Mysterious Awakening

The sprawling mall was eerily silent, an unsettling stillness broken only by the soft echo of Miles’s footsteps against the polished floors.

Beyond the massive windows, twilight quietly descended, painting the world in muted hues and leaving long shadows within the deserted mall. Yet, this subdued illumination was fleeting and would soon be swallowed by the encroaching darkness.

Once nightfall arrived and the mall’s artificial lights were extinguished, one would struggle to see their own hand in the dimness.

“Be careful, there’s someone to your left,” River’s anxious voice advised through the satellite phone nestled against Miles’s chest. Her warning was underscored by the faint hum of electronic transmission.

In the aisle’s corner, a middle-aged man stood still, his face ashen and surrounded by the odor of decay. His eyes remained closed, his posture eerily calm. He was as motionless as a marionette awaiting its puppeteer.

Miles moved towards the man, a quick sidelong glance acknowledging his presence. “I see him,” he murmured as he deftly sidestepped, moving past the inert figure.

Unperturbed, the man remained rooted in place, oblivious to Miles’s passing.

“Your guess was spot-on,” River exclaimed with an excited tremor in her voice, safely ensconced in the surveillance room. “The ghost… it didn’t attack you.”

Miles, however, was far from jubilant. “I’m beginning to think these aren’t actual spirits,” he commented, “more like puppets controlled by a single entity. The real ghost is likely hidden, possibly within someone. We need to move quickly. The surveillance system stores up to fifteen days of footage. I’ve reviewed the mall’s situation. The entire ordeal unfolded within ten days, starting from the initial incident to the temporary closure for refurbishment.”

“We just need to trace back to the beginning.”

“Rest assured, I’ve got this,” River replied, her trepidation slowly giving way to newfound resolve.

“Look out! There’s someone behind you, in the store,” she suddenly warned with urgency.

In a swift move, Miles spun around.

Clad in fashionable clothing, a young girl stood motionless behind the store’s showcase glass. Her dark skin hinted at the fact she had been dead for several days, maybe even longer than Blush. A vile black liquid seeped from her nose and eyes. Her hair, once lustrous, started to shed as she shifted.

Despite this, her hand rose, seemingly reaching out to Miles through the glass.

“Even behind the glass?” Miles swiftly pivoted, carefully stepping backward while maintaining his gaze.

Keeping their back turned seemed to deter the initial onslaught. Fleeing in fear, on the other hand, would only lead to a disastrous fate.

Having discerned this pattern, Miles felt the ghost was less intimidating.

“Right’s observation couldn’t be more apt,” Miles pondered. “As long as one grasps the ghost’s attack pattern and requirements early on, even an average individual could evade its grasp.”

However, this rule only held true for spirits of this caliber.

If confronted with a higher-level entity, like the indiscriminate baby ghost, the rules couldn’t guarantee absolute safety. They could only significantly improve one’s chances of survival.

Having narrowly avoided two lurking ghosts, Miles hastened his pace. The sound of footfalls grew louder, resonating unsettlingly with the eerie hum of the operational elevators.

Miles was aware that whichever direction he turned his back to, a ghost was bound to materialize. However, the ghost trailing him was at a safe distance and would require time to close in.

Lingering too long would lead to him being cornered, and that spelled certain doom.

Miles’s audacity was born out of his unique ability to control spirits; such a gambit would be unthinkable for an average person.

“Up ahead, to the left is the storage room,” River urgently directed him. “But you must move faster. More ghosts are closing in behind you, and I can see others emerging from the elevator. I’m scanning the surveillance footage as we speak; we should be able to pinpoint the ghost’s initial appearance soon.”

“I see them,” Miles acknowledged, casting a quick glance over his shoulder.

True enough, the elevator on the fourth floor was in motion. Through the dimness, he could discern two figures standing within it, moving up to the fifth floor.

The continuous mechanical drone of the elevators operating on the second and third floors only added to his unease.

Through his peripheral vision, he spotted shadowy forms stirring in several locations on the lower floors.

“Just how many people have vanished in this mall?” Miles pondered, an icy shiver trickling down his spine.

By a rough estimate, the count was at least twenty and was still rising. Ghosts kept materializing from all corners and levels of the mall, intensifying the pervading stench of death.

“This spirit chose well,” he thought, “a bustling mall where a dozen disappearances over a few days wouldn’t raise alarms. A less populated location wouldn’t offer as many opportunities for the ghost to claim victims. Now, these lost souls have become my concern.”

With caution steering his steps, he sprinted towards the storage room.

A man with a ghostly pallor stood rigidly outside the storage room door. His head belonged to a man in his thirties, but his body was that of a woman, clad in a long skirt and brown high heels.

It was clear his head had been replaced.

The man persistently pounded on the door, each blow resonating like a sledgehammer strike, threatening to splinter the door.

His arm was in a grotesque state, chunks of flesh missing, revealing the bone in a disturbing twist of anatomy.

However, the resiliency of a human body was far less than that of a door.

But this gruesome sight did nothing to deter his determination to break through.

Inside the storage room, the occupants watched in terror as the door shuddered under the onslaught, fear causing their hearts to race and their bodies to tremble.

“Ethan, quickly! Think of something!” Mall Manager Li pleaded, his voice steeped in terror. “It’s back. The door’s about to give way. It hasn’t left, it’s still there!”

“I’ll offer you five million, just get me out of here,” pleaded Mr. Calm, his usual frugality abandoned in the face of sheer terror.

Wealth is important, but life is priceless.

Ethan’s expression was a mask of severity. He stared at his blood-soaked hands, now seeping through his gloves in a ceaseless flow.

The growing pool of blood at his feet resisted complete reabsorption.

“I can’t use this ability anymore, or it’ll hasten my own end.” He drew in a deep, ragged breath.

The fresh blood on the door had ceased flowing since he withdrew his hand.

“Bang, bang!”

The thunderous sounds from the door resonated again, rattling the door frame and causing dust to descend from above.

The force behind the assault was intensifying. Overwhelmed by fear, everyone huddled closer together.

Meanwhile, in a less noticeable corner, Sister Pear, who had remained silent and stoic since the start, slowly rose to her feet.

Her pallid face was devoid of emotion as she adopted a peculiar pose, turning towards the group and outstretching her hands.

Just then, a loud crash echoed from outside. Something had been hurled to the ground, shattering on impact.

Miles’s voice carried from beyond the door: “Hey, anyone still alive in there? If you’re not dead, open the door. I can help you escape.”

“What? There are people outside?” Ethan was taken aback.

It seemed inconceivable. Given the multitude of ghosts in the mall, how could a living person survive, let alone exist?

“That’s the voice of the young security guard. Hurry, open the door and see if he really has a way to get us out,” Mr. Calm, possessing a keen memory, immediately recognized Miles’s voice.

“No, don’t open the door! We can’t be sure if it’s a human or a ghost outside,” Mall Manager Li cautioned, fear evident in his voice.

Upon hearing this, Ethan felt a chill run down his spine and adopted a grave demeanor.

There was no evidence to ascertain that the security guard outside was indeed human like the mall manager claims.

Could this be a trap?

Miles had managed to hurl the individual pounding at the storage room door off the fifth floor. Though the fall didn’t kill him, it would take some time for him to recover, right? This provided a temporary reprieve from the immediate crisis.

However, his expression turned somber after overhearing the discussion within the storage room. “Fine, stay inside if you wish. I’ve reviewed the security footage. Sister Pear, amongst you, is also a ghost. I’m not sure if she’s started to act yet. If she has, you’ll all perish. So, make a decision swiftly.”

“Huh?”

His revelation sent shockwaves through everyone in the storage room, turning their blood to ice.

“What? Sister Pear is a ghost?”

Almost instinctively, everyone turned in unison.

What met their eyes next was a terrifying sight. Sister Pear, who had been standing behind them, was now on her feet. However, she… was missing her head.

“Ahh~!”

A chorus of terrified screams reverberated through the storage room.

Outside, Miles winced, instinctively covering his ears.

The shrill screams were so loud that they could have been used to hit a soprano note.

The very next moment, the storage room door was flung open.

A cluster of people scrambled out frantically, their faces awash with tears and snot, and some with dark patches on their trousers.

“Run, run!”

“Help, I don’t want to die.”

Miles cautioned them, “Sure, scream if it helps, but don’t run around recklessly. There are more ghosts outside. The faster you run, the quicker you’ll meet your end.”

Mr. Calm, Mall Manager Li, and Master Catch, along with his group, hadn’t gotten far before terror immobilized them, their legs buckling beneath them.

Little did they know, the corridors of the fifth floor were already swarming with figures.

Every possible direction, forward, backward, left, and right, was crowded with individuals.

Each person was deathly pale, their eyes shut, exuding a foul, rotten odor. Their movements were rigid and mechanical, gradually advancing towards them and blocking all conceivable escape routes.

These were all the people who had vanished within the mall.

Today, they all reappeared.