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Dave's POV...

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This mall has three floors. The first is the shopping district, the second is the food district, and the third is the grocery and common goods district.

Although I don't go to these kinds of malls this much, Shaliqen always dragged me off into her misadventures, and those same misadventures almost always took place in some sort of mall.

Once, she brought Holly to a mall, going off about how that cat needed new stimulus or something. Although she loved that cat, she was awfully careless, and shoved Holly into her purse. Holly did not like that.

By now you should know where this was going. When we entered the mall, that cat made horrible noises, and we soon got caught bringing in a animal into the mall. The security must have thought we were crazy. Shaliqen is crazy, but I am not. This did not change the fact that both of us got in trouble.

Anyways, enough about those old memories. Right now, I was going upstairs to the third floor. In order to start looking to find some more daily supplies and the walkie-talkies we needed to find in the hardware shop located here.

To be exact, I was climbing up an excalator with Holly's imposing figure behind my back. Sweat slid down my forehead as I climed along the broken excalator.

Damn this damned cat!

Right now all of us split up to find the resources we needed, and we all agreed to meet up later in two hours, by the entrance of the mall. Although most of us likely just forgot about that goal, and had just took some time for a break.

I myself, had wanted to go to a different floor, the second floor to be exact, to forget about my misery and all the despair I suffered in the past two days, and surrender myself to the joy of binge-eating that would normally empty my wallet. I also wanted to do this to possibly find a way to isolate myself, and formulate a actual plan to escape.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

However, Holly crushed my expectations, as she dragged me along with her with a large smile. She was going to find her walkie-talkies, and had probably took me along to fufill her sadist nature, or to prevent me from moving freely.

It was likely both.

Shit. What a sadistic bastard.

Holly chuckled, as if she had seen my look of frustration as we slowly climbed up the excalator.

Soon we arrived at the third floor. 

This was the grocery and common goods district. Normally on a regular day, without all of this insanity, it would be crowded with tons of people, and many different kinds of goods and commodities would be stockpiled on the shelfs.

But now, it was pretty much bare. The floor was completely empty and the place looked like a ghost-town. There was practically no goods left, and the ones that were left were all knocked over or unpopular products. Almost nobody was here, but a few people who looked like they wanted nothing to do with us.

How is this place already so fucked up? It has only been two days since all those animals up and mutated.

I looked up and down, and around. I could not hide my shocked expression, as I scanned over the room.

"...Huh?" 

I stood there in a daze.

"Hey. C'mon Dave, we should hurry up and find what we are looking for." Holly smirked.

I did not hear her, and kept standing there.

A complete difference...

After standing there a bit, Holly seemingly became impatient, and grabbed the hem of my jacket, and dragged me along. I was pulled by her suddenly and it jogged me out of my trance.

But still. Holly's pull did not manage to shake me out of my thoughts completely, as I contemplated about my circumstances. Although I did face many views like these in the past two days, to me it was not as striking as this one.

I wonder how the rest of the world is dealing with this as a whole. I wonder what caused such mayhem.

All of a sudden, I felt a sharp jabbing pain on my cheek. Holly took a chopstick and was jabbing me on my cheek.

What the hell?!

"What was that for?!" I yelled in pain, but shuddered when I met the eyes of Holly's straight face.

Holly had a blank look on her face as she faced me, and started jabbing me again. She looked at me boredly and started to do it again.

"Okay. Now you are awake. Hurry up. Now help me find those walkie-talkies"

She stared at me, once again with large eyes. I looked back in surprise, as Holly started to walk away.

She was pretty fast, even when she was just walking. It was hard to keep up with her, and I barely got the chance to look around because she was so quick.

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