They walked out of the hallway. Gowan was still holding the candle. They had started to slowly turn down one of the alleys when the flicker of another candle caught theirs.

"Oh! Cute! You managed the gum wrapper prison lighter trick again! Yay!" Victor said, patronisingly. "Well," Victor said, "that's a very neat trick you managed, but I said you were staying in the cinema."

Gowan squared up his shoulders. "You gonna make us?"

Victor looked Gowan up and down and laughed. "I can be persuasive."

He turned to Elizabeth, and slowly lifted his lanky fingers upwards.

Shooting pain coursed through Elizabeth's arm. forearm began rotating by itself until it felt like it was going to snap. She felt that familiar freezing response coming back. She let out a yelp, then a whimper. Her eyes were welling with water again, as she looked at Gowan with a shame in her eyes.

Gowan gasped. "No. No, no. No." He looked at Victor, "stop!" He held out a hand to Elizabeth, "It's not your fault."

"This is just the beginning," Victor bragged, "I can keep going. It's your choice really."

"We'll go!" Gowan yelled, angrily.

Rapidly, Elizabeth's arm untwisted, springing back into the correct placement. She yelled again, as tears streamed down her face.

She couldn't place it. To watch her body be contorted in a way that was not controlled by herself. It took her back to memories she didn't want to relive. She felt nauseous. The shame that coursed through her body brought her back to feeling like she was fresh at university again, getting told to not drink as much and maybe she'd be safer.

They trudged through the hallway, the two candles still lit.

Victor ushered them back into the cinema. He walked them one last time down the aisle to the home that they had settled into days prior. Victor's gaze drifted over the cardboard boxes of beige food they had been sustaining themselves on.

"Oh! You know what could be fun, you know, to help you make up your minds quicker?" He gestured to the cardboard. "We could test if this is flammable! Wouldn't that be fun! Then you could have three choices! Well, I suppose starving to death would be off the table if you both burned to a crisp," he shrugged nonchalantly, "but I'd get to leave this shithole sooner."

"Why?" Gowan yelled at Victor, "Just why? Why did you do this to us? To the town? Why take away the light? The electricity? Just to torment a handful of people and kill everyone else?"

Victor's cheekbones were exaggerated by his smile. "Because it's fun."

Gowan said nothing.

"What?" Victor asked flatly, "Are you waiting for a lesson here?" He closed his eyes in glee. "It's simply fun." He laughed. "You're both going to die because I am bored and your souls are fun to play with."

"Not ours." Gowan shook his head. "Not anymore."

Victor cocked an eyebrow. "What're you going to do? Run away again?"

"Nah." He walked over to Victor more menacingly. "I figured it out. I figured out why you kept volunteering me for the dangerous stuff. I figured out why you wanted me to stay away."

"Did you?" Victor remained unmoved.

Gowan took a deep breath, and first moved to Elizabeth. He nodded his head slightly. "Lizzy, I love you. I would have given the world for you to be Mrs. Elizabeth Daniel, but I don't know what will happen after this."

They kissed softly.

"I love you too," she whispered.

"Fucking hell, I had to sit through this already." Victor yawned. "Do your little show so I can hurry up and set you on fire."

"I'm already on fire, bro. For the Lord. And I am calling on him now," Gowan spoke with power and authority. "I call on you Lord to fill me with your spirit. Use me as a vessel Lord to get rid of this demon and reclaim your earth."

Victor tapped his foot, "It won't work, I'm telling you."

Gowan ignored him. "Use me, Lord. Use me to win these battles against darkness as your faithful servant. I want to be filled with your light, Lord. I want to be used by you."

"I'm going to set the garbage on fire now," Victor began walking over to the pile of boxes.

Elizabeth began calling out too, "Use him Lord. Use him as a vessel. Fill him with your light. Fill him with your love."

The two remained pleading to the Lord as Victor simply remained amused, mocking them and their attempts. He stopped in his tracks when the sound of a great trumpet call rocked the building. It was loud, and caused the trio to cover their ears. Gowan and Elizabeth kept going.

The knife they had left earlier on the floor began to glow a purple colour. Elizabeth was the first to notice and dived for the weapon. Victor called out in alarm, but she was able to dodge him just in time to get the knife to Gowan.

"The Lord is on my side, Victor. Who do you have? The darkness? You're not going to take the world out like that. There are only two of us, but we are under one mighty Lord."

In an act of desperation, Victor lunged at the cardboard boxes with his candle to set all three of them ablaze in the cinema room.

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Gowan knew he had to charge. He took the knife, pulsating with the glowing purple light, and took it to Victor's side. As he plunged it in, the demon let out the roar of pain he had caused so many others. The roar evolved into what sounded like the shrieking of bats. Black flakes peeled from the wound and soon disappeared into the air above.

A powerful light sprung from the wound that was so strong Elizabeth had to cover her eyes. Gowan yelled what Elizabeth could only describe a righteous battle cry as he held the knife inside the evil that had tormented those inside Southglen Shopping Center for an entire week. Suddenly, the room went quiet and dark as both flames went out.

Elizabeth froze as the entire world stopped around her.

The cinema screen became softly illuminated with the faint glow of the standby screen. The cinema looked different with the dim lights in the room. It looked bigger. It didn't look like home anymore.

Her heart sank as she looked to the middle of the room. Gowan's body lay lifeless on the ground. He was fused into the charred remains of Victor, whose body had half changed to ooze that was pooling on the floor. She knelt beside Gowan and touched his face, knowing it would be the last time.

"Thank you," she whispered softly to him.

She took his arm one last time and lay down beside him. The arm that was not fused to Victor's remains was heavy, but she wrapped it over herself. She placed her head on his chest one last time. There was no heartbeat. There was no breath. So she just lay there, in silence, looking at the ring she'd picked out from the fancy clothing store beside the foil ring.

She closed her eyes, just so she could take in his smell one last time. Even though it wasn't the same, mixed with the smell of ash and burning skin. "Mrs. Elizabeth Daniel," she said to herself as she closed her eyes.

It took all of her strength to finally remove his arm from her. She took one final look at her love, and the room she had spent the last week or so inside of, and made her way out the doors. She could see the light behind them. As she opened them, she saw that the skylight was working again, as were the regular fluorescent lights.

It was day time, and the natural light flooded into the mall.

She saw the escalator working again, but for curiosity's sake, she decided she'd see what the fire exit looked like with working lights. After all, she had the time. Not to mention, there was no one to tell her she couldn't. She could always come back up and glide down the escalator whenever she felt like it.

As she entered the ramp, she noticed the plastic wrappers littered on the ground amongst pieces of fabric. One of the pieces was fashioned into a noose. The third beeswax candle lay on the cement nearby, above it were words scrawled crudely in marker on the rough, cement wall. "Black smoke for murder."

She stopped in her tracks. Through everything that had happened, she had forgotten that she had killed a man. Yes, she could walk outside, but to who? Was the world still going to be spinning? If she did live a full life, would she end up in the black smoke anyway?

In a daze, she continued down the exit to come out at the now well-lit food court. She turned the corner to walk past the escalator. For a moment, she stopped to remember Amy's fall.

One foot after the other, she could do this.

She wandered the corridors one last time, stopping by Woodland Fawn to collect Gideon's car keys from her previously discarded pants. It was no longer necessary to get Matthew from the hospital, but it could at least get her away from the mall.

She knew it was time.

She continued to the large foyer entrance with the main sliding doors. They loomed in front of her, with newspaper still over the windows. She looked up at the frosted skylight, just to make sure she was not imagining the sun coming in.

With a deep breath, she walked into the sensor line of the double doors.

They opened for her.

Outside the air smelled crisp. She never considered that trees had a scent before. The sky was a vibrant blue, and the wind kissed her skin. However, the world appeared empty.

There were cars in the parking lot, but none on the road. Not a single person walked on the footpath nearby. There was no one else in the world. It was just Elizabeth.

What was the point of being alive when there was no one to share it with? Gowan had sacrificed himself for her, but what could she live for if there was no one left to love? He died for her, but she would one day just devolve into a pile of black smoke. The man she had killed sure didn't seem like the forgiving type.

She played with the car keys in her hand. They were heavy and cold. It felt different to walk on the concrete footpath after spending so long in carpeted areas and polished flooring.

She took her shoes off and flexed her toes as she placed them in the grass on the nature strip. In the distance, some birds were chirping. A small smile spread on her face as she let this small moment sink in.

Eventually, Elizabeth put her shoes back on and continued across the road and to the mechanic. Even without a soul in sight, she habitually looked both ways as she crossed the street. The store was doubtlessly deserted.

Elizabeth didn't need to play coy anymore. She found the nearest brick and listened to the glass shatter. After gently tapping the remaining glass out from around where she was going to be reaching inside, she unlocked the door.

The floor had a large, vinyl checkerboard pattern. She hadn't been to a mechanic for many years, and yet it was as if they never really changed. It's not like business ever stopped booming for them, she supposed.

There was a waiting area and a few different doors off to various parts of the store. She took an educated guess that the one to the part of the store that did detailing was closest to the register. Mostly, due to the intricately painted sign that said as much.

Luckily, this door was unlocked. She shut it behind her. The garage was small.

Unsurprisingly, Gideon's car was sleek. It was a silver colour, and unlocked when you pressed a single button on the key fob. She had to admit, the detailer had done a fantastic job. The car was spotless.

Elizabeth sat in the driver's seat. She held her hands to the steering wheel to feel the smooth leather. The car had that new car smell. She took a moment to appreciate it. Her shoulders sunk as she reflected on what her life would be from here on out.

Lonely. Loveless. Pointless.

There would be no large car to take her kids to some silly soccer game that she'd complain was wasting her Saturday. She'd never get to use the speakerphone to remind Gowan to pick up more milk. As she looked at the back seat, she lamented that she would never have to clean Matthew's blood off them.

Even if Matthew was in a better place now.

Even if Matthew was in a better place that she would never be able to go due to the blood on her hands. It was Gowan who had made the sacrifice, not her. She couldn't imagine how one kind act could cancel out taking a life like that. She'd assumed it was Emilio and Saleem who had taken their lives in the hall. If so, Emilio wouldn't have had black smoke if self defense was forgiven. Surely.

In a split second decision, she turned on the ignition and sat in the car. She looked straight ahead, as tears rolled down her face. She was sad, she was angry, and she wished it was her melted to the floor in that cinema.

There was nothing else to live for and she wasn't ready for the slow, lonely march to the black smoke designated for the murderers.

So she just breathed in deeply and waited. She waited until it got harder to breathe. She waited until her eyes got heavy. She waited until the very last thing she felt in her short, unlived life, was the feeling of falling forward onto the steering wheel.

The last sound Elizabeth left in the world was the honking horn as the carbon monoxide took over. There was no dark smoke for Elizabeth. Nor was there purple smoke. All that surrounded her was the colourless gas that shot from the exhaust and into her lungs.

The honking of the horn could not be heard outside of the garage. For as it has been noted, there was no one around to hear it. The closest inhabited house was a few suburbs over.

Inside, a father and mother had spent the entire time with covered doors and windows, fasting and praying over a candle. The entire time, they had only prayed for two things:

Mercy from the Lord, and for their daughter to come home safely.