Ancil“They probably left us,” I assumed
“No. They won’t do that. Jack, Ronald and Jinx won’t do that. I don’t know about the others though,” Sara said.
“We should go look for them,” I suggested.
“We should wait for a while.”
We waited for a while. A long while. Three hours actually. Sara even fell asleep while we were waiting and told me to keep watch but there was nothing to see but abandoned stores and fallen Wet Floor signs. No noise. No screaming. No groaning. Nothing.
Sara eventually woke up and when she noticed that her friends weren’t back yet she said. “They’re still not here yet?”
“Nope,” I said with my mouth full of yogurt that I found.
Sara rubbed her eyes, grabbed the yogurt and was about to eat it but stopped abruptly. “This is expired.”
“Yeah, but it’s the only thing I could find that didn’t smell like dead dog,” I said.
Sara hesitated for a while then gobbled the yogurt down. Her throat didn’t seem to enjoy it because right after, she coughed it back up. “This is disgusting. How could you even eat this?”
“It’s not that bad actually.”
“Not bad? It tastes like dead dog,” she said, still coughing.
“I like it,” I said, grabbing the yogurt from her and spooning up a scoop
She gave me a look of disgust. “Whatever. We should go look for them,”
“Yeah.”
We got up and walked through the mall which was now dark as night had now fallen. Even though the mall was solar powered I couldn’t find a switch anywhere so I had to use a torchlight which I found in one of the stores. There were evident loud groans outside and it got louder the darker it got. The groans resounded from all around us but they didn’t sound nearby enough to be much of a threat. Among the faint groans I heard muffled voices. It sounded like it was coming from a door next to us. I shined the light on the door and on it said “Bill’s Bar”.
I slowly opened the door and the blaring light blinded me. Jack, Jordan, Johnny and Jinx were all there and talking in extremely loud and slurred tones. Ronald was passed out on a black chair dribbling through his mouth. They were drunk and I didn’t need to see the half done bottles of rum to tell.
I sighed. We were so worried that something had happened to them and there they were, drunk. Sara had a few choice words for them but they kept convincing her to take a drink. There was enough alcohol for all of us to get drunk for a week.
Sara looked at me like she was relying on me to be the only voice of reason. I wasn’t drunk but my voice of reason was slurred. I grabbed a bottle of Cold Cicar and drank down the bottle in three short gulps.
“Why not,” I said, grabbing another one.
***
There wasn’t much talking after all the alcohol hit. The only conversation there came from me talking to myself in my drunken state. The others passed out but I had stomached enough energy to remain awake. I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I heard voices. Deep voices and they were talking to me. I couldn’t make out what they were saying but they were saying something and they were driving me insane. I felt jealous looking down at Sara and the others who were on the floor, peaceful and fast asleep. I wanted that peace, at least for the moment. That’s why I drank the alcohol but it clearly didn’t work. I assumed that maybe I needed to get out of the bar to clear my head because the voices in my head were steadily getting louder and louder and it was driving me even crazier.
I staggered out the room and as soon as I did I vomited all over the floor. I had my torchlight but I was so drunk that I couldn’t hold onto it as it clumsily fell to the floor. I then tripped on something and fell, unable to get back up. I was getting dizzy and the voices were now so loud that it drove a searing headache into my brain. I pressed the light on my watch and after focusing deeply onto the digits I saw that the time was 11:58pm. It was almost midnight. My eyes began to close by themselves and I struggled to keep them open but failed. Suddenly I blacked out.
I went straight into a dream. Well I assumed it was a dream but it was so vivid that it felt real. I was in the same mall but I was running and running fast. I had no control of where I was going but I was going somewhere. It felt real. I felt the wind on my skin as I ran and the thumping of my feet on the cold hard floor. My breathing was louder than usually and a lot throatier as though my throat was parched.
