I was at a shopping centre just outside of my town where I’ve lived for about ten years now. I was going out to buy some clothes for my girlfriend’s birthday which was coming up. I had bought all the gifts for, most of which were clothes, and saw a JCPenney at the top of the escalator that I had never seen before. I fought my way through the crowd to get to the foot of the escalator.
I went up to it and realised that it was spelt “JCPenny” the way the internet thought it was spelled for years and then went crazy about when it wasn’t. I didn’t take it much into account at the time and walked in. Immediately, I was hit with a strange sensation, I just couldn’t place my finger on it.
As I was walking around, I suddenly realised there was no cashier, no sales assistants, not even a single customer except me. Why didn’t I realise sooner? I walked out of the store, feeling very strange, only to realise I was the last one in the centre. The crowd I’d literally just fought through to get to the escalator? Gone. Every single person was gone.
Standing exactly where I was, I looked around the centre, not noticing anything explicitly different about the centre than before. However, I could see something was off about the image ahead of me. Possibly just the lack of people. But that was still no explanation for what happened while I was in that store. I walked towards the motionless escalator and walked down. As I looked up to the JCPenny, it was just a white wall. I sprinted back up to look at it. There was no store there. It had simply disappeared.
I decided my best option was just to leave. Luckily, I knew this shopping centre well, so I could at least find my way out easily. I walked towards the exit. After a while, I realised I had been walking a lot longer than I should have been to find the exit. Maybe I was in a slightly different part of the centre than I thought. As I kept walking, I realised I was by one of the shops where I’d bought one of my girlfriend’s presents. At the other end of the centre from where I was heading.
I was beginning to get scared. What had happened in that store? Where did the store disappear to? Where was I now? Why can’t I leave? All the questions kept rushing in and out of my head until suddenly I heard a scream. I jumped and backed off from the direction it came from. It was an extremely distorted scream. Further down the long, white hall of the centre, I saw a dark figure. It had no bodily features, but somehow I knew it was looking at me, its gaze piercing my heart and lungs. I decided to just run into the store on my left. The second I started moving I heard lots of the distorted screams all around me, terrifyingly close. As I ran through the store, I made it to a back exit, as I made it out, I saw people. It was a split second. Then they disappeared.
I was left with a scene of destruction. Not like an apocalypse but cars crashed everywhere, but it still seemed as if there was nobody to crash those cars. As I walked out into the car park, I spun around. A numbness caused by shock took over my body and my head spun. The shopping centre was gone.
As I turned back towards the scene of destruction, it was gone. I was left with just a regular night time car park. There were no cars and still no people. I took a step forward, further into the night. As I did, I heard the same scream again. It was much further, but not as far as I’d liked. Whatever this was, could it hear me walking? I took another step and the scream happened simultaneously, closer this time. I began running. I panicked. It was stupid, but I couldn’t just stand in the car park for the rest of my life. I kept running until the scream was directly in my ear. I stopped. Waiting for whatever this was to just finish me. “Leave” I heard in my ear. I replied saying I couldn’t. Something grabbed me. That was the last thing I remembered.
Before I realised what was happening, I was standing in the middle of the shopping centre, staring down an infinite hall. I saw a figure ahead. A person. Thank god. As he walked in my direction, I began running towards him. Only I could hear the scream again. It was practically behind me, but I didn’t stop. It didn’t catch up with me. The person made eye contact with me, thinking he would run towards me, he did the opposite and turned and ran. I heard more distant screaming as well as the screaming practically next to me. I looked up to the upper floors to see one of the black figures again. All it did was look at me. I moved. It didn’t chase me.
I had to find the person.