Before I can scream, I am choked by the ring of shattering glass; the windows of the skylight disintegrate as a dozen lightning spears shoot down and penetrate the tile flooring. Giant steel rods materialize in their wake, exploding like Tesla coils in the eye of a storm.
"Get up!" Lakme shouts, pulling me away as another barrage of spears darts down, rending the plaza flooring into a v-shaped crater.
Stumbling, we make our way up the stairs when I hear gunshots ring out from the third floor of the mall; slowly, a noxious yellow gas with a faint rainbow colored aura creeps in from the west side—the direction from where we entered. As my hand is rested on the handrail, watching the chaos behind us, it catches fire, and quickly consumes the side of escalator, almost torching Lakme in the process.
"Can you at least try to control it?!?"
"How the hell am I supposed to control it?"
"Didn't you see? You grabbed it with your hand and it caught fire!" she points towards the rail, "Don't touch anything unless you absolutely have to!"
In the distance, as the noxious yellow gas mists over the scattered corpses, I can faintly see their shapes begin to twist and contort; a shadow appears on the balcony, and the blinking lights alongside the loud, repeating bangs reveal the silhouette of a man.
"Die! Die already, you bastard!!!"
It's Harley's voice, desperately fighting off warped humanoid forms; blood splatters against the glass panes like an artist hurling buckets of red paint onto a wall. He turns around and begins to sprint the other way, stopping to gawk at us from over the railing before running out of sight.
"Should we go upstairs?" I ask Lakme.
"No other way! We've gotta get outta here! Come on!"
As we traverse the second floor, the structure beneath our feet groans and twists, morphing as if alive. The air vibrates with the intensity of a hundred storms, and the sky, visible through the broken ceiling, flashes with an otherworldly light, painting our ascent in strokes of terror and turmoil. The glass beneath the railing snaps as the yellow clouds encroach upon them, but we press on as trails of gas float in behind our feet. We climb the escalator towards the third floor, the gunshots now a constant staccato, accompanying the chaotic symphony of the apocalypse unfolding between the walls. The yellow gas is quickly ascending the chamber, turning it into a macabre dreamscape.
Harley's voice cuts through once again, "Out of my way!"
We skirt around the central atrium, avoiding the gas where we can, stepping over remains of red and white ghouls, some of them looking like mannequins, and others like car wreck victims. Harley's frantic yelling erupts into laughter and seems to echo from every corner, bouncing off the atrium's glass and steel, blending with the cacophony of the rolling thunder.
Through the chaos, we reach the fourth floor, where the atmosphere thickens with gunpowder and fear. Shards of glass crunch underfoot as Harley paves the way through above us, but beyond the smoke, figures can be seen scaling the walls. As the yellow smoke closes the distance, I can hear that sound again, the sound of a chorus singing otherworldly cantatas.
"They're scaling the floors, we have to pick up the pace!" shouts Lakme.
"Hold up! Maybe if I..."
I quickly lean down and touch the floor with the palm of my hand, but nothing happens.
"What are you doing? We've gotta go!"
Lakme seizes my forearm and attempts to drag me away, but when my arm leaves the ground, a flame starts to spread over the floor; it burns with a peculiar light, casting shadows that dance and shift in directions it should not be able to. The flame seems to have a consciousness of its own, searing a path with smoke that fights against the yellow haze as it creeps ever closer.
We bolt toward the stairs leading to the fifth floor, the heat from my flames licking at our heels, creating a barrier between us and the encroaching gas as the infernal choir grows louder. When we reach the fifth floor, Harley is at one end, backed into a corner by ghouls of various shapes and sizes, while there appears to be a straight path towards the opposite end, lined with shops and boutiques, now shattered and looted.
"Aren't we going to help him?!?" I shout to Lakme as she is about to turn heel.
"No time for that! Now let's go!"
"We can't just leave him here!" I shout, pointing towards Harley's cornered figure.
"We don't have a choice, Maria! This place is coming down and quickly!" Lakme yells back, her voice nearly lost in the tumult.
Harley seems to be holding his own, but the creatures are relentless, a grotesque parade of twisted limbs and gnarled faces jerk towards and away from him as he obliterates them.
"Cover me from the elevator!" I scream to Lakme, "If I can't make it in time, just leave without me!" I protest, my words barely audible over the chaos.
Lakme grabs my arm, her eyes stern. "We don't have a choice, Maria! It's us or nobody! We need to get out, now!"
Reluctantly, I follow her, casting a final glance back at Harley, who is now swinging a broken piece of rebar in desperation. His silhouette against the horde is like that of a tragic hero in a painting, fighting a losing battle against an ever-encroaching darkness. Before we reach the freight elevator towards the other end of the floor, I paint my hands across the walls and floors, and watch as the flames spread towards the creatures, engulfing them in a consuming fire.
Lakme throttles the elevator button repeatedly with her thumb, the doors finally relenting and opening with a begrudging creak. We stumble inside, and, as the doors close, I press my hand against the metal, the flames eagerly jumping from my fingertips to the elevator shaft, burning a path of destruction that follows us up.
"We're almost there," Lakme says, her voice now calm but strained. Her hand is steady on her weapon, her eyes focused on the panel above. As we reach the bottom floor, the elevator dings, and the doors slide open to reveal a lot, which is empty save for a couple of abandoned trucks and wooden pallets. The dark cloud hangs overhead, lobbing electric rods at the earth, though it doesn't seem to be aware that we've made it out; quickly we move for the shadows of the nearest alley.
Lakme leads the way, her steps purposeful yet cautious as she navigates through the maze of debris and discarded junk. The silence is eerie; it's the absence of the chaos, the missing roars and screams, and the lack of gunshots that amplifies the quiet.
"The trucks... any of them working, you think?" I murmur, my voice hoarse from the smoke and shouting.
"We can only hope. Help me check," she replies, her voice betraying a hint of fatigue that she hadn't shown before.
We split up, each inspecting one of the trucks. The vehicles are old and forgotten by time, rust adorning their edges and weeds entangling their wheels. I yank the door of the nearest truck, which protests but eventually gives way. Sliding into the driver's seat, I'm greeted by the smell of mold and decay of the nylon cloth seats. The keys dangle from the ignition, inviting me to turn them. I pray that the vehicle won't catch fire, and suddenly the engine coughs, sputters, and, to my disbelief, roars to life.
"Lakme!" I shout, "I've got one!"
She appears beside the truck, a rare smile cutting through the grime on her face. "Let's get out of here, fast!"
She scooches me over into the passenger seat and slams the door shut after climbing in. The engine of the truck grumbles like a waking beast, and Lakme wastes no time, her hands deftly slipping the truck into gear before footing the pedal; we swerve into the lot and toward the exit, the truck lurching over potholes and debris. The day tilts over into the afternoon, though the clouds create an unseemly glow that dampens the remaining light. It could be approaching nighttime, but if it is, but we certainly wouldn't know.
"Keep an eye on our rear." she says, glancing into the side mirror, "We're not out of the woods just yet."
I watch the clouds above the mall shrink in the distance; for a moment it looks like a painting, but in a split second, it spreads across the sky like a spill of ink, blotting out the horizon. The mall's silhouette fades into a mere shadow against the chaos of the stormy sky.
"Shit!" she shouts as she tries to swerve out of the way of the oncoming javelins, which rain down from the sky like innumerable hailstones; she tries to dodge them, and for the first few seconds she does so seamlessly, but her concentration wanes and her gaze drifts into the void.
"Lakme?" I say, but she doesn't respond; she swerves out of the way of a falling spear, "Lakme!"
"In ten seconds, you're going to open that passenger door, got it?" she says suddenly, keeping her eyes focused on the road, "Maria?"
"Right." I reply firmly before counting down in tandem with her.
"What for?"
"Just do what I say!"
"One...two...three...four...five...six...seven...eight...nine...ten" and as I open the door, she starts to slow down.
"Is your seatbelt on?" she asks.
"No." I reply, and she pushes me out of the truck as a barrage of spears rains down onto the road from a hundred different directions; I roll as I drop from the vehicle to cushion my fall, and the last thing I hear before I hit the ground is the sound of tires screeching, accompanied by a series of loud bangs. When I look up, the truck is totaled, rammed through the side of a building, smoke bellowing up into the air. As I lay on the ground, I cannot feel anything but the sensation of burning. I fear that if I don't do anything, I'm going to burn up, or be obliterated by a thousand giant needles, but I'm as helpless as a doll. I can't move, I can hardly even think. The flames spread everywhere, and they rise up so high that I can't see anything at all but the clouds.
The smoke is a black hole and the sky is a white wall.
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