Encrypted

Chapter Three: Bright

You pull up to the clearing across the street from the mall you worked for and manage to pull a parallel parking job without crashing into the curb. You pulled your key out of the ignition and climbed out of your car before locking it. You had parked in a shaded area across the street from the mall, which was useful in the summer when it got rather hot during your seven am to five pm shifts.

Unfortunately it was fall, so the shade did little good for you, but you still parked there year 'round out of habit.

You cross the street to the mall which looked like your average mall with big windows, a blockish shape, a large parking lot in the front, and to your(my) distaste, very little greenery. They couldn't even put a few flowers around the front of the building, it was just cement.

 You take out your keys to the building and you push the sliding doors open. You wished the mall had electricity when your shift started, but no they had to quote on quote 'save power.' If they wanted to save power they could save a hundred times as much if they didn't have so many fans. Like, did they really need six hundred fans all constantly running on full power twenty four seven.

You push the doors closed behind you and you start up the unmoving escalator. When you get to the top you take a left toward the staff locker room. You travel past the kids corner of the mall which your co-workers had dubbed "Snot-Nose Cove". It was the left half of the second floor which was purely shops that focused on toys and children's clothing and only that.

During the day Kids' Corner was crowded with unsupervised children and tired parents. You always had to watch that area closely during your shifts, that place was crawling with creeps that you had to kick out as well. Your hand wraps around the "Employees Only" doorknob and you walk into a break room that connected to the locker rooms.

The room was big, square and relatively empty aside from a fucked up couch that no one used, the mini fridge right next to it, a microwave on top of the mini fridge, and a sad, and probably dead,  potted snake plant (look it up) in the corner. Half the lights were off and the other half were all dimly lit and flickering. It was easy to see that your higher ups didn't care all that much about the condition of staff only areas. They didn't have to use them after all, they did all the paperwork and stuff in an office building over in Hurricane.

There was a note taped to the mini fridge that you and your co-workers used as a notice board. You sighed, the note said something about your higher ups sending one of their supervisors to check on the condition of the mall. From past experience you knew that the supervisors wouldn't do anything. You knew that they'd just observe the mall and what happened from afar.

You walked around the giant, cobwebbed, and overall just shitty couch that no one used, in the middle of the space on the way to the locker room door on the far side of the break room. The locker room was in slightly better condition but it was still pretty bad. The walls were stone, the floor was stone as well but also dirty and would probably get you sick, in fact a few months back you had gotten ringworm, a contagious and relatively harmless fungus that is another form the of athletes foot fungus, on your thigh just from momentarily sitting down in one of the benches just next to the actual lockers. After that you had been sure to keep athlete's foot cream in your locker just in case. You shuddered at the memory and opened your locker to remove one of your uniforms. 

•=^.-.^=•

After changing into your uniform you exited with your flashlight that that you didn't need most of the time, considering the fact that you worked the day shift. You leave you locker and break room behind you as you make your daily rounds: From the staff rooms to the food court, top floor to bottom floor, ect.

It was around eleven am when people finally started streaming through the malls automatically sliding doors that refused to open for you every morning. It was also around that time that your co-workers finally got there. The first few hours of your shift you're alone due to the mall being somewhat understaffed.

•=^.-.^=•

You were on your lunch break in the food court when the man saw you. He looked to be at the very least seventy. He also looked like someone's balding grandpa, he was walking around with a cane and everything. Yet something was off about him, he was creepy, hanging around watching groups of teen girls. You definitely didn't like him. 

You ott up with the intention of kicking him out, as you usually did with creeps. It was your job as a security guard after all. You packed your lunch items into your work bag and pushed in your chair, a serious expression on your face as you marched towards the creep.

A bright light interrupted just about everything in the mall, and you fall over, your ears ringing. The last thing you could hear before you black out were faint whispers.

"Don't you trust me?~..."

"Do I?"