The double doors swung open, Emilio's hulking frame backlit by Saleem holding the candle while trying to keep up. For once Emilio did not look sure of himself. He walked quickly, with purpose, back down to the floor where the others had resigned from trying to stop him.

"I think Amy came back."

Elizabeth gathered herself from the sprawling nest of bedding that seemed to grow across the floor as the hours passed. "What?"

"You know how the kid came for Violet? I think Amy's coming back!" His voice had a hint of excitement.

Elizabeth shot Gowan a hesitant look. They both looked to Saleem.

Emilio looked over as well, "Tell 'em, Sal. The knife was gone."

Saleem nodded to confirm that the knife was gone.

Emilio waited for Saleem to tell the rest of the story, but he couldn't contain himself any longer. His voice was almost frantic, "When we came back down, there was light in the distance."

Donovan looked up from Matthew, "Like, light light? The sun? Through the windows."

"Nah," Emilio pointed to the candle Saleem had grabbed prior to leaving the first time, "Candle. When we came out of the room, I swear there was light coming from around the corner down past the escalators." He lowered his voice, "Down near where she ..." He stared ahead for a moment, all expression dropped from his face before setting back to his usual seriousness. "I think she wants me to follow her."

Victor shook his head. "In normal circumstances it drives out the cockroaches from the darkness. It's used for good. These aren't normal times. This is the deep ocean. It could be an anglerfish luring prey."

Emilio sidled up to Victor, "Well, you can try and stop me, but I'm going to get my wife back."

Victor's voice was a little frantic now, "Why would she come back? You said it yourself that she wouldn't come back for you. We are running out of people and there can't be long until the sun is out. How would she come back?"

"We've seen miracles!" Emilio roared, "We've seen a kid bring a woman back from the dead to walk her into mystery smoke. We saw an old guy get turned to ash and tar just by walking outside. We saw ANOTHER woman turn to smoke!" He pointed at Elizabeth, "Apparently she saw a dude turn to smoke." His pointed finger stabbed Victor's chest. "Now you're telling me that my wife loving me is a bridge too far?"

Victor's eyes were blinking fast, "Moments ago you were saying-"

"Well I changed my mind. She is back and I'm going to get her."

Victor looked helplessly at Gowan and Elizabeth to do something.

Matthew called out from the floor, "Just go. Fuck. Who cares. Find out if there's something out there. All you people do is talk. If you got a chance at love go get it, if you die, you're fucking luckier than I am." He let out a loud, curdling yell in agony as his movements caused his wound to pull itself apart. His head was spinning. He was hot. It was difficult to breathe. "Just bring back a way to kill me."

Donovan passed him one of the few remaining water bottles to drink from slowly. They'd been crushing up water and potato chips to try and keep his salt levels up from all of the sweating and crying. It was the only thing he could keep down. As every hour passed, he was less and less confident that Matthew would make it through this.

Elizabeth stood up and looked to Matthew and Donovan. "Do you guys need anything?" She turned to Victor, gesturing to Emilio and Saleem. "I can't let them go alone."

Gowan joined her. "We can't let them go alone."

"Just bring back the fucking knife so I can end it." Matthew said from the floor before tapping back out of the conversation. He just wanted them to go so he would have some quiet again.

Victor was shaking his head in disbelief. "You have no weapons. You have nothing to defend yourself. Whatever is out there has a knife and a way to make light. You don't think that's a danger?"

Gowan looked to him, "There should be three knives. Elizabeth and I took two when we were unwrapping the gum. We can account for two. One that was left with the body from when we met Saleem. One that Amy used." He addressed the group, "We don't know where the third is. Someone here must have it."

"Hold up." Emilio stopped Gowan. "You two had knives? You just brought in knives and had them lying around? And you didn't tell anyone?"

"You and Donovan were at each other's throats!" Elizabeth interjected. "Obviously Victor got his knife privileges revoked-"

"Yeah, and now my wife is fucking dead."

"And you think that's on us?"

Emilio pointed to the window where the dried, bloody heart shape had been drawn. "Well that didn't get there through a fucking arts and crafts afternoon, did it?"

"That was Victor's knife. If you get it back, check the handle. The one that's unaccounted for was taken from our beds." Elizabeth was not scared to scan the room again. "So if anyone has the knife that was taken from our beds, speak up or you're putting us all in danger before we go and check out the light."

The room remained silent.

Emilio huffed. "We can't even trust you to share vital intel. How am I meant to think you're going to be any help with this."

Gowan couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Because we were doing it to try and protect you. This whole time. Elizabeth, me, time after time we keep leaving. We left so you could spend more time with your wife. We only took you out with us when we knew you would be vital to help, not just willy nilly as some body guard."

Gowan couldn't help but feel a heaviness to his eyes. It was the same story over and over in his life. People assuming his kindness was a sales tactic. He knew it was expected when working in youth ministry, and there it made sense, he understood and encouraged the accountability.

The moment the lights went out and they were told that the world was being refreshed, he held out hope. He held out hope that maybe, just maybe, when the lights came on and the world recovered that things would be different. That he could go to a store, and smile, and be nice, and the shop keeper wouldn't keep a keen eye on his friends, or on his hands, to assume it was a front to take something. He thought that maybe he could ask an elderly woman if she needed help carrying her groceries without her being skeptical there was some kind of scam going on.

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Whenever he tried to take the values that Jesus taught him out of his own community, where people who largely looked like him, there was always a skepticism. There was always an underlying fear that there was another reason. He didn't like to talk about it, because even talking about it made him one of those people who were divisive, or troublesome, or outspoken. It just got to him that at the end of the world, he was still a black man trying to love his neighbour and having his motives doubted.

In his mind, Gowan prayed to his God for strength and then tried to calmly approach Emilio. He narrowed his eyes with sincerity. He knew Emilio had his own hang-ups, but he had to try. "Please let us help, because we care about you, man. I care about you. My God says I gotta care about you. We can let all that stuff in the past slide. We have all fought so hard and I don't care if we don't see eye to eye. I just want us to both see the sun rise."

Emilio appreciated forwardness. He was good at spotting bullshit. He nodded slightly, then nodded more aggressively. "Yeah. Ok. Come with us." He looked around at Donovan, Matthew, and Victor. "If any of youse have the knife and you're not telling us," He pointed to Matthew, "Bruce Lee won't be the only one on the ground."

With that, he stomped back up the ramp with Saleem, Gowan, and Elizabeth in tow. Armed with nothing but two of the candles. The remaining one they had left for the trio in the cinema.

Victor was sitting closer to Donovan and Matthew now, slowly reciting bible verses under his breath as he watched Donovan continue to try and keep Matthew alert.

Even though they had left the cinema many times, Elizabeth had never gotten used to the way the corridors and small alcoves looked so different in the dark. The mall always had a liminal feel during late night hours, or when she'd finished a shift at Candles n' Things and it was just her, the security guards, and the other poor minimum wage suckers closing shop. However, the small things made the difference.

When the world wasn't ending, but the shopping center was asleep, she didn't notice the comfort that the buzzing overhead lights would bring. She didn't notice how the air from the vents acted like the breath of the center. There was no floor polisher in the distance. Every now and then, there would still be a squeak or a creak from what she hoped was simply the building settling around them.

She enjoyed the footsteps of the group which slapped over the polished floors. Maybe the echoes would give their positions away, but at least it meant they were still alive to make those steps. There was no time to process the horrors that she had witnessed. Perhaps soon, when the sun hit her face and she stepped outside those double doors she would need some time to reflect before she began to rebuild her life. However, right now, her only goal was to track down the light source.

She was nervous at what they would find, but these days she was freezing less and less. When times got scary, she could continue to put one foot in front of the other because she had to. What was the alternative? If she stood still, that's when she'd be found the easiest by whatever was lurking.

The center had two central corridors that ran parallel, with small breaks in between to join them up to each other. This is where additional shops were placed so you could move between the main strips fairly easily. It did mean that it was very easy to get turned around when moving from one side to the other.

At the end that they were at, the cinema was directly above a food court. Leaving that area took you to the main entrance with a wide space and the double doors. If you walked towards the double doors but turned left instead, you would find one of the corridors, with the other corridor starting slightly later down the path in the remaining space after the food court. There were meant to be renovations but Southglen was always promising renovations, even when she was back at Candles n' Things.

The corridors were so long, even in the daylight you weren't able to see down to the end. It was easy to forget which one the shop you were looking for was in, let alone now when the group didn't really know what they were looking for. They spanned all the way down and eventually hit the food court at the other end, with a grocery store.

"Should we each take a corridor?" Saleem asked quietly.

Elizabeth sucked in through her teeth, "Last time we split up we got kidnapped."

"I mean yeah," Saleem stage whispered, "by me though." He gestured to himself, "And I'm here now."

"We'd cover more ground," Emilio thought out loud. He turned to Gowan. "What do you think, mate?"

"We're going to need to search the stores. We need to look for smashed windows and actually go into the stores to look." He turned to Saleem, "What if there are more like you?"

Elizabeth had an idea. She turned to Emilio. "Did Amy like candles?"

"Yeah, I guess. Doesn't every woman over 30 have a weird obsession with candles they never light?" Emilio shrugged.

She went to take offence and then raised her eyebrows, "You're not wrong." She hovered her hands, ready to get told her plan was ridiculous, "Hear me out: Let's just for the sake of argument assume it's not a celestial miracle being. It would be someone with a candle, right? What if instead of splitting up, lurking around to find smashed windows and unlocked doors, risking getting taken by more roving gangs of weird people who think we're demons," she looked around, "we start with the candle stores. The Home Store would have them and that's got an entry thanks to us, but if I needed a candle fast, wouldn't Candles n' Things be the best option?"

"But they already have a candle," Saleem noted.

Elizabeth shrugged. "They might want spares."

Gowan bunched his lips in thought. "Why don't we stick our heads into The Home Store and see if there's any light showing. That way we're at less risk of getting jumped. Just on our way, then we walk down the corridor to Candles n' Things. It's a small store, right? We can sidle on past and if not we'll keep walking to the food court then make our way back through the other corridor."

Turning to Emilio, Elizabeth gently placed her small hand on his buff upper arm in an attempt to be comforting, "If it is Amy, she might find us along the way."

Emilio thought for a moment and then nodded before he lead the trudge through the dark.

They found their way into the beginning of The Home Store. It was large and had shelves of diverse stock. They did not walk in very far. After a cursory scan and no lights around, they decided to head out and go further down the corridor.

It was clear that at some point, someone had broken into Candles n' Things. However, there was no longer any sign of life. When Elizabeth worked there, she never remembered beeswax candles being something that they stocked. It was all fragranced soy wax. If someone was trying to find the right kind of candle, they wouldn't have found it there.

Elizabeth took a brief moment in the store to close her eyes and smell the nostalgic aroma of what was once her life. She hated the job. The cheap, black, polyester shirts and pants of the uniform made her feel like she was chewing on alfoil. At least when she dealt with angry people in her veteran services role, they were angry over real problems, not the limited edition candle scent being out of stock.

Yet right then, she missed it. She didn't realise that even the light she was greeted with each morning was a security. The artificial smells of river cottage and forest mist took her back to a time when her heart wasn't pounding in her throat and her stomach wasn't protesting the entire way through her digestive tract after packets of beige became her only sustenance. Working a minimum wage casual job meant that she could only feed herself every second day after the rent was paid, and she honestly didn't know which kind of hunger sucked more.

The group made their way down to the food court. If there was anyone following them, or luring them, they were doing a terrible job. When their footsteps stopped, it sounded like there was nobody else left in the universe. The only sounds continued to be the protests of the building as it continued to stand through the temperature changes, along with whatever else may have been happening outside.

A sour smell hung in the air from the refrigerators and freezers being left off for a long period of time. The sushi place suffered the most. The food was always so fresh. Once the power was cut, Elizabeth assumed that the seafood would be the first casualty.

"Maybe you're right. It was fucking stupid of me to think she came back," Emilio mumbled dejectedly.

They made their way through the court and turned around to begin their way back through the other corridor. Gowan dutifully checked under the tarps and material covering the kiosk stands in the middle of the hall while Saleem was holding the candle to reflect off the glass display windows around them to see if any had been smashed to gain entry.

Nothing.

Suddenly, Gowan yelled to them as he darted ahead and into the darkness. Ahead of him was a single pinpoint of light.

The group pleaded for him to wait for them, but when his lover awaited him, the man was unstoppable.