#the corruption arc is being realized yaaay!

[haunting-of]

Jesha opened their eyes, more lucid than they’d been in about 10 days.

Alone, again, obviously.

They almost considered how much of a good thing it was to be without Danel or Vincent, but a headache started splitting into their brain. They were lying on a tiled floor, somewhere massive.

What happened here?

They sat up and saw someone lying, limp on their back, about 10 feet from where they were. A pool of blood from underneath the body had crept over the tile to touch someone else's pool of blood.

Their eyes opened further in the massive shopping mall, quiet besides the staticky radio overhead, corpses everywhere. In a circle around Jesha, 9 people with different boots, sneakers, and heels were unmoving, none of their faces quite visible from here.

And by the shops, slumped over food on tables, piling up at either end of the escalators. Nearly everything looked streaked with blood, still bright and shining.

No seriously, what happened here??

The air caught in Jesha’s lungs. The smell of copper did something to them now, but it made them tense to recognize it. And once their hands tensed, they felt the phone. Through the sweat, they could focus on this. 

The phone. They had it out before they were here. gave them a notification that there was no more room to save recordings. And an invitation to view the 8 minute video that was last recorded by the phone, taken 7 minutes ago, on the 6th of May at 4:32 Pm.

And in the video, because of course they hit play, was an upside-down shot of the world from Jesha’s right hip, shaking like they didn’t remember they’d hit record. It showed the bright May day, some people walking past from either direction, many almost stopping to stare at the person holding the camera. The recording kept the same pace and entered a building.

Inside, Jesha started recognizing some of the people in the video, alive and talking, walking, eating. The hand holding the camera stuttered, maybe the whole person holding it stumbled from dragging their feet through the mall. And in a scene that looked so familiar, the setting of where Jesha awoke began to match.

An echo, a siren, broke Jesha out of the reverie. It was approaching from somewhere behind them, and they couldn't see it yet. They still had enough experience with sirens to know to run. They missed a bit of the video, honestly, while they were looking for an emergency exit, beyond the point of caring what cameras caught their face.

Someone was coming, but Jesha could see the exit. They backpedaled around a corner and found a hiding spot, crouched in some greenery underneath some stairs. Turning the phones volume down to 0, they checked the video again.

The camera had only gotten shakier. It had flipped upright, like the hand holding it was being clutched to the holder's ear. It caught the attention of a man with a nice shirt that hadn't been stained red yet. He came over, closer to the camera, and his last words were mouthed silently on the screen. They were probably kind words. Something the man saw frightened him, and he backed up with his eyes wide.

Not fast enough. A burst of air visibly blew the man’s hair and clothes back like a burst of wind, his mouth dropped open in shock. From the way he flinched, it almost looked like a noise hurt his ears. Almost everyone in the mall was looking now.

A second gust of air hit him, and someone behind the man carreened backwards as a red streak of blood erupted from their face and curled into the air.

Another, some people were running, chaos, the man who'd checked on them and some more people fell over.

Another burst of wind, more blood spurting, people falling, people stopped moving as much.

Some shoes ran by as Jesha was watching, saying things like secure the perimeter, yadda yadda, blah blah. Everyone in the video had died, but blood was still flinging out of people. It looked like the gusts of wind had picked up too. They'd have to review the footage and analyze the sound later.

The phone eventually went back to recording upside down, dropped from the side of the head after the wind bursts had ended. Nothing was really moving.

Jesha got a sense that there was an opening now to get out of the mall. Somewhere they were having a huddle that echoed through the building. They stood from their spot in the plants and strolled out through the emergency exit, which warned them that it was alarmed and then did not set off an alarm. They trotted off into the afternoon.

They got the sense of being very, very alone. 

Silence, where there should be sound. 

Jesha, when they should’ve died long ago.

And they couldn't quite picture themself caring about any of these things.