Chapter 3 [The Lovers 1]

Byron Steward sat across the metal table from a young blonde woman in a light blue sundress. She was a gorgeous, slender woman with bright blue eyes that sparkled with the sunbeams coming through the skyline. She had a large milkshake in her right hand, and her left arm rested on the table. Her skin was beautiful, like jade. Her hair fell in waves down her back, and her lips wrapped around a metal straw as she casually sipped on her cold drink. Byron, who sat across from her, sat straight and tensed; he hadn't touched his drink and looked like a nervous wreck in stark contrast to her.

"Let's break up." Her voice was clear and melodious, but for a second, he didn't fully grasp the meaning of her words.

"What?"

"Let's break up."

His expression turned pitiful; he knew when she called him out here she didn't have anything good to say, and now his worst nightmare had come true.

Seeing that he was too stunned to speak, she got up, taking her milkshake in her hand. She grabbed the light blue channel purse that had been kept behind her on her seat. "Pay the bill." She said it lightly before leaving.

Byron struggled to keep his composure; everyone's eyes were on him as he had arrived with someone uncommonly attractive, and now she had left without him. She held back the tears in his eyes and paid for the milkshakes before leaving. He made his way through the hall before sitting on the fountain ledge on the ground floor with his milkshake in hand, which was quickly melting under the sunrays from the skyline.

He wallowed in self-pity; he thought he was lucky to get a girl like that in college, and yet here he is after being dumped. His eyes wandered across the large shopping mall. Couples walked by, teens, and even friend groups. A few children came to the fountain, asking their parents for coins to throw in and make a wish. There were a few staff members walking through their jobs, and some were talking to their colleagues.

Two girls walked by with rucksacks on their backs; they talked to each other casually like co-workers, and they were dressed warmly despite the heat. It was odd, but not odd enough to draw his attention, but his eyes followed them. The first girl was wearing trainers while the second wore boots; they both had their hair tied in ponytails, but the Caucasian girl's hair was in a low ponytail compared to the other girl's. He quickly noticed other people's eyes turned to them, not necessarily because of how warm they dressed but rather because, like his now-ex, they were devastatingly beautiful. He wanted to look away and focus on his troubles, but something in him compelled him to follow them.

He didn't want to look like a creep, so he kept himself at arm's length but followed them as they used the escalators going up to the highest floor. As soon as they arrived, an alarm went off in the hall. It was sudden and loud; the beeping stunned him for a few seconds, but those few seconds were enough to lose the two girls as the shopping centre descended into anarchy. People pushed and forced their way down the escalators, and he struggled to free himself from the crowd, pushing in the opposite direction until he was out of the bottleneck. He caught his breath and looked around for the girls, only catching a glance of one of the girl's blonde locs going into the sports store.

His intuition strongly pushed him to follow them. Despite the obvious warning to leave the building, he walked into the store and was hit at the back of his head as he lost consciousness.

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Marie grabbed the zip ties and tied the man's hands together before he regained consciousness. Suzanne dropped the baseball bat in her hand and dragged his limp body through the store, putting him against a large metal basket of footballs.

"I don't get it; why was he following us?" Marie asked, confused. She stuffed the protein bars on the store counter into her black bag and replaced her current water bottle with a larger one. Suzanne looked at the man before she also got to work; she knew he wouldn't be able to escape easily, and they only had less than a minute before the scenario would start. She rummaged through the adult section until she heard his voice.

"What? Hey, what the hell is wrong with you guys? Why am I tied up?

Marie grabbed the large wooden baseball bat and went to face the man. He was dark and handsome, with piercing blue eyes and a stupid, naïve look to him. She pointed the bat at him, so it rested just under his chin. "Why are you following us?" He looked confused for a second before his face lit up.

"I didn't mean to! I just followed you!" He paused, hearing himself. "I know I sound stupid; I just felt like if I didn't follow you, I'd be in danger!" Marie looked at Suzanne, who had come from behind him, holding an axe. She bent down to release him, and he quickly stood up, hissing in pain as the back of his head remained bruised. "Thank-!" He backed away quickly at a glance at the axe in her hand. "You're not planning to kill me, are you? Look, I know it was creepy, but I meant no harm!"

Suzanne raised a brow in amusement. "Your intuition is really good."

Before he could process the meaning behind her words, the TV in the store flashed brightly, and a weird static sound echoed through the hall. All of a sudden, the chaotic screams that they had ignored as background noise immediately quietened down. The TV shifted to another image of a doll. A puppet of a little boy with black hair and black button eyes, wearing blue overalls and a white top, looks perfectly safe and non-threatening. The two girls looked at each other and then at the boy on the floor. Seeing their gazes, he understood what they wanted him to do.

"Byron."

"Suzanne"

"Marie"

"Oh, how lovely! There are so many humans in this small building!" A voice echoed through the three-story shopping mall; it was the voice of an innocent young child that seemed to belong to the puppet on the TV. Suzanne handed the confused Byron her axe before stalking off to find another weapon.

"Welcome all of you! To the End of the World!"

Despite the puppet's lack of expression, Byron felt a shiver run down his spine as he looked at the two girls, expecting them to be freaking out, but instead, Marie watched calmly and Suzanne looked around the adult section of the sports store. They weren't fazed; it was almost as if they expected this. He suddenly felt his rising fear pathetic, so he bit his tongue and focused on the puppet.

"I know you must all be confused and distressed, and we completely understand how you feel! Actually, no, I don't!" Then it burst out in obnoxious laughter. The puppet moved its head as if it were laughing, but its mouth remained permanently half open. "I crack myself up anyway! The Lord is benevolent and wants to allow everyone to survive! If you can all just look at your right hand, you should see a number." The sound of murmuring drifted up to the third floor, where the three waited. "That number should be one! That number is the number of days left to live! To live another day, you have to win more lives! There are three ways to do this. Lives can be transferred between people if the transferer is willing, and lives can be taken if a person is killed. Finally, lives can be won by completing games.

Suzanne came back and threw a swizzling army knife at the three as she held on to what seemed like a pricy golf club.

"To leave this building alive, you have to survive 24 hours! Survive for 24 hours, and you will receive 24 lives! One for every hour!"

Byron sighed. It sounded easy enough.

"If we have to survive, there's probably going to be something trying to kill us," Suzanne said casually, forcing his alert back up. As she expected, there was a caveat.

"Hehehehe" A maniacal cackle came from the puppet, causing Marie to squeeze the bat in her hand to calm her nerves. "Surviving 24 hours is easy; there is just one problem! You see, among you there are butchers. If you have been assigned as a butcher, you must take 24 lives to survive, one for every hour. Butchers who do not meet their slaughter quota will die. There are currently 20 butchers and 480 sheep. Now, let the games begin!" The TV faded to black, and the puppet's voice was gone.

Marie felt her blood run cold as she turned to Byron, who had the axe. He noticed her gaze, and he felt uncomfortable.

"Why are you looking at me like that? You can't possibly think I'm a butcher, right?"

Suzanne grabbed his right hand and turned his arm over; on his arm, an 'X' tattoo appeared under the number one. Marie checked her arm, and she also had an 'X', as did Suzanne.

"So are we sheep or butchers?" Marie asked, confused.

"We're probably sheep; it would only make sense if a butcher were to kill 24 of us," Suzanne said, dropping Byron's arm. "Soon enough, the crowd downstairs will regain their wits and someone will die; we should find a place to bunker down till then."

"I know the perfect place!"

The third floor had a small food shop dedicated to convenience food; it was small enough that no one would immediately run towards it, and it helped that it was in a relatively remote part of the store. "Should we block the entrance?" Marie asked as she took off her heavy backpack from the floor.

"No, that's too much of an indicator that we're here; just bring down the shutter before anyone can get up here," Suzanne replied, heading straight for the cashier to find the keys to the back storage.

"So we get a life for every hour we survive; that means the smart butchers will stack lives, right?" Marie asked as she began to lower the metal shutters.

"The smart ones will just start a slaughter at the last hour," Suzanne replied. "The crazy ones will kill as many people as possible."

"Shouldn't we help other sheep?" Byron said, looking at the two.

"For now, let's consolidate what we know about everything going on, then we can decide what to do next." Marie picked up some cup noodles and headed back to the storage room. Byron followed them, picking out some food for himself. The three locked the door and turned on the electricity.

"I guess it won't be long till the lights go off," Byron said, looking at the dim light.

Marie put on the kettle to boil as they sat in silence.

"One sheep has been slaughtered."

The puppet's voice was heard once more, but this time it was just to announce the first kill. Byron threw his head in his hands. "Fuck, how did this happen?" His day started normally; he even agreed to meet his girlfriend, and yet here he was locked up in a storage room with the two strange girls.

At the thought of his now-ex, she checked his pockets, bringing out his phone. "Shit!"

The two girls looked at him; the kettle had boiled, and so they were now just waiting for their noodles to be ready.

"I have 70 missed calls, even my parents." He did need to explain for them to understand. This was his world; he had family and friends here.

"One sheep has been slaughtered!" The puppet's voice rang through the mall again.

"After they let us leave tomorrow, you can go look for your parents," Suzanne said quietly. She was reminded of the siblings she had left behind in this world and felt if he could, then he should go and rescue them. Whether or not his parents would survive for 24 hours was not something they could talk about.

Byron stared at his phone for a while. Among the calls, he saw multiple from his ex, and his heartstrings tugged painfully. He was aware of the chaos going on downstairs; the screams were faint now, but it was obvious a lot was going on, and yet here he was in comfort, like people weren't suffering.

Suzanne noticed his expression; the more she looked like him, the more she felt suspicious, especially with his intuition. "Do you want to go and save them?"

"I know I can't save everyone, but I should try." His voice was determined, and Suzanne frowned.

"Then you should go; do what you need to do."

Bryon looked up in surprise, but then he nodded and left the storage room.

Marie looked at Suzanne with a raised brow, curious as to what her plan was.

"What?" Suzanne asked as she stuffed her noodles into her mouth.

"Why are you so nice all of a sudden?" Suzanne was the cold-calculating type; nonsense like heroism annoyed her.

"I just think he's probably not a normal person; we should follow him and rescue him later; you'll understand what I mean," Suzanne said with a shrug.

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Byron gritted his teeth as he ran through the mall; the screams were getting louder and louder, and soon enough, he found himself at the scene of a crime. The puppet's announcements were becoming more and more regular, and people fled the scene like ants. He dialled her number, and she answered quickly.

"Where are you?" He was afraid his voice would drown in the noise of the crowd, so he shouted, hoping she could hear him.

"Byron, please help me." Her voice was choked with sobs. "I'm downstairs; we're hiding downstairs in the K-mart."

"I'm on my-" His words were cut short as his body was slammed against the walls of the mall, his phone slipping away from his hand, sliding across the floor, and stopping at a pool of fresh blood pooling under the slit neck of an elderly lady.

"Hello!? Byron!?" Natalia screamed his name, but he was immobilised. He felt his stomach unload its contents, and he threw up violently, coughing and sputtering. A large figure towered over him, watching him struggle in his own vomit.

Natalia looked at her phone in horror. She was desperate, so she turned to the people huddled up on the floor near her and stayed as far away from them as possible. Her light blue dress was stained with blood splashes, and her hair looked messy as if someone had dragged her. Her lipstick was smudged, yet she still looked beautiful. She clutched her handbag, hugging it to her chest as she slid down against a wall, burying her head in her knees.