Nobody could tell how long they had been sitting silently in the candlelight. The ventilation system groaned above them. The packets of chips gleamed as they remained untouched lest the crinkling gave them away.

The damage Donovan could do in a rage had the potential to be devastating. He could open a door just to spite them. He could invite in the demons. He could simply walk outside through the front door, or one of the many fire doors that would have remained unlocked due to the moviegoers still being in the building when the darkness took over the moon.

Gowan stirred. "We have to go find him."

"How many times have you left already?" Amy put down the plastic cup that had teeth marks across the rim. "He's probably dead."

Matthew let out a wince. It was a mixture of grief and pain. Even though the boxes of pain medication were emptying at a steady pace, nothing could totally remove the feeling. Violet stroked his hair, trying to help him back down slowly, but he continued to sit up. He looked around. "Please. Please bring him back."

"Amy is right." Elizabeth said. She looked over to Amy who had since sunk back into the wall, looking at nothing in particular ahead of her.

A cacophony of clangs followed by a primal scream could be heard somewhere in the shopping center. It was some distance away, but it was loud enough to make Elizabeth jump.

As Matthew began to plead with the room that the scream must have belonged to Donovan, the vent cracked again. Louder this time. The metal dinged and popped as small spatters of red liquid fell through. They splattered into the dark carpet beside Victor.

Matthew looked up at Victor. "Was that blood?"

"I'm not sure how many other red liquids are going to spill from air vents in the middle of a demonic takeover." Victor replied.

Everyone except for Victor looked up to where the liquid had dropped from. Victor slowly looked to his arm and disdainfully wiped away the small droplets that had not missed. "Perhaps we all should be leaving here."

"Does that count?" Masina's eyes widened. "What counts? Where does the cinema begin? The ducts share airspace, does that mean they can get in now?" Her breathing was getting heavy as she joined Violet in trying to keep Matthew still.

Emilio shook himself out of his fear and yelled to the vent, "OI DICKHEAD, FUCK OFF OUT OF THERE!" He turned to the group. "Maybe the little shit just wants to see if his tantrum got us talking."

Gowan tried to get Emilio to tone it down. "I've seen enough debunking videos online to know those vents can't hold a full grown dude." Gowan stood with his hands on his hips, sizing up the vent like a dad inspecting an unknown person who was making a U-turn in his driveway.

"Please man." Matthew looked to Gowan again. "Please. It might be Donovan's."

Gowan looked to Elizabeth and raised his eyebrows. She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to get the feeling of tightness out of her chest. "You're right." she said, "We can't just leave him out there."

Masina stepped forward. "Wait! I want to come with youse."

Victor shook his head. "No. You must be kept here."

"Why?" She pointed to the makeshift bathroom. "I obviously got the survival skills."

"That's exactly right." Victor noted. "You also have valuable medical knowledge and Matthew doesn't seem to be getting better at any groundbreaking speed."

Masina looked at Matthew. She looked to Violet who had been glued to his side, trying to calm him about Donovan's disappearance. Amy had spent more time slumped over on the wall, her eyes showing her dissociation with the current circumstances. She knew he was right. With a head nod at Victor, she pursed her full lips and gave Gowan and Elizabeth an apologetic look.

More banging echoed through the halls outside. The ethereal wails of metal grinding against itself softly filled the previous silence. Elizabeth tried to keep a brave face, but for the first time she felt tears welling in her eyes. For the first time she really felt like this could be the end. Even the knife in her waistband didn't feel like a safety net.

She walked over to Gowan and whispered softly, "Do you have your knife?"

"Yeah." He murmured back before yelling to the group on the floor. "Hey! Is Victor's knife still down there? I think it's better if we have the weapon."

"Babe, didn't you have the weapon?" Emilio addressed his wife gently.

Amy did not move. She didn't drop her gaze from the darkness ahead of her. She simply let out a gentle, helpless "No."

Emilio looked to Victor. "Jigsaw?"

"No." Victor narrowed his gaze. The candlelight exaggerated his gaunt face as he slowly wandered towards Emilio. "However, if I did have the knife and I didn't want anyone to know about it, I could always start asking others about it."

"Mate. If I had the knife it'd have been brandished at Bundy by now."

"Then where is it?" Gowan walked to Victor's backpack and began looking into the pockets as Victor looked on unemotionally.

"Not there." Victor said. "We'll have a look around while you find Donovan."

Gowan hesitated.

Victor let out a noise of frustration and stormed up to Gowan. "You need to go now. If someone has the knife then they obviously haven't used it yet. We'll find it." For once, Victor established eye contact with Gowan. His demeanor briefly warmed. "You can't save everyone all the time."

There was an air of tension as the room waited on Gowan.

"You're right." Gowan dropped his gaze from Victor and turned to Elizabeth. "Let's go."

After taking one of the candles from the room, the pair ambled upwards towards the cinema door. The familiar clunk announced their arrival to whatever was lurking. After the door shut behind them, the feeling of isolation flooded in.

The light reflected off the shiny, terrazzo flooring. The warm glow of the fire did nothing to remove the chill of the stagnant air around them. With her free hand, Elizabeth took the knife from her waistband.

As they walked onwards into the unknown, she smirked a little. "So when did you take the other knife?"

"I didn't." Gowan took his knife from his pants and winced while he held the handle tightly. "Ouch! I think I accidentally nicked myself like a million times while holstering that one."

Elizabeth chuckled despondently. "Yeah, we should have spent a little more time finding the ones with sheaths."

They wandered the halls, listening intently for any sounds. For quite some time it felt like they were the only two people left in the world.

Back before the world was ending, Elizabeth had liked to imagine what nothing truly sounded like. Her apartment had sounds of water pipes and footsteps. When she decided to book a small shed on a rural property in Bundaberg for a long weekend, she could still hear the cars and the airplanes overhead. Now that the abyss enveloped her, she just wanted to hear the ringing phone with her father on the other end repeating a joke he got in an email forward.

Distant footsteps jolted her out of her brooding. With no hands free, she leaned to the side to softly headbutt Gowan. He took the candle from her as she walked briskly to a nearby kiosk in the middle of the corridor and lifted the thick, heavy, cheap-feeling velour to usher him inside the small fort made by the clear shelving that housed tubs of lollies.

Awkwardly crawling through the small space, he found that the desk with the register had enclosed sides. He placed the candle under it and tried as quietly as he could to move some nearby empty boxes to help contain the light as best as possible. After this, they waited silently.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

The footsteps drew closer. Elizabeth felt herself shaking. She moved closer to Gowan who was sitting almost as still as a statue, listening intently. Closing her eyes, she begged to whatever entity controlled the universe to keep them safe. In an attempt to block out all other stimuli, she shut her eyes tightly. Her ears strained to match the footsteps to familiar ones.

At that moment she realised that unless Donovan now walked with his hands as well as his feet, there was more than one set of footsteps. Her eyes remained shut as tears began to escape them. The pair sat in silence as the footsteps moved from one end of the corridor, directly past them, and back out of earshot. Maybe they were out of earshot. It was hard to hear anything with Elizabeth's heartbeat pumping through her ears.

"What do we do?" She whispered to Gowan who was crawling back through the tiny shelved-labyrinth to get back to the candle.

When he had retrieved it, he scooted across the floor to sit beside her. "I wish I knew."

"Should we pray? Is this the kind of thing you pray for?" she stammered nervously.

He gave a soft smile, balanced the thick candle on the ground, and placed his hands on one of hers. "God. Thank you for giving us the bravery to venture out to save our friend. Please watch over us. Thank you for keeping us safe. Guide us to do what is best for your work through the situation we've found ourselves in. Lord, we are scared. We place that on you. Amen." He paused throughout the prayer to listen for footsteps but they did not approach again.

An impish smile crept across Gowans face. Turning his body towards the clear bins of candy behind him, he lifted the lid and used the scoop to gather a handful of small, blue coloured, raspberry gummies. He popped one in his mouth before gently tossing one at Elizabeth.

The gummy bounced off her forehead, leaving her with a confused expression. "What are you doing?" she whispered, somewhat amused.

"I think we should wait here for a little while. We need to enjoy the little things." he whispered back.

She scooped a handful of mint leaf-shaped gummies from another bin and returned fire before popping one in her mouth to muffle the airy laugh. Gowan opened his mouth and she took aim. He snapped his mouth shut and widened his eyes in surprised as he tasted the gummy in his mouth. "The crowd goes wild!" he said softly, before cupping his hands to his mouth and making a hissing noise to imitate muffled applause.

He studied Elizabeth's smile. Her soft, brown hair brushed over her shoulders as she pushed it back as she momentarily forgot that the reason they were in what was essentially a blanket fort. Tension from her body seemed to dissolve into the cozy ambience surrounding them.

"You know," he began, "I hope the next two days go quickly. I'm going to ask you for a do-over."

"I'm going to say yes. Although, we could just call it the second date. Trauma bonds still count as bonding."

"Is that healthy?"

Elizabeth laughed, her voice getting a little louder in the moment of happiness she'd found herself in. "How healthy will the outside world be after the corrosive demons are done with it?"

Glass shattered in the distance at the same time Elizabeth's face dropped and the tension in her shoulders draped itself back into her being as she realised the true gravity around their situation.

"Hello?" A low pitched voice called from the direction of the shatter. "Hey? Get the fuck out here!"

Before Elizabeth could stop him, Gowan was crawling out from the candy kiosk with the candle. She followed him, lest she be left alone in the dark.

"Donovan?" Gowan called out to the dark.

"Hello?" the voice called again.

"Wait?" Elizabeth stage whispered after him.

Gowan stopped.

Elizabeth gestured at her ear. "Listen. I don't think he's alone."

The pair edged forward, listening to a muffled conversation between Donovan's deep voice and a bouncy, much higher pitched voice. They exchanged looks.

"Who's with you?" Gowan called out.

After a brief pause, Donovan answered back, "I found a little girl." His voice was louder now.

"I'm not little!" The small voice protested. "I'm tough!"

After conversation back and forth to help guide the two pairs to each other, they finally met up.

Elizabeth and Gowan once again concealed their weapons.

Donovan was holding a Book Nook tote bag, standing beside a small girl. She was about the size of six year-olds in Gowan's youth group at his church.

He knelt down to meet the girl's eyeline. "Hi there." He smiled. "I'm Gowan. Nice to meet you. My friend here is Elizabeth. What's your name?"

The girl stepped forward. Her light brown hands were contrasted against the dark tone of Gowan's face as she began to run her hands over his features. "I'm Tanda."

"Did you get lost?" Gowan asked her.

"She's looking for her mum." Donovan interjected, hastily. "She's made it through the dark because-"

"Yeah." Gowan interrupted.

Elizabeth lowered herself to the floor as well. "What's your mum's name?"

Tanda walked towards Elizabeth's voice. "Maya. Maya Padua. Have you seen her?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "No." she said, turning to Gowan. "We should get back."

Gowan looked up to Donovan. "Are you ready?"

After rummaging through the tote bag, Donovan pulled out a bible smugly. "Yeah. I come bearing gifts."

The group made their way back to the double doors.

Elizabeth stopped them before entering. She knocked on the door, opening it slightly. "It's us." she yelled through the gap.

The strict, military regulation haircut peeked out from the doors. Emilio turned around and called down the aisle, "Yep. It's them." He opened the door, but blocked the group's entry with his body. "Wait," he said suspiciously, "who's this?"

"Her name is Tanda." Donovan stepped forward. "She lost her mum. I found her."

Victor swooped behind Emilio. "So you found a child who was somehow able to survive in pitch darkness and you want to invite her into the space a demon can't enter during the three days unless we invite it in?"

Donovan looked down at the small child. "Look at how small she is. If she tries to evaporate you, just use your arm to keep her away." He put his hand on Tanda's forehead to demonstrate.

"Hey!" she protested, swinging her arms in defense but stopping short of being able to reach Donovan.

"See." He used his other hand to gesture to the flailing girl. "Sorry, mate." He playfully tousled her hair.

"I agree with Victor." Violet stood behind Emilio and Victor. "Don't let her in."

Elizabeth could not remember Violet ever leaving Matthew's side since they'd gotten here.

"Three against three." Emilio stated, crossing his arms.

"Masina? Matthew? Amy?"

Masina's voice rang through the cinema, "Yeah. Let her in. Honestly, come on! Just let them all in! You're probably putting us in more danger by making them wait out there. It's a risk, but at this point, isn't everything?" She paused before noting "Matthew wants them in too."

"Babe?" Emilio called back.

"Yeah." Amy's monotone, entranced voice floated through the auditorium. "Let them in."

"Three against six." Gowan noted.

Emilio's stature subtly shrank. He, somewhat bashfully, moved out of the doorway. With a shrug at Victor, he stepped aside as Violet swooped into the entryway.

Violet stuck her arms out, trying her best to block the four survivors outside. "No. Please. Y- You heard Victor." Her voice was somewhat shaking. She looked pleadingly at Elizabeth. "Please." There was an air of desperation in her voice.

Victor stood beside her, aiding in blocking the door. "What if we take turns in watching her outside?" He looked to Gowan. "You work with children. You could start."

Widening his eyes, Gowan shook his head in disbelief. "Even if the world wasn't ending, you can't just leave a child alone with a random adult. None of us have any proof of vetting!"

Victor gestured to Elizabeth. "We can take shifts in pairs then."

"I would prefer we just come inside." Elizabeth strode towards Victor and stared him down.

Neither budged.

"I'm bored of this!" Emilio exclaimed with a huff, Victor and Violet were suddenly jolted back. Emilio's strong hands took them by surprise and guided them backwards. Both stumbled out of the way.

Donovan took Tanda's hand and guided her forward through the door. "Come on. Don't worry about them. Let's go set you up, ok? If anyone gives you trouble you just tell them to speak with me." He glared at Victor.

The pair wandered down to where Matthew lay on the floor, with Masina sitting nearby. Tanda was cutely waddling beside Donovan who was slowed down navigating the slope with his limp. He was careful to describe the room, mentioning the candle in the center. His voice was more gentle with her. He had patience that had previously been absent.

Victor was frustrated, but made his way down to the floor without much protest. Violet was still pleading. Her desperate begging devolved into sobbing. She fell to her knees as Elizabeth entered and closed the doors behind her.

"Hey." Elizabeth gently knelt beside Violet and begun to stroke her back comfortingly. "It will be ok. Look at how many there are of us."

"You don't understand."

"No, I totally get it." Elizabeth empathised. "I know we have to be careful, but if these are our last days, we can't lose our humanity either." She looked around for inspiration. "Things are different since..." She placed her hand in her pocket, running her fingers over the ridges of Gideon's car keys. "We didn't have candles then." Her eyes glanced down to the group below. "And, if you can believe it, Donovan got us a bible. Victor said that it was the strongest weapon we have."

"No, I-"

"If that's not good enough," Elizabeth interrupted, "between you and I, I have an actual weapon." She pulled the knife a little way out from beside her hip. At this point, she just wanted Violet to feel safe.

"You took the knife? We've been at each others throats! Victor and Emilio only just decided that Donovan took it."

Elizabeth looked sheepish. "Nah. This is a different one."

Violet closed her eyes. "Shit. Now we're universally fucked in two ways."

"Wait. What's the other way?"

Violet's perfectly drawn eyebrows angled downwards into worry. "I think that's my daughter."

"I don't understand. You have kids?"

"When I was 18, I was studying pathology collection." She closed her eyes, trying to slow her breathing. "One day, I was messing around bored and decided to take my own blood and do a hGC test." She looked at Elizabeth. "That's the one that tells you if you're pregnant." She continued, "My period was slightly late and I thought if I took it then it would help destress me and it would arrive sooner."

"Except you were pregnant."

"Yeah."

"And you didn't want to be."

Violet looked down. "My boyfriend at the time didn't want me to be. He said if I didn't get rid of it, he'd leave me. I thought I loved him." She ran her finger over the carpet. "It was early enough that I could take the pills instead of have the procedure. So I did. Of course, as soon as he was in the clear he left anyway. Everyone does." She paused. "It's been six years. I thought I was over it but..."

Elizabeth took Violet's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you for telling me. I know that we're already in a scary situation. I know seeing her must bring back memories. I'm hear if you need it." She went to leave, but Violet held her hand tightly.

"You don't understand," Violet said with fear in her eyes, "I was going to name her Tanda."