The Last Flower on Earth

Into Darkness

The sound of crunching glass echoes through the dreary mall, the skylights shine down far in front of us. Emma clings onto my arm as all around is shrouded in the dimness of uncertainty. The row of stores with mannequins either eroded with time, frozen and fallen, or ripped to shreds and left to rot frightened even me as they stare without eyes shouting a warning to turn back. We press on.

The bits of light that pass through the blanket of despair above illuminate the main walkways, lining these walkways are clothing stores. All locked behind steel nets to negate theft, it's a shame however that theft is what has kept me around this long.

"Based on the outside, we should head right. We should be deeper than." Something is off about this place, but I turn right as Emma pointed out.

The fountain separating our lane from the one beside us doesn't appear chipped or dented in any manner, aside from the frozen water atop it in flawless shape. The supports holding up the walkways above have engraved names, not even chipping paint.

The air is above-average levels of frigid, making Emma feel warm for once. "You feel that too, right?" I ask looking toward her.

"The air, right? And how spotless this place is, if you fix the windows and dust problem, you got a perfect looking mall."

I nod. "With such a tip-top shape building we might even have backup power to open some of these shops up." We continue past the escalators and forward until the next intersection. It has little shops for device cases, and coffee beans. What I wouldn't give for a warm cup right now. I can see Emma dreaming about the same thing.

I ask her to find her preferred blend as I look down the seemingly endless halls and labyrinth structure, we're in, we need a directory or map to find what we're looking for. But getting the power on is our main concern.

I notice a large number of brand signs in another intersection in the distance, from there we may be able to find our way a bit easier.

Emma hands me two different bags of beans, since they're in an airtight container in a cold and dark environment they're probably fine. I put both containers of ground beans in my bag and begin towards the next intersection.

We pass more clothing shops and enter a large space with tables and chairs strewn about without a care in the world, the smell of rotting food can be smelt from our entrance to the court.

"The food court," I speak the obvious, "if we find a directory it should be easy to navigate around knowing where this court is."

"Directories usually have a 'You Are Here' on them, dummy." Pushing past the uncalled-for remark we flip a coin and head in a random direction, some passageways get incredibly dark, and out of fear of something jumping out, Emma stays right near my side. I reach over and pull her closer.

As we approach another intersection a large stage stands triumphantly with snow trickling down on top of it.

"You think it still works?" Emma rushes towards the raised platform.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, it could be unstable." She doesn't listen to me, she tells me to loosen up a bit, which I shrug off.

"How is all this still here?" Emma asks as I wonder the same thing myself. She looks over the entire stage for anything interesting, she pushes the speakers to the front and gets off. "Sadly, nothing." She honestly looks sad.

"Maybe once we get the power on we can use it, there has to be a music store somewhere in this mall." The optimistic look she gets always motivates me to keep moving as well.

We push forth up until we find a directory, I poke around on the black screen until it says 'Operating in LOW power mode.' We step back for the screen to shift to a map of the entire building. Unlike what Emma said it didn't have a 'You Are Here', but I found our location and tried to find the power/security room, or I guess control room would be a better term for it.

The power room is located across the mall at an indoor lake. We swiftly depart.

Casually walking we pass a jewelry store, I don't plan on going back on my plan for when we get to our truest destination.

"Hey Connor, I think that store should have tents." I turn to where she is pointing, the sign above has a mountain and the display window has a tent in it, so we have a plan now for where we can get the final piece of our plan.

"An indoor lake, here it is." The pathway splits, letting a little lake with a mouldy boat and broken bridge stand lacklustrely in the middle. "Probably would've been interesting to see, but it just looks sad." Emma nods along with my brilliant assessment.

We walk around the mediocre pool and stand before a room with the simple title of 'Control Room'. But of course, it's locked, as nothing can be easy.

"Couldn't you like, stick a knife between the door and doorframe to jiggle the hatch or something."

"Doubt that'll work. I value my knife."

"How about a couple of bobby pins?" Emma reaches into her pocket to pull one out and takes the other from her hair. "I knew these would come in handy one day."

I saw someone do this in a movie once, lets's see if I can replicate it. Strip the ends of the plastic and bend them so they would work, I insert the two previously pins now pick-locking tools into the keyhole. I put pressure on the lower tool and begin poking around the top with the second. "Click on one, nothing on two." After a couple of minutes, a loud click echoes through the mall and the lock slides open.

"Hell yeah!" Emma jumps in joy. I open the door to see large monitors and a lot of buttons to push, I press the power button and the screens light up.

"Auxiliary power, eighty-two percent." The computerized voice said in an emotionless pitch. The screens shine with camera views of everything inside the walls. Emma finds the button to open every shop up and presses it, the gates stopping us from shopping open, the entire mall is at our disposal.

"Em', did you know that this mall also has an amusement park and a water park and an ice rink? After we get the tent, we will have daylight left to visit them all." I turn to Emma smiling as she looks starry-eyed at the monitors seeing the frozen pool and the roller coasters and the ice rink in the very center.

We leave the control room and prop the door open with a block of wood from the ship and turn back to the nature shop we passed by, I look at the jewelry store again before unlocking the shop.

Upon entering the store, we branch off and gather all the resources we can imagine, bigger backpacks, propane canisters, a tent, proper sleeping bags, and better clothing. Everything which even had the slightest potential to aid in our exhibition was grabbed, there were even military-style rations, so food and water are no longer even close to an issue.

Using the store directory, we found the most central part of the mall and set up camp. It took a while but the tent was standing and as I anticipated we still had time to burn.