Groto

I went out of the rented Uber vehicle ever so slowly while taking my glasses off with a sigh. The car then sped away while my gaze remained at the godforsaken mall in front of me. Seeing that there are no people everywhere—I realized that the 7-11 nearby is just as soulless as the surrounding businesses—I could already guess that whatever lies inside of this grease-filled hell hole is naught but a dessert with modern-day overlays.

I slowly hung my sunglasses on the collar of my tight v-neck tee and walked towards the mall, uncertain where the main entrance is and equally doubtful that the person I'm supposed to meet actually came to visit. It doesn't matter anyway. If this Jimmy guy would stand me up, then I am adamant about saying that I will ignore every subsequent Plural Heights related shenanigans that would fall in my wake. I gave this thing a try because I have nothing else to do today anyway but also because I am just so gosh darn curious about everything remotely related to this stupid mall thing.

I have to admit, I am excited, but I am also not expecting anything. Then again, I was not thrilled enough to prepare a lot of things just to meet a random stranger online in a shoddy-looking establishment. I was only wearing a simple-looking tee and pants, while I only have my wallet, phone, and keys with me inside of my pocket, no bags. With a soft grunt, I decided to get this shit done and went straight into the Sector Carina looking-ass building.

After about a few moments of walking all around the wasteland surrounding the mall, I finally found a very conveniently placed sign hanging on a lamppost that has a big red arrow in it, pointing at the right side, with one simple-to-understand word accompanying it: "ENTRANCE." Straightforward enough, so I just went straight to where the sign was pointing at and finally saw the main entrance hidden behind three huge cargo trucks. I found it odd, but I also didn't think too much about it until one cargo truck opened, and a skinny man went out of it, walking towards the exit like it was just another Sunday morning in his miserable life. I peered through the slightly opened cargo truck and instantly stepped back when I heard several people whispering inside of the darkness lurking within. Nah, fuck that, I've seen enough horror films to know that if someone opened a weird-looking ass shit like this, then they will be the first ones to die in the opening sequence of the movie.

I hurriedly walked towards the mall's entrance, and oddly enough, the many sounds of people murmuring inside of that cargo truck became louder and louder every time I stepped away from it. The ensuing chaos only ceased once I opened the mall's glass door and took my first step inside of the mall. I didn't dare look back behind me because I am afraid that some weird shit would come crawling out of that cargo truck, so I decided to mind my own business and frantically looked all over the darkened halls of the mall to find an escalator.

Jimmy told me while we were chatting that he wouldn't be able to exchange any of his contact details with me, but he's willing to relay everything that he can while we were chatting on Omegle, so I would be able to locate him quickly when we actually met each other in the mall. He told me to head towards the fourth floor and head towards the right side of the first escalator nearest the main entrance to find Room 3, which is apparently, a store that specializes in selling clocks. Then, he told me to wait inside a special room inside the story to wait for him. It seems kind of complicated, but I'm used to seeing such vague directions like this because of my job, so I didn't really mind it.

Jimmy also added that he would be wearing a black polo shirt, a pair of navy-blue pants, and a couple of black shoes. Easy enough, but I never thought that it would actually be hard. It took me a while to find the main entrance, but now that I am actually inside the mall, I realized that this would not be a comfortable journey because I. CANNOT. FIND. AN. ESCALATOR!

You know how malls would have escalators everywhere, and you can see a fuckton more of its kind everywhere by the time you walked inside of a mall? Well, not this place apparently. God, I'm not surprised it's going bankrupt.

Okay. No point dilly-dallying. I walked right into the entrance, and when I was about a few meters away from the glass door, I realized that the mall had no guards stationed in the entryway, which is... odd, but I guess those guards never really pose a threat to criminals. Still, it made me feel a bit unsafe, especially since there's literally no one around me as far as my eyes could see. Huh. I wonder where that guy who came from the back of the truck earlier went? Nah, I should probably stop thinking about that damn truck thing. Yieghk! It's giving me the creeps!

The fact that some of the lights were flickering while some were not at all operational, making the entire place look like a dimly-lit dungeon is not at all helping to ease my growing paranoia. The stores around are either close or lifeless, not a single life is present inside of their stores, but seeing that their lights were open and they have products on display, that means that they're still in their business hours one way or another.

Some small pieces in my heart are telling me to run the fuck away from this place because everything that's happening here so far is terrible news. However, a bigger part of me remained interested in the lifeless world inside of this darkened building. Every time I see a broken light bulb, graffiti on the wall, a dust-filled booth on the hall, a store without people inside, and a small hole in the ceiling, my interest would simply jump to the high heavens.

Thus, I walked forward with nothing but a laughable sense of conviction as I saw a passageway going to the right side of the hall. I turned towards it and saw the escalator at last! However, it was the first thing that caught my eyes.

There's a huge, bullet-shaped groto right in the middle of the hall. Every shop around it is open, every wall around it is squeaky clean, the floor in which it stood is as bright as the morning sun, and lights were beaming more than the lights from a pale moonlight above a cloudless sky. More than anything, there are actually people around the groto. Not just one or two people walking aimlessly like me, but there's a whole crowd of people gathering in front of it silently as they gazed up at it with awe-struck expressions.

The groto itself is not that magnificent. It's made out of smooth concrete, painted to turn into a cerulean color; it stood directly at the center of the hall, a few meters away from the escalator—which is not working by the way. The most curious part about the groto is that it was empty. Commonly, when one sees a groto, it is usually accompanied by a religious icon inside. At the same time, the groto itself is just serving as some kind of roof to keep whatever religious shenanigans in it from whatever harm nature can bring. Not this one, though. No, this one is just like the stores around the main entrance of the mall, open that are supposed to be inside is nowhere to be seen.

I then decided to oh so quietly walk past the many people gathering in front of the groto. As I did so, I noticed that all of them are wearing the same clothes, which bothered me a bit, but such practice is common when it comes to religious people. It just didn't make sense for me to see any group at all gathering in a mall like this. I also noticed that there's this odd-looking expression that all the people in front of the groto has. They all had this weird-looking smile on their faces, one that I cannot clearly describe, but nonetheless, the look on their faces was still so unbearably odd that it's almost fascinating. Their eyes were all narrowed—yes, all of them—their eyes were squinching as if they're one of those people who forgot their glasses, so they had to squinch as narrow as they possibly can to see what lies before them. Accompanied by the weird thing they're doing in their eyes, they also have this very unnatural smile, wherein their mouths are open ever so slightly while the corners of their lips are quirked upward to form a slight grin. As if that's not whacky enough, all of them—yes, all of them, no exceptions—are also chuckling silently under their breath as if some subpar comedian is doing a standup gig in the groto, but the jokes are just mildly funny, but not too corny as well.

Suddenly, someone mumbled, "The Mother's message is here!" This made everyone facing the groto to murmur among each other while the others continued to chuckle under their breath like it was none of their business.

Another one then mumbled in a low voice, "Hihihi! She's coming; she's coming! Mother is home!"

I heard one more person—based on their voice, this person must be a bit older than the rest—speaking in a much louder voice, "Glory be to the Mother! Long may she reign!"

I gazed at the groto and saw that it was just as empty as it was earlier, so I can't really relate. Needless to say, the people still chanted their praises at it with their narrowed eyes as if they had seen the second coming of Christ. Oh well. Weird ass motherfuckers.

I was about to get past them and silently head towards the escalator when someone noticed me and pointed at me ever so dramatically with an anger-filled expression before shouting, "AHA!!!"

I jumped back upon hearing that and looked back at the people in front of the groto. That was when I realized that they're all swiftly moving towards me, not running, but still fast enough to make me fear for my life. I instantly ran towards the escalator as fast as I could, regretting my decision not to run away when I still had a choice.

They weren't running in particular; they were just walking really, really fast, which is super weird because it made them look like a bunch of mechanical toys, walking so stiffly like their screws were almost about to fall off with just a few twitches. I could hear the sound of the soles of their shoes squeak as they awkwardly try to outrun me by not running at all; this further proves that the floor around the groto truly is the most immaculate part of the entire mall.

I glanced behind me slightly to look at what they were doing as I ran as fast as I could, feeling the adrenaline pumping through my chest. Contrary to how these people looked like earlier, their eyes were open wide like they're about to pop their eye sockets open just to have their eyes explode and probably aid them from running after me somehow.

"HE'S A NON-MEMBER!" The female bitch who's leading the people running towards me pointed at me as she shouted with a wretched-looking grin plastered all over her acne-filled face. "NON-MEMBER! THERE'S A NON-MEMBER AMONG US!"

They looked like prowling sharks with canine teeth, ready to bite me hard if they could ever catch me alive. All of the people behind my trail started pointing at me while the sound coming out of their shoes began to ring throughout the silent halls like multiple bugs buzzing towards a blooming flower. I know that I'm one hot shit, but I don't want all of my pollen sucked yet!

"NON-MEMBER!" One of them shouted.

This was followed by another one of them yelling with a coarse tone, "NON-MEMBERS ARE NOT ALLOWED! MALL IS NOT NON-MEMBERS! NON-MEMBER!"

I almost tripped, but I kept it together. Luckily, I managed to get to the escalator on time and let me tell you, running on a broken escalator is hell itself. Yes, I feel like hell is just a bunch of people trying to run away by climbing a broken escalator. I noticed that the people who were following me had stopped at the bottom of the escalator. I knew this because I kept on looking at them with a shock-filled expression on the floor above them.

They were all pointing their fingers at me while they all shouted in unison, "NON-MEMBER! NON-MEMBER! NON-MEMBER!" over and over with nothing but contempt painted all over their faces.

I then noticed the clothes they were wearing. Black polo shirt, navy-blue pants, black shoes. Fuck. How am I supposed to find Jimmy now? Wait a minute, is Jimmy actually one of them? I became frantic even more as I remembered the last thing Jimmy told me before I disconnected the chat with him on Omegle.

"Stranger: There's only one escalator in the mall. You won't miss it, brother! GLORY BE TO THE MOTHER!"

"Fuck..." I mumbled to myself as I looked at the sign on top of the escalator. 

It merely has a letter and number in it, "L2."

I sighed to myself as I stared at it while I heard the endless cries of the people below me. 

"NON MEMBER!"

"BEGONE, NON-MEMBER!" 

"NON-MEMBER!" 

"YOU HAVE NO PLACE HERE, NON-MEMBER!"

"NON-MEMBER!"

"NON-MEMBER!" 

"NON-MEMBER!"