Chapter 5 - Seth
When we reached the mall, Ben went to his "headquarters", whatever that means, so I told him I was going to go off and explore the mall.
The first thing I noticed was the large columns sticking up randomly. Some of them had pictures of women with strange clothes and painted faces. On the other side, there were things that looked like maps, but it wasn't like any map I had ever seen.
The map was multi colored, and had writing like "A5". On the right-bottom of the map, there were names that corresponded with the map sections. I looked at the names, "GAP, American Eagle, AT&T, Macys...". Macys, I know that store! I found it on the map, C7, and headed off to go see it.
It wasn't too far away, a few second walk. On my way, I passed a store called Apple. I stopped to grab some food, but there was no food inside. I thought there would be apples, I mean that's the name of the store.
I walked over to a sign that had iPhone 8 written on it. Phone, that word sounded familiar. Oh, I remember now. Back before the war, people had phones. Phones were devices that allowed you to communicate with anyone, anywhere, and anytime you wanted.
As far as I could see, the store had been vandalized. I searched the room for a box, something, but I found nothing.
However, I had keen tracking skills, being a hunter and all, so I had an advantage.
I scanned the room; barren shelves, walls, and floors were all to be found. I thought all hope was lost until I saw a door, in the back, hidden by shadows. I scurried over to the door, and to my surprise, the door was locked.
"There has to be another way to get around," I said to myself. "there always is a plan b."
To my surprise, I located a vent right above the shelves over on the other wall.
I less than graciously climbed up the shelves and unscrewed the vent with my knife.
The vent was a lot flimsier than I expected. Even though I am muscular, I am also very nimble. I trusted the vent to hold me long enough to reach the other side. Hold me it did, because I reached the vent on the other end. I kicked out the vent and jumped through the hole.
Bingo. There were boxes everywhere. I located the nearest box and sliced it open with my knife.
The contents weren't what I expected. There was a device called a MacBook inside. That wasn't what I was looking for though. I frantically cut open boxes, going through many new devices I had never heard of before.
I finally reached the right box, and inside were neatly stacked containers with plastic around them. I opened one and was amazed at the inside.
The inside of the container had a piece of glass. I picked it up, and in response it brilliantly lit up with vivid colors.
In my surprise, I flung the device at the wall, where it burst into hundreds of little pieces.
"That must've been the iPhone thing. Well, now it's dead."
I opened another box, this time prepared for the iPhone to light up. To my surprise, the phone did nothing. I sat the phone aside and began investigating the contents of the box. Inside was a little instruction manual. The first picture showed someone putting a device into an outlet. We had outlets at our living compartment, but none of them looked like this.
The government pumps electricity underground to their government buildings. They don't provide any electricity to their citizens, which would be a waste. However, there was a man who used to be an electrician before the war who tapped into the government electricity supply. The man was later found and jailed for "theft of government property".
But the electricity is still accessible today. The government must've forgotten to turn it off, or they just don't care.
I located the device that was to be plugged in, and found that it had two prongs with circles on the ends of each one. I searched for an outlet in the room, and sure enough, I found one.
I knew that there was hardly any chance that the outlet would work, but I was feeling optimistic. When I plugged it in, though, there was no confirmation that it worked.
The manual said that it was supposed to light up; the mall must've not had electricity. I was about to try my attempt on another outlet, but I heard a footsteps coming from outside the door.
