Mall part. 10th floor.

It was as dull-looking as the building itself that held it – the exterior, so much so the whole of it, as well as its inside, every corner and every floor. Bustling noise filled this floor as consumers and sales crews conversed in various manners, all wanting to gain the upper hand over the other as they try to sell or buy products in prices they desire. They move about, in millions as if in a box, in this vast floor.

This mall part stretched for what seemed like miles, with a wide vacuum of air looming above the wide floor as large, giant walls reached towards the ceiling above in almost the same measure. The place was massive, tall and wide, but the tallness of the wall served no purpose other than to echo all the violent noise, coming from those bantering about on the floor below.

Mall lots did not exist. Whether it was small businesses or brands selling themselves on the mall, glass-covered retail kiosks were the trend. Each store consisted of these kiosks put side by side, forming a square surrounding a small inside space where the sales crews were. Put these stores next to each other with little thought to arrangement, and that was the whole mall. Truth is, the floor was the stores themselves.

Except for the narrow spaces that existed in between them.

People moved like waves of ants in panic, brushing against each other in these tight little spaces, as they push away not just other people, but also the kiosks, to the sales crews' annoyance. These pathways provided the only way a person roams around the mall, but it's barely enough for such a large market. The floor was just that: a market, and a market only. Stripped of its mall-like qualities, the floor remained dull and lifeless, no sense of structure or purpose. Not a paint on the walls that embraced the whole floor, either, except for the green and gray on it that is moss

and dirt.

No light illuminated the floor from above; the only illuminations in the floor, that of cheap and salvaged fluorescent junk, came only from the shops below – those that could afford one, anyway. Poorer stores resorted to match sticks and candles, and those that couldn't afford any, if lucky, had neighbor stores indirectly lighting up theirs.

But the unlucky ones, tragically positioned on the farthest corners of the floor, could do nothing but lurk in the dark. They were happy enough to greet customers holding a light going there.

As millions of people filled up the countless narrow spaces between the stores in the floor, a spot on one of the pathways became reminiscent of a pipe's overflow, and havoc suddenly arose in the form of a bulging accumulation of a brawling crowd.

Disorder was inevitable. People brawled, pushing away the kiosks, all seemingly in a state of subconscious agreement of making room

for more chaos to come in.

The mall's floor guards, a mere duo of almost the same medium height and build, decided in their frantic state of mind that, instead of locking the place down until order is achieved, they should instead blow their whistles and navigate towards the spot, which was now growing bigger and more frenzied, causing more chaos to kiosks far away from the original pathway. The guards treaded on, almost limping as they shoved people away from their malling routines.

Farther away from all this, however, were the rest of the people, roaming around the mall, their whole dormant, unaffected numbers surrounding the chaos that, although big, looked inherently small against the majority of the millions in the floor which they were. They all had the same set of mannerisms, that of a usual maller: looking down at kiosks on each sides of the paths, walking, sliding, and brushing through people, without losing focus on seeking out their next merchandise.

Ivik, a girl with a fern hood lying free just below her long, braided black hair, brushed against the crowds of her fellow mallers as she looked down at the kiosks and then up, up at the sales crews entrapped inside the stores. She was calm, but more careful and more eager to look than the rest. She'd look more hurried than the crowds that she'd brushed against, all hundreds somehow always drawn against the direction that she went. She went north of the floor, the people went south; as she's going west, the people brushed past her going east. She roamed around for some minutes against the current of strangers, and the havoc that started a little while ago, out there in all their peripherals, still ensued.

The banters throughout the mall fared the same like it always did, but the ever-enlarging crowd of brawlers made an even louder noise, drowning out the native noise that always surrounded the floor. People were shouting, some cried for help, and the guards were there, but can't do shit now. The brawl could only continue, and the duo could only drown in this deadly heap of a crowd, their eyes closed shut and their bodies full of bruises, their mouths dripping with blood.

Not able to find both the store and sales crew that she was looking for, Ivik proceeded to look around the dark corners of the massive mall floor – she started to the southwest.

Going there, the number of people started to wither as she treaded away, away from the busy middle of the mall. She could now freely walk, but her feet suddenly felt weary from all the walking that she did while roaming almost the whole floor. She limped about as she felt fatigue set in, while navigating the huge dark corner that is very quiet, which made the bantering of people and the noises of the chaos now sounding like they were somewhere else, entirely far away. Lazily bringing out a rectangular flashlight from her pantpocket, the quiet corner suddenly burst in rejoice.

Sales crews cheered, convincing their now only potential customer, Ivik, to buy from their stores and provide them some purchase, but she had something else she wants in mind. She waved the flashlight, from left to right. And the kids and adults, all malnourished, wearing torn clothes, jumped about inside their stores as they reached out their hands to Ivik who sequentially crouched, side-stepped and brisk-walked in moments to evade the hands that made way for her being.

They were the more hungry sales crews of the mall, and they wanted her soul.

Their eyes flashed a shimmering pearl as the torrid white light from Ivik's flashlight brushed against the surfaces of their faces and figures. Hands still tried to reach her from behind, but she was too far and they were blind, even so without the guidance of a flashing bright light.

As she treaded further lightly, now that the crowds from the darkest corner were far away behind her, a man suddenly appeared, his eyes straight at her as its colors... were still a shimmering pearl, like the blind crowd's that she just passed by. But he didn't seem blind; seemed to even see. And just when she was deep in her trance of next-level pondering about the man's real nature, the man famed a book to her, its cover spelling out three letters:

OoN.

She presented her hands in which she was to take the book, but the man dropped it on her arms instead. Although seemingly light based on its visibly thin width, Ivik's arms almost dropped as she caught in them the old book. There were only a few pages, so why could it weigh like metal from the barren?

Everything was clearer, but there were more questions now than those she expected to be answered. Her face showed her confusion well enough, to which the man replied:

"I am Pipaluk. You should be reading the book now, or everything else in the world shatters."

With a dead stare creeping out of her scarred left eye, Ivik read the book, as Pipaluk watched the eyes of his fellow blind people glow like brightening pearls in the night, as they started juicing out Ivik's rich life essence like smoke in the air, their numbers gathered around like a bulging crowd behind her. Streaks of white, smoke-like substance oozed from Ivik and into the blind crowd's noses, their hands seemingly the only way they could levitate the substance from her being and into theirs.

Not feeling the crowd feasting from behind her at all, Ivik felt a little sleepy as she was reading the eleventh story. But she continued reading on, a smile on her face by the moment she finished. She loved it the most out of all the book's stories.

Pipaluk smiled, too, as Ivik liked the stories that was written by his creator, and that she's made his fellows happy, unblinded from this one happy feast from her rich, rich soul.