The mall turned against them. Automatic gates slammed down in their faces without warning, storefronts sealing like jaws. Twice, survivors had to scramble for side corridors, weaving through stockrooms to reconnect.
The Angel's gaze hunted them patiently.
"We need cover," Lucian muttered, scanning the maze-like halls. "I don't think it can hit what it doesn't see."
"It also seems to have a range to its weird ability". Adrian added breath heavy from the stress.
They kept moving through the never ending halls.
The mall wasn't making it easy it continued to separate survivors from one another, and its halls and rooms only seemed to grow more and more the longer they were there.
One survivor sprinted for a side hallway but the mall itself betrayed her — the automatic shutters screeched down, slamming shut before she could pass. She crashed into it, scrambling, pounding against the steel. The shock from having the door slam shut in her face with a metallic clang drove her to despair. She slammed her fists against it in terror begging to be freed from this nightmare — the sound drew the Angel's head like a beacon.
The glass shifted, elongating into a towering shard that loomed over her.
"Two…" God's voice murmured from unseen speakers, smooth and mocking. "How fragile you mortals are. How quick to break."
The woman shattered a moment later, body suspended in a cruel imitation of stained glass.
The group scattered deeper into the twisting halls. Shutters dropped over storefronts. Escalators jammed, trapping survivors on the wrong floors. The mall itself shifted into a labyrinth, forcing them into dead ends.
Lucian kept his movements sharp and quiet, eyes darting between cover and shadow. He wasn't about to waste energy on saving strangers. His focus was survival. Yet, whenever Adrian doubled back to help another, Lucian followed close behind, ready to pull his friend out if he overreached.
While hiding worryingly close to the Angel, a survivor who was huddled into a ball, with his hands over his head seemed to be unable to hold back his boiling fear and started to stand up attempting to try and make a break for it.
But before he could even get off his hands and knees a shoe stomped into his back, hands scraping the tile and chin slamming down hard. He was held firmly in place on the floor.
Sinclair had stepped on the man to keep him from blowing their cover while she watched the Angel float off into the distance. "Move and we die." Her foot seemed to sink further into his back, squeezing the rest of the air out of him.
The Angel's rectangular form shifted, folding into a thinner, needle-like shard to slip through a narrow doorway, then expanding again with a shiver of fractured light. The sound was unnatural, like glass bending without breaking.
At one point, Lucian, Adrian, and Sinclair dove behind a kiosk as its red iris passed inches from them. Adrian held his breath so hard his face darkened, Lucian steadying him with a hand. Another survivor wasn't as lucky—hesitating just long enough for the Angel to flick its gaze. They shattered like glass, frozen in air mid-scream.
Lucian's chest burned as he pressed flat against a wall, Sinclair crouched opposite him, her revolver in hand. Her expression hadn't shifted even as she heard two more die from across the mall. She was calm, almost eerily so.
"Three down," she whispered, her eyes slightly narrowed with frustration. "If it keeps going like this, none of us are making it out of here."
Adrian who just regrouped with the two after being split up by a shutter door with a couple other survivors suddenly speaks up.
"I think I have an idea on how to get out of here."
Everyone perked up at his comment.
"The mall seems to work like a real endless maze in a video game, even though you can't see it if you focus hard enough you can notice when you've gone the wrong way you get a slight feeling of nausea before the hall extends. As long as you back track when you feel nauseous while finding long ways around closed shutters we should eventually find the exit no matter how long it may take."
Lucian turned to Sinclair. "Well it couldn't hurt to try."
The mall became a labyrinth of shadows and silence. Survivors ducked behind counters and tables, slipping into maintenance hallways. The Angel glided effortlessly, its body twisting, reshaping, passing through narrow gaps like liquid glass. Every time its eye swelled red, Lucian held his breath until the glow passed.
They moved again, dodging through service halls where the air smelled of mold and rust. Close calls piled up: the Angel's red iris sweeping over shelves just as Lucian ducked, a door slamming in Sinclair's face that she forced open with her boot, Adrian pulling yet another survivor out of harm's way.
At one point the Angel even shattered a wall into suspended glass shards before morphing its body to fit through the cracks, just so it could move around quicker. Since then the Angel started sending pulses at hiding spots, shattering them into glittering pieces, making cover for the survivors fewer and fewer.
Sinclair fired again when it drew too close, buying seconds as it reformed. Sweat streaked her pale brow, though her voice never wavered.
The chase stretched on, the group herded deeper and deeper into the mall, until at last a jammed emergency exit offered salvation. Sinclair kicked it open, and sunlight poured through the crack like a lifeline.
The survivors burst through in ragged silence, breaths held until the mall's oppressive shadows gave way to the muted light outside.
Lucian looked behind him as they continued running, the Angels eye floated in the darkness, its form obscured before it slowly faded away as the emergency exit door closed slowly, exit sign fizzling out completely.
They didn't stop running until the building was a shrinking silhouette behind them.
The group slumped into the middle of a parking lot, gasping for breath.
Outside, the group gathered, shaken but alive — those who remained. Adrian counted, his face pale. "Five of us now… not including Lucian." His voice cracked but he forced a grin. "That's better than zero, right?"
No one spoke for a long stretch, too consumed by the hollow space left where three of their number had been.
Sinclair checked the surroundings before her gaze swept over them, locking on to Lucian. "You have a day to decide, don't think about it to hard or you'll regret it." She then turned to Adrian. "As for you..."
Her lips curved into a small beautiful smile before she proceeded to pat him on the back roughly. "Good job back there not getting us killed."
Adrian nearly stumbled from the sudden force on his back before he smiled shyly.
Walking over Adrian unclipped something from his belt and pressed it into Lucian's hand. "Walkie-talkie. Channel three. In case you… change your mind. Don't be a stranger, alright?"
Lucian turned it over, weighing both the object and the decision. "Thanks."
Sinclair said nothing, only checking the remaining rounds in her revolver before turning away, her eyes unreadable.
The survivors drifted back into the distance, leaving Lucian standing alone with his thoughts, the distant shape of the mall looming behind him like a tomb.
Lucian looked up at the setting sun and sighed.