Chapter 27

The Great Mall Adventure: Part I

Ty came to a few minutes later as Anna pushed open the doors to the mall and strolled inside. She stopped inside the entrance and looked back at Ty.

“You're awake!” She exclaimed as she pulled him to his feet. “Look, we're here!”

So they were. Ty had to admit that it was a pretty impressive place.

More than impressive, it was logically impossible.

From the street, the building looked tall enough for three stories. How was it, then, that there were at least twelve? Each one packed to the brim with stores and shoppers swarming around them like ants with an intruder on their hill.

He remembered the rows of houses he saw; there were so many people here, everyone living in them must be in this one place. Most, anyways. As Anna took him deeper into the mall, it became clear that there were just three groups in the building: women, children, and the elderly. Teenagers and younger men were all missing.

The men were at work, Ty saw that. The teenagers could have been in school... but then why were all these school-age children here?

“Are there no kids in this place older than us?”

Anna looked at him like he was stupid. “Anyone older than us isn't a child and has much better things to be doing.”

“What do the teenagers do? Are all of the men at work? Why don't the women work?”

Anna glared at him. “How do you not know all of this? You're thirteen now for goodness sake! You should have memorized your pamphlet ages ago.”

“What pamphlet?” Anna's face alarmed him so he acted fast to correct the question. “Er, I mean... I lost mine. Before I could memorize it.”

Her face brightened. “Oh! Is that all? You could have asked for a replacement at school, silly! Here, you can have mine.”

She pulled a small booklet from her purse and pressed it into his hand. She took off again, not caring enough to give Ty a chance to read in peace. He left the walking to her and flipped through the book.

It was obviously made for younger children, more pictures than words. The first two pages he turned to were a joint picture. Two stick figures, one wore a dress, armed with a vacuum cleaner and a duster. The other sported a hat and a briefcase. Underneath it read: Mommies stay at home. Daddies go to work.

Ty turned the page. There were two pictures, instead of one big one. The page on the left had a smaller stick figure playing with toys, above it were the words: Children play, while out of the way...

On the right page was the same stick figure from the left picture but taller, older. Some men in suits picked his toys off the ground and carried them away while the kid stood straight and obedient. Above, the sentence from the previous page was continued: ...until the day play is taken away.

The whole booklet was disturbing in the way it stated its contents as pure fact, in a manner so simplistic it was hard to even call them a picture book. Even typical dictator propaganda had to have better writing and drawings than this. Regardless of the artistic effort put into it, they both clearly had the same goal in mind: brainwashing.

Ty couldn't look at it any longer. He ripped the pamphlet in half and casually dropped it, hoping Anna wouldn't see. She didn't, and Ty made sure to press down harder than necessary when his foot fell on the shredded paper.

Free of the booklet, Ty tuned into his surroundings as Anna tugged him onto an escalator. He half expected it to do something weird, like go into hyper speed or turn into a twisting stairway that led up to the highest point of the mall—but it remained normal. He could see other flights of escalators that continued on from the floors above them, all the way to what must be the twelfth story.

“Isn't there an elevator?” Ty asked. “Wouldn't that be faster?”

Anna shook her head. Oh well, at least there weren't normal stairs—Ty was grateful for that.

Their escalator deposited them on the second floor, into the crowd of people. Without the handcuff, Ty would have lost Anna in an instant—he’d never been around so many people at once, in such a small space. A large group turned into a store, and that was when he saw them.

Children, walking on leashes. Complete with a skintight collar, as if they were animals.

As they went by, Ty saw that there were two kinds of children: calm and well-mannered, or full of energy and a desperate need to free themselves from their mothers.

The latter group were almost like animals, such was their ferocity in the attempts to break out of their collar. One tried to gnaw through the leather with his teeth. Another ran circles around her mother until they both got tangled in the leash.

Their disobedience was short lived. A push of a button from the mother's end of the leash resulted in a high voltage shock. It brought an end to most of their escape attempts, except for the girl who'd tied her mother up. The electricity continued until they were both unconscious, the voltage carrying through to the parent as well.

The well-behaved group were older than their rebellious counterparts, and it was obvious that they had been put through years of leash training that gave them a terrifying obedience. They walked up straight, never straying farther than a few feet from their mother. Occasionally, when they passed another kid their age, they would exchange brief nods, but no other form of communication.

“Come on, you have to admit that is not right,” Ty pointed to the leash wearing children.

“What isn't right about it? Kids can be monsters; they need discipline or they will never grow up to be fine young men and women.” Ty got the impression that everything she said to him was a standard response, beaten into her head from similar means as the pamphlet.

“So you wore one of those things?”

“Yes, stupid, everyone did. I got mine off earlier than most because of perfect behavior.” She didn't even attempt to hide her pride.

Ty dropped the subject. Another pointless argument was the last thing he wanted. He followed her through the mall in silence, noting to himself the similarities between the leashed children and his handcuff.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

#

The mall turned out to be more than twelve stories high. The higher they went, the more the building grew. Ty gave up trying to keep count of the floors. For some reason, Anna didn't stop on any landing, going straight up the next escalator as soon as they got off of one.

This torture went on for hours—with zero breaks—until they got to the very top, where Ty's legs gave out from under him and he fell onto the floor.

Anna glared down at him, one hand on her hip while her foot tapped impatiently. “There's no time for resting, silly! We have shopping to do! We're going to work our way back down, stopping in any store I want.”

Ty suddenly felt very sick again.

“Come on!” She yanked him to his feet. “We've got to stop in my favorite store first.”

She took off, weaving her way through the crowds of people as Ty tripped and stumbled along behind her. Each step sent a large aching pain up throughout his entire leg. And his feet—he couldn't even feel them anymore. She expected him to go all the way back down again? Bleeding stumps would be all that remained of his feet by the time the trip was over.

Anna came to an abrupt halt and Ty stopped beside her, grateful for a rest. Standing still felt awful, but what lay in front of them was even worse. Before, pink had been his least favorite color. That was no longer the case. The store, named “SUPER DUPER PRETTY SUNSHINE” tore pink to shreds.

The entirety of the store was bright yellow. We're talking bright-as-the-sun bright. Ty felt his eyes melting just looking at it.

“Beautiful, isn't it?” To his disbelief, she was serious. Tears ran down her eyes as she stared right at the store. Was that that from happiness... or pain?

“No it isn't,” Ty said blankly. “I mean, look at that,” he pointed at the store's name. “They can't be serious. And the color…”

Ty let the sentence die when he saw the flash of anger on Anna's face. He didn't see it for long, her fist blocking his view as it connected with his head again.

At least now I don't have to look at the store, he managed, before he blacked out.

#

Ty regained consciousness. Worst involuntary mistake of his life. Blinded, he shut his eyes as fast and tight as he could. Normally, he would have tried a few more times to let his eyes adjust to his surroundings. But he knew where he was, and that even though it was a horrible place, it was not life-threatening.

So he kept his eyes closed and his ears open. The first sound that alerted him was the trash that played from the store's radio system. The singer's voice was so high pitched it amazed him that every window in the entire mall didn't shatter from it. And the lyrics… Ty tried very hard to block them out.

After much ear bleeding, he realized that Anna was actually talking.

“Oooh, this one is so cute,” she cooed. “And this one, and this one, and—Whoa, that one is ugly! Why did I pick up that one?”

He heard her walk farther away from him, his cuffed wrist pulled tight. Thankfully, she didn't have far to go. He heard a clanking noise, then the sound of rustling.

She mumbled about how ugly it was, and good riddance that it was gone. An object fell to the ground, then she said, “Hmm… which one should I try on first?” Something didn't feel quite right about this situation… “I'll ask Ty!”

“Ty,” she said as she shook him. “Wake up!”

She rudely held his eyelids open and Ty recoiled in pain as the bright yellow flooded in.

“Sooo bright…” He mumbled with his eyelids closed, his hands over them for extra protection.

“Ugh, here you idiot.”

Anna removed his hands and Ty felt her put something else on his face.

“Open your eyes.”

Ty didn't.

“Open them!”

Ty felt like further refusal would result in his death–or at least another fist to the head–so he obeyed. Much to his relief, he could see! The world had a dark tint to it. Sunglasses! And, let's see… he was in a small box of a room. Clothes hung from a hanger on one of the walls. A changing room? Yeah, that made sense!

Oh, and what is that? A pile of clothes on the floor? He was missing something here, something big and important, he could feel it…

“Hey, okay, which one of these should I try on first?”

Anna came into view. She held two shirts in each hand, both the same blinding bright yellow as everything else in the crazy store. He would have told her too, but something else caught his attention: whom the clothes on the floor belonged to, and the horror that they were not where they were supposed to be.

He covered his eyes—breaking a lens in his haste—and ran screaming for the door. He crashed into it, realized it was locked, looked for a lock, found the lock, fiddled with it, and then burst through. He forgot all about the handcuffs; they pulled him back and slammed his head into the door. Dazed, he slid down it and came to rest on the floor, his retreat ruined.

“That was so uncalled for,” Anna's annoyed voice said from behind the (thankfully) now-closed door. “Okay, which one?”

She dangled the two choices over the changing room wall. Ty picked one at random and Anna seemed pleased.

Ty was not pleased. No, here he was, in an insane store with a pair of broken sunglasses, in a mall full of weird people, and behind him (chained to him, no less), was an insane girly-girl version of his best friend. And all of these things were in a warped version of his home, where his family were psychotic pyromaniacs. What did it all mean?

That's when he remembered something Gentry said.

My world exists to help them; to help you. Here you can fight out your fears and problems... or snap under their pressure.

His fears? So this entire place was built upon his fears? That… kind of made sense. But what was he afraid of? He tried to see everything as a whole, but could only conclude that everything here was crazy. He didn't think being afraid of crazy people was the answer.

Before he was able to delve deeper into the dream world’s meaning, Anna opened the door. The door hit Ty in the head (again!) and he lost whatever train of thought he’d previously been riding.

“How do I look?” She spun around to give him a view of all sides.

Ty couldn't find the words to describe how she looked. Well, he could, but he was sure she wouldn't let him live if he spoke them.

Because of the yellow color, at first glance it appeared to be an ordinary Sunday dress. As you looked closer (and the brightness of it dimmed a little bit) you realized that the dress was way too short and showed way too much skin.

She looked like she was ready for church all right… if said church took place during a rock concert.

“You look…” He had to tread carefully. One wrong word and he was a dead man. “Good?”

“Oh, I do, don't I!” She exclaimed.

Ty breathed a sigh of relief. He made it through alive.

Anna spun once more, then darted down and forced him into a kiss. Ty tried to get free for a few seconds but then gave up; it wasn't worth the effort.

Like the others, it ended and Ty was able to breathe again. He should have known that was coming. Why, oh why, didn't he just say it was ugly? Death had to be better than her lips…

“I'm going to change, then we'll be on our way.”

“On our way? Home?” Ty asked as he dodged the door when she went back in.

“No, dummy—we still have dozens and dozens of stores to go in first!”

Ty groaned. He could not take more stores like this one—he just couldn't. He needed to find a way to get free of Anna before he went just as insane as everyone else in this place. He'd been trying to plan ways of doing that in the back of his head all day. So far, he'd come up with nothing... well, he did have a breakthrough when they walked by a tool shop. He almost had a pair of pliers, but after that his memory became hazy. Anna must have hit him really hard.

Without anything better to do, Ty messed around with the handcuffs. It was no use; they were the real deal.

Ty groaned as he leaned his head back against the door... right as Anna opened it.

“Ready?” Anna asked cheerfully. “Hey, what are you doing?” She added when she noticed Ty bent over.

“Oh, you know, fighting off brain damage.”

“Good, good! That's good. I hope you win.” Her smile was so bright Ty was glad he still had one lens in his sunglasses.

“Come on,” she said, walking to the checkout. “Time to go.”

Ty had no arguments there. He jumped to his feet and allowed her to lead him away. Anna paid for her things, handed the bags to Ty, and they were out of that awful place.

Now only thousands of stores stood between him and the ground floor...