Chaos Theorem

Chapter 14: Sacrifice

I noticed that the mall looked slightly more disheveled than when I first saw it with Will and Tricky. There was just something wrecked, miserable, abandoned about the place. It was Matt who pointed out the main change that probably lead to my unsettling thoughts.
  "How did you get in? The door's all boardered up."
  It was wooden planks that hid the inside of the mall. The glass behind must have been smashed by the falling of the cover over the stairs, which I now noticed was also gone. The mall now appeared boring and was somehow more unwelcoming.
  I gulped and pointed down the alley, "There was a side door down there. I'm fairly sure it's locked now, though, or at least too heavy to move."
  "Welp," Alpha shrugged, "Guess it's time to do what I always do in a fix."
  "Which is?" Yenn asked, looking slightly worried.
  "Destroy shit and see what happens."
  Yenn rolled his eyes, "Don't do that!"
  "Actually, maybe it might be worth having a pry at the boards on the door?" I realised, gesturing to the weak-looking, beige planks.
  "Yeah, Yenn! I'm gonna pry the door!" Alpha teased, walking dramatically towards the boards, "Come on, guys! Team effort!"
  And so all of us walked over to Alpha (apart from Stella, who still probably needed a séance) and we dug our fingers around the boards and pulled with all of our might. The work was hard, and the night was hot even for Florida, where I came from. It was almost as if we were stood on the surface of the sun, and I felt myself growing weaker as time went on.
  However, ten minutes and a hundred blisters later, we actually did manage to remove the board. It clattered to the ground, almost crushing Ava, who was nimble enough to dodge. As Alpha cheered and swiped Matt and Adam into an uncomfortable jumping huddle, me and Yenn decided to do something about our situation.
  And I was right. We had seen arrows earlier, you see, and I looked into the grey and saw the pink of arrows reaching out. The game was in the mall!
  "Woah." Yenn breathed as he stared into the dusty, sprawling wreckage inside. The inside matched the facade, with a collapsed escalator and an unreachable top floor being the mall's defining features.
  "There's less acid than I thought there'd be." Ava mused.
  "Gotta count the small blessings, I guess." Yenn shrugged, taking another step in and looking around.
  "But I don't understand. Before, this place was flooding..." I scowled. There was something about this place I didn't trust, and it wasn't just the game we were doomed to play.
  "Follow the arrows and we'll find out." Matt panted, pulling away from Alpha to go get Stella.
  "But, like, how will that help us find out? I'm not sure that actually being here is that safe." I shook my head, glaring into the mysterious and unrelenting darkness.
  "But it was your idea to follow the arrows here." Yenn sighed.
  "I know... but I don't exactly have the best track record for good lu-"
  And then the crowd was pushed apart. A furry hand touched me and shoved me aside, and I almost fell backwards into the edge of the door. My face became heated. I really did have no luck.
  "Hey! Watch where... you're... wait, Null? Elise? What are you doing here?" I gasped upon realising who it was who had pushed through the crowd.
  It was good to see someone familiar.
  I watched achingly as Null's face suddenly contorted into a twisted grin, "Well that is interesting."

**KAT**

  I tried to remember if this game had a time limit, but then I remembered that my memory was miserable, and that was why Will was holding the map.
  "Hey, dude?" I asked, tapping Will on the shoulder. So that he kept to the game's path, he didn't turn.
  "Yes?" Will muttered absent-mindedly, his gaze focused on the forest and the coming fog.
  "Do you remember if there's a time limit?" I queried.
  "The phone says eight minutes. We have enough time, but we need to keep moving." Will notified me.
  "Cool! You can really tell they didn't factor into this game that we're really smart!" I grinned, punching the air hopefully.
  "I'm really smart. You didn't think to check your own phone for a timer in a death game we're playing. That uses our phones." Will corrected her.
  I let out a shockingly confused sound that was somewhere between a scoff and a chuckle.
  "Wait, did I just say that?" Will gasped, "Sorry, Kat. You're not stupid."
  "Oh, no, no! It was funny." I grinned, checking my phone to see the timer tick down.
  Will didn't respond to that, and I couldn't help but worry that he was internalising his feelings again. My grin melted to a frown. And then the frown stretched into a yelp as Will stopped and I proceeded to walk into him.
  "I swear we've seen this tree before. It looks familiar." Will panicked, looking frantically from his phone to the tree.
  "Oh look, it has a face!"
  Well, it didn't actually have a face, but it looked like it did. And then I squinted at it before gasping.
  "Oh no, I do know this tree!"
  "No... I can't have walked us in a circle?" Will breathed quickly, putting a hand on the beak of his mask and whimpering.
  "Oh, wait, no, there it is!" I grinned, pointing to another gravestone just beyond the trees, "Huh, you'd have thought this place was procedurely generated, like a video game. As Marina once said, 'it's funny because we're all living in a simulation and free will is a lie'!"
  "Who's Marina? Is she a friend?" Will asked as we walked to the stone.
  "Oh yeah, we go way back." I lied. Marina was a video game character, but he didn't need to know that.