text: > look around
  The ceiling in this room is unique within the basement, as it is actually enough up where I don't have to hunch. All available light is strongly reflected from the coffin, which sits quietly in the corner of the room. The walls are made out of a flecked brick, and a support beam stands to the right of the coffin.
  
  Exits are south towards the stairs and east into a tight alcove.
  The lid is here.
  The mummy is here.
  
  > examine menorah
  The menorah has places for nine candles -- one for each day of Hanukkah, and then one candle which is the Shamash, which is used to light the other candles once per day for each day of the holiday. This menorah is made out of brass and does not appear to have had any attention or cleaning in quite some time.
  Inside the menorah are the crimson candle, the cyan candle, the jade candle, the umber candle, the indigo candle, the canary candle, the black candle, the slate candle, and the white candle.
  
  Inside the menorah are the crimson candle, the cyan candle, the jade candle, the umber candle, the indigo candle, the canary candle, the black candle, the slate candle, and the white candle.
  
  > look at the coffin
  The coffin is made out of some kind of stone-like substance that I am not altogether familiar with. It's like a chiseled and well-grooved offshoot of pyrite. It nevertheless reflects light quite well, and practically shimmers down here in the basement, excepting those bits of it flecked with dried blood.
  
  > look at the lid
  The coffin lid is about six and a half feet long, three feet wide and a good eight or nine inches deep. It's made out of rough stone, but of a type filled with flecks of highly reflective metal. The stonework is strictly functional, as there are several gashes and lines in the lid and it hardly even approximates a smooth surface anywhere that I can see.
  
  > examine blood
  Which blood do you mean, the dried blood or the bag of blood?
  
  > get the bag
  I grab the bag.
  
  > Go upwards
  The Nutrition Store is dominated by a series of five-foot high shelves that make up four distinct aisles. The walls are a sickly shade of green and contrast with the subdued nature of the shelves and all the jars of pills placed upon them.
  
  In the rear of the store is a modest wood counter and an ancient analog cash register. Even further, behind the counter and register, is a metal door.
  
  There is no front gate to the Nutrition Store, only a ten foot cut in the wall. The opening is not quite centered, however, and a 5'x3' pane of glass has been placed into the southern wall.
  The Magic: The Gathering cards are here.
  Audrey and Gibs are here.
  
  > Go southeast
  I can't go that way. I can go down to the basement entrance or southwest to the food court's east half.
  
  > Go east
  Mall, First Level, Central Corridor
  This stretch of the Mall hallway is covered with just a fine dusting of rubble. There are clear exits to the west and south. The gate to the Record Store is down to the north.
  Gibs's lacrosse stick, Barnaby's Big Gulp drink are here.
  
  Audrey and Gibs follow me.
  
  > Go south
  Mall, First Level, Southern Edge
  This is the southern-most section of the Mall. There's a large block of impenetrable cement to the south, which covers over the failed Outlet Store, and two paths to two other stores: the candle store (west) and party favors store (east).
  
  Audrey and Gibs follow me.
  
  The spectre arrives from the east.
  
  > give the bag to the spectre
  The spectre looks stupidly at the bag of blood for several moments, blinking the little ovals on its transparent face where eyes ought to be. I grasp Audrey's hand and ensure that she's physically behind me in case the spectre revolts. It doesn't, however, and instead impossibly takes hold of the bag with intangible fingers. "Perfect," it says, simply, "I thank you."
  
  The spectre blinks out of existence.
  
  > go north
  I hate going in here, but I have apparently been a patron enough times to notice how peculiar the store is without its overhead fluorescent spotlights. The low light received from outside produces oddly-angled little shadows, albeit (apparently) non-sentient ones.
  
  There are two long rows of shelves along the north-south orient of the store, and a cashier's counter in back.
  A fluorescent light is here.
  The crucified girl is here.
  
  Audrey and Gibs follow me.
  
  > go northeast
  I can't go that way. I can go south to the corridor.
  
  > search mummy
  The mummy is empty.
  
  > go to the west
  I can't go that way. I can go northwest to Mall, First Level, North Edge or east to the food court's east half.
  
  > go northwest
  Mall, First Level, North Edge
  We are before the last long hall. To the north, approximately fifty yards away, are the exit doors. There are no stores to either side of us. An informational kiosk and some planted trees are the only things in between us and the exit. Well, that and the levitating, possessed body of one of my friends, natch.
  The ghast's head is here.
  Sydney and Casey are here.
  
  Audrey and Gibs follow me.
  
  > Go north
  I kicked open the first set of exit doors, entered the airlock and pushed open the second set. I held it as all my friends made it out. The sky was completely free from clouds and had the slightest hint of azure swirling within its fair blue mix. The sun hadn't yet crept up over the plains and scrub to the east, but it was only going to be moments before we started to see the first few beams.
  
  > give the shades to Casey
  moments before we started to see the first few beams.Audrey desperately looked for some cover from the sun for her friend. She spotted the group of the anonymously parked lorries sitting in the lot and ran towards one. I took Casey's hand and brought her to them. The van would give us a few extra seconds relief from the daylight that would kill her.
  
  I brushed Casey's hair away from her face. I couldn't help a tangential glance at the bite marks on her neck. They were terrible, fascinating... beautiful. Members of my generation have had hundreds of thousands of tattoos and this was more striking than any of them.
  
  "I'm not going to give up on you, Casey," I whispered to her. She offered no response. Trott, Gibs and Sydney joined us. I tossed my keys to Trott and told him to bring my car around. Casey hadn't made a sound since we had left the Mall. "I'll get some blankets for you," I told her. "We'll cover you up, get you to a hospital, get you a transfusion..." Audrey let out a little sound of a cry. I saw that her cheeks were streaked with tears. She had been so silent I hadn't noticed.
  
  I jumped flat-out of my skin when Casey grabbed my arm. She opened her eyes. They were blank, as if her eyes had rolled to the back of her head. But she was still able to lock onto me and stare right through me.
  
  "I don't want to live like this," she said. Her voice was so soft, but her grip -- her nails were digging through the sleeves of my jacket, almost breaking the skin on my wrist.
  
  "I won't live like this," she said. "You already all look so tempting. You, Jarret... I can't stop thinking of what it would be like to just take the littlest sip from you..." She released her grip on her own. She was still in control of herself, albeit barely. "And you," she said, a wry smile forming on her lips as she looked up at Gibs, "You would have been delicious..."
  
  "That's not the vampirism talking," whispered Gibs.
  
  Casey turned slightly and faced me again. "The sun. I feel can feel it already. I won't be able to make this decision tomorrow night. Tomorrow will be too late." She rose until she stood, giving no pause to worry about leverage or looking slightly awkward as she took to her feet. She hugged me. She hugged us all, one by one, until only Audrey was left. Casey gave her a kiss on her cheek and Audrey finally broke down. They embraced. And as terrible as I felt for Casey, it was killing me that my girl was having to go through the mechanics of saying goodbye forever to her best friend.
  
  "There is no other group that I would like to spend my final moments with," said Casey. "I will miss you all."
  
  I took Casey's hand and pulled her up as we climbed on top of the truck. I tried to tell her that I could find a way to heal her, to fix her -- that there was still time. But she was staring straight ahead. The sky continued to turn brighter. We were up there for less than a minute, but it felt like I had tried to argue with her and talk her down for ages
  
  At exactly 7:21am she briefly turned to me with a sad smile and stretched her arms out as wide as they would go. I grabbed hold of her in an attempt to drag her down, but daylight peeked out over the horizon and instantly vaporized her. She disintegrated away into a whiff of dust and only the smallest bit of her was left in my hand. Her clothes fell to the top of the van. I heard Audrey shriek from below. I picked up Casey's clothes and hopped down to the ground.
  
  I opened the passenger door to my car and directed Audrey in. The rest of us dispersed and went our separate ways. I drove up to the Fort, expecting to drop Audrey off and go home. She brought me inside and together we both crawled into her bed. She fell asleep quickly, and within moments I was hypnotized by her rise and fall. We both slept for most of the rest of the day.
  
  After about twelve hours I fell back into consciousness. I kissed my girl on the lips, but she only stirred, smiled faintly, and fell back into sleep without ever opening her eyes. In the modern mythology I don't follow, a kiss on that is supposed to wake up the girl
  when it's delivered by her own Prince Charming.
  
  It just made it all the more obvious that I've never been that guy for her.
  
  I slipped out of her room and drove myself home.
  Four months later...
  
  > hit enter
  I thought the five of us would have difficulties explaining what happened in the Mall right after the incident. I thought there would be questions, interrogations, solicitors and then time in locked rooms downtown before good cops gone bad, and then thrown off our case, but at the last second rehired because they always got results.
  
  But there was none of that. Not so much as a single arched eyebrow. Electricity had been restored when I sheepishly returned a few days later for my next shift. The bodies were removed, either when the ghost vanished or by carry-out after the fact. I never found out because I was too much of a coward to ever research what officially happened to them.
  
  It was easy to not get into a nervous furor about things with my friends because I hardly saw any of them afterwards. Gibs treated missing his shift that night as a power ploy and ended up getting promoted and the afternoon drive-time slot. Sydney I only ever saw through Audrey, and Audrey moved to Texas at me a week after what went down in the Mall. I mean, right at me. (If it could be said
  that someone could aggressively move 'at' somebody, I mean. If that's possible, then that's definitely what Audrey did.) Trott was the only one of the group that I ever encountered with any regularity, and that was because we worked together. We never spoke about that night.
  
  But after four days of living with the spectre of the night figuratively breathing a chilling ulcer into my bones I decided that it was time that we did.
  
  > hit enter
  The Curiosity Shoppe is rather smallish, as far as stores around here go, nestled into the far corners of the Mall, distant from practically every other decent or worthwhile store. Shelves of gaming books and modules are arranged everywhere, and promotional kiosks occupy the floorspace between the register and the far wall.
  
  In the last few months, Benji has decided to sell all sorts of other worthless crap to increase the profit margin of the store. This includes, but is not limited to, baseball cards, DDR mats, stuffed Japanese Gromit Dolls, stripper poles, headphones and joy buzzers.
  
  Trott and I are working here this evening, and it's been a rather slow night.
  Trott is here.
  
  > talk to Trott
  Please select one:
  
  (1) "Hey, Trott... You know That Night we never talk about?"
  
  > 1
  "Uhm, yeah..." Trott shifts uncomfortably.
  
  "I think it's high time we talked about it." I look him dead in the eye, but Trott doesn't respond. "C'mon! What the fuck went on that night?" I start to get really agitated and animated. This is how you need to be to get through to Trott sometimes. "All that undead? What was all that? How on earth have you rationalized that in your
  mind?"
  
  Trott looks around for a cigarette. He finally finds one and takes a long drag on it.
  
  "Truth to tell, Jarret... heh. I deal with it every day by remembering to completely forget about it. I put it all out of my head. Let me tell you a story." Trott offers me a cigarette. I accept.
  
  Trott exhales a long stream of smoke. "When I was in college, a few of my friends and I were playing with a ouija board. I had never done it before. And neither had my friend Raida. We were both put together on the board, on opposite sides, naturally. As first-timers, this was going to be of interest to the old pros."
  
  "Naturally," I say.
  
  "Well, the 'spirits' were asked a bunch of questions. We saw the planchette moved intelligently to the different letters. I know for a fact that I didn't move it. I am pretty sure that she didn't as well. What we saw and what we were told through the board spooked the hell out of us. The spirits knew our names and threatened us and told us that they were going to suck down our souls and so forth. There was only one thing that bugged me, though."
  
  Trott frowns. "Well, actually, the entire thing shocked the living Christ right out of me. But anyway. At one point Herr
  geistenhaus was asked which one of us they were going to get
  first, me or Raida. The ghost said that it was going to be me, and spelled my name out T-R-O-T-T. Three instances of the letter 'T.' Immediately after, a similar question was asked, and Raida's name came up. Her name was spelled -- by the spirits! -- with the letter 'I' and not 'Y.' So not only are those beasties in contact with us on the physical plane, but they also instinctively knew how to spell our names with all our crazy variants. Oh, and it referred to me by my last name rather than my first. Of course."
  
  "What the hell is your first name, anyway?" I ask.
  
  "Sveinsgeird?ttir," says Trott. I wouldn't have guessed that. I would have gone with 'John' if pressed. "It's Norse," says Trott, helpfully.
  
  "Anyway. I borrowed the board a couple nights later. I set it up on my bed. Raida and I put it backwards to us, and we closed our eyes. I set up a webcam to record what happened on the board." Trott takes a thoughtful puff. "And what happened later, away from the board, too, as it turns out." He shakes his head to remove a quick smile based on old memories. "We got back gibberish from what we asked. You'd think the banshees and demons could account for the board being oddly placed, but they couldn't, apparently. Ah! Ah! Ah! There is something called the ideomotor effect, I later learned. But the point is... there's plenty of standard explanations for remarkable things that happen that everyday. So Sydney was 'levitating.' Sometimes magnetism looks like super powers. It got cold in the Mall. Fuck. The
  power was out. And when is it ever not cold in the Mall? July? People turned into monsters..."
  
  "Admittedly, tougher to explain," continues Trott. "Maybe the government tried out an ebola strain on people." He lowers his voice. "People like Rudolph. Er, Randolph. Whoever." He looks around the store to make sure nobody else has wandered in. "It's already legal to create a bot and just let it run loose around town. I don't know for certain. But I do know that I am not prepared to blindly believe in anything. I don't mind playing role playing games and being a dungeon master and whatever else, but I certainly won't baaa-baaaa my way around life and absorb every pseudo-supernatural event I encounter like a peanut-brained little sheep."