs toward me, limbs never fully agreeing with each other, hesitant, almost frightened.

Eyes wide and peeled back, mouth flapping, teeth protruding sideways from its gums, lips muttering. The thing kept counting long after I stopped. My limbs move automatically, carrying my body to the other side of the beam. I use the stray wires attached to the beam to pull my legs underneath me. Every time I look back, the double is closer than it should be. I reach the other side of the beam and hug the pillar. I check the double's progress.

It slowly threads itself through the diagonal wires. Its eyes never leave me, wide and unblinking. Just when I'm about to scream at it. At the lamp, at me, it stops negotiating the beam, head bobbing, lips trying to form something. The movement is involuntary. Then... Why? An icy fist grabs the loose skin on my back and draws it tight.

The voice is unrecognizable. The words assembled wrong. Pitch sliding mid-sentence from childlike to something inhuman. Doing this. The silent swells. What? The word dies in my throat. Why are you doing this?

It says, finally finding its voice, my voice. Why are you doing this? It echoes. My own words twisted back on me, an accusation. It sounds confused like the question keeps snagging somewhere inside it. Why are you doing this? It pleads. To it, I'm the double.

I'm the one that keeps running the loop, forcing iteration. I hear it in the dead air after talking too long. In the pauses during conversations with my therapist when she's trying to choose the right words in the silence of the car ride home after ruining dinner. The only question it can ask, with the only words it knows, the only words I gave it, why are you doing this? Language fails me. Thoughts stop resolving.

words loop internally over and over until I finally blurt them out. I don't know. It looks at me, eyes wide, I'm searching mine. There's no anger in them. Only fear and confusion. You don't know. A realization. You don't know.

A mantra. Me. I don't know. It. You don't know. know. The boundary between us smearing. Two echoes fight over who said it first. Feedback loop. The boundary between us smearing. My feet and arms negotiate the pillar. My body pressed against it. My left foot blindly searches for the beam on the other side. I never take my eyes off the double. It keeps

twitching forward like a broken spider. I swallow something stuck in my throat, hard, angular. You don't know. The voice fails again, warping in pain, despair. Why are you doing this? Shrinking the space where I only want distance. You don't know. Why you're doing this? My left foot finds the beam, but the tiny victory slips away when I try to put my weight on it.

The room shifts violently. The organ in my body becomes a victim of gravity. A scream rips out of me. My sweaty fingers catch hold of the ledge. My body dangles uselessly, heartbeat bashing against my ribs, pulse pounding in my skull. I hazard a look over my shoulder. The metal comb glows orange directly below. Waves of heat rising off it.

Slowly pulling lamp after lamp into the bottomless seam. When I look back, the double's eyes are wider than ever. blown out into bottomless black holes, but there's no hunger, not even anger, only fear. Slowly, cautiously, instinctively, it reaches a slender, misshapen hand toward mine. Even if I got off this beam, then what? Run over one hundred loops in reverse, fighting the escalators with the double chasing me, all while screaming from the torment of slowly being unmade? And that's only if the lamps don't overtake me, submerging me and glowing me in glowing

yellow geometry until I'm drowning, until I stop moving and become just another lamp. My hand slips. I swing. My stomach plunges two stories. I glance over my shoulder again at the bottom teeth, the easy way out. If I take that exit, I don't have to go back to my lifeless apartment, watch the same shows over and over, fall asleep and wake up just to go to the same dead-end job again and again, clocking in, clocking out, driving home, driving back, so I can pay bills and buy

lamps for a room she'll never sit in with me again. Because at the end of it all, nothing is worth it if she's not there. I look down one last time at the glowing river of lamps, corrupting everything around them. My eyes zero in on one, a perfect reproduction of the original, the same one I'd stopped and stared at, telling myself, next paycheck. Yellow, glassy, all warm sunshine and bubbly optimism. It really is a beautiful lamp. The double's fingers close around mine.

I squeeze my eyes shut, peel his fingers away, and fall. Everything goes black. Dole, rhythmic pain throbs at the back of my skull. I blink my eyes open. I'm in the mall. The one I remember. Normal hours. Lights on.

Speakers humming. Dolphin fountain streaming, the sound of voices and footsteps echoing off walls and people. A shadow passes over me, an involuntary jerk shoots through me. Then I realized someone just stepped over me. My head bounces off the escalator as a new step appears. Pain escapes my mouth in a hiss. I roll to one side, push myself up till my legs were underneath me again. Stable ground.

The lamp is gone. The geometric current of yellow. glass, updated yellow tile, walls, lamp adjacent mannequins, all gone. I rubbed the back of my head as my eyes move over glass doorfronts, selling a wide selection of clothing, shoes, and electronics. The flat screens and the food courts cycle pictures of different menu items, the mass grave of tables and chairs, backward it belongs, occupied by people with faces, normal, beautiful faces. I glance at my right hand. Four red furrows dragged across the back of it, broken skin, stinging, and real. I don't speak to the other guards during shift change.

I just clock out and leave the office. I don't exactly leave right away either. I make one slight detour before going home. It only takes me a minute, and the warm fuzz that fills me the entire drive home makes everything worth it. I sit on my couch, sinking into relief. As I finish When I stare at the beautiful geometry and symmetry of my living room, the perfect distance between the yellow area rug and each wall, the diagonal angle of my yellow sofa. The yellow tinted glass coffee table shaped more like an artist's palette than a surface to place my laptop. I especially love how my new lamp looks, accenting the golden oak stain on my side tables.

Their yellow glow makes a perfect figure eight stretching across the room, just like I knew it would. Room feels warmer now. Everything finally matches. I had to get them. It would have been wrong not to after everything. It was the financing available sticker in the window that did it for me. Four payments of 5350, final terms. Every single penny, worth it.

I still work at that mall. Still work nights. I don't use those escalators anymore, though. Not since they started running the wrong direction.