Traum von Asterhive

The Mall

In the beginning there was nothing.

Then there was Asterhive Mall.

You don't know how it got there. Frankly, you don't think anyone does. Everyone is there though. At least, everyone of note. Whoever isn't of note you'll never see, because their existence to you is like that of an ant halfway across the world, something never to be met and ignored even if met.

Sometimes, you wonder if the Asterhive itself knows how it came to be, or even when it came to be. You're certain that you know what it is now though, a mass of interconnected skyscrapers consisting of mall-hotel-casinos with spas and bomb shelters and archives and a single great airport somewhere in the west. You know this because it answers sometimes, when you bother to ask. It's polite enough for that nowadays.

You don't quite live in the Asterhive Mall. Yes, you did inhabit one of its hotel rooms, you wandered its halls and browsed its shops, but you didn't live there, not really.

(Where you did live you cannot remember, as hard as you try to. All you know is that it's not here in the thing that calls itself a mall. Even now, you know you don't live here, because how can one live where he doesn't belong?)

It was a pleasant enough existence, if a little boring. You could sleep whenever you want. You were never hungry, but you knew the room service is excellent. There was no school, but there were enough books to teach you everything you could possibly desire to learn. Sometimes there were shows in the lower floors, live musicians or art galleries. Sometimes a stray bird entered, and you'd follow it to see how it got in, just in case you'd ever feel the urge to get out.

It was a limbo in this mall really, filled with the pleasant dread and ominous peace found in standing alone under a thunderstorm or the moments before waking.

It could be worse, you thought.

And one day, it got worse.