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It was a completely normal day in Neo Trixa City. It was bustling with animals of all sorts. Dogs, cats, birds, hamsters, you name it. Many of these animals went to their jobs in coffee shops or towering skyscrapers or neighborhood schools.
Soon enough, it was 8:30 in the morning, time for one enthusiastic, enlivened cat to wake up. His name? Randall. A not-so-average Norwegian Forest cat.
Randall didn’t have a job in the city like most others. Instead, he explored places all over the world. Not ordinary places though. Abandoned places, places that went unused for years. Places that slowly disintegrated into a wrecked, bedraggled shell of their former selves. These places were fascinating to Randall, for the history of the buildings had spurred up his intrigue.
Randall quickly brushed his sharp, carnivorous teeth and slipped in a pair of jeans and a black tee shirt. He flung his favorite red striped scarf around his neck and grabbed the camera he brought with him to every location.
He rushed to the elevator and headed down to the lobby, where he would meet his two best friends, Austin and Rosemary. These two had stuck by Randall’s side since the first grade and they both had an interest in abandoned areas like him.
“Hey, guys!” Randall exclaimed to the two cats waiting for him in the lobby of the complex. He waved at both of them in greeting.
Austin was an Oriental Shorthair cat, with dark brown fur and spots that made him look like a leopard in a way. He wore a denim jacket, a plain, white shirt and jeans similar to Randall’s. He was quite tall, standing at about six foot one. He was quite slim in his body type, though he was immensely flexible, a characteristic of his breed. Though he was quiet, he was pleasant to be around.
Rosemary, other on the hand, was quite short and stout. She stood at only four foot five, despite being in her twenties like her companions. She was a cream colored Munchkin with tabby-like stripes, making her seem as if she were a petite, lightly-colored tiger. Her snout, paws, and belly were a slightly lighter cream and not striped. She wore a fluffy, white, woolen sweater that had a watermelon on the chest area, a medium grey beanie, and a long, flannel shirt. She also had an endearing gold pendant, a heart shaped charm as the centerpiece. She held a first aid kit in her right paw.
“Hi, Randall!” Rosemary exclaimed when she heard Randall from across the lobby as he approached them. Rosemary was the first to wave back, clearly ecstatic about the next place they were going to explore. “We’ve been waiting all morning!”
Austin only nodded in agreement, moving his lengthy tail to a more comfortable position for him.
“Sorry, guys. My alarm apparently didn’t work!” Randall said, a little bit humiliated about waking up later than expected. “So, where are we going? Hopefully someplace awesome!”
Austin spoke up about this, almost immediately. He verbalized, “We’re going to Palm Leaf. It’s not far from here and we’ve never been there. So, me and Rosemary discussed it and we’ve decided on going.”
“It does sound fun but,” Randall started, hesitant. “Palm Leaf is said to be pretty dangerous! I heard a lot of people with Cloud’s Disease are roaming around there. We could get injured or worse.”
“That’s true. But who knows what we might find there? Plus, it’s got some pretty captivating history! I bet it’ll be immensely fun!” Rosemary happily exclaimed. Clearly she was excited about going to the mall, wanting to survey the place.
“Alright then,” Randall said in a sigh. “You’ve convinced me! I’ll go and do it! Let’s go already!”
“Now, that’s the Randall we know!” Austin exclaimed in his hushed voice. A small yet kind smile crept up his face, excitement filling him like rain storms filling holes and orifices with water. “I guess it’s time to get going now that everyone is on board with going.”
Both Rosemary and Randall nodded. Shortly after, the trio headed out of the apartment complex where Randall made himself feel at home. They all headed for the train station, desiring to get to the train before nine in the morning. The small pack of 3 cats had barely got on their train before it vacated the station and when they got on, they sighed a breath of relief. At that point, they didn’t realize the danger they would face, how lost they would be in the gigantic, two million square foot mall.
After a long, seemingly endless two hours, the trio finally cleared out of the train. They were now in Palm Leaf City, the quiet city which was once home to the huge mall of the same name. The feline trio knew they were within reach of the decaying building. They all looked at eachother, as if they were silently blathering to each other about the new quest they would all be about to depart on.
Randall ventured off first, with his friends following in close proximity and pointing him in the direction of the parking lot of the abandoned mall. Thanks to the directions, Randall and his friends made it to the mall where they planned on entering. The asphalt was ruptured and plants grew through the cracks . The paint for the parking lines was chipped, bringing an eeriness to the area that the band of cats had not experienced as of yet. Only a tiny part of the mall was visible. They all could sense a strange danger from within.
“Maybe this dangerous feeling I’m getting is from the people inside with Cloud’s Disease?” Randall wondered in his thoughts, an almost worried expression on his white face.
“What’s up, Randall?” Rosemary asked, noticing the worry in Randall’s face. “You getting that suspicious feeling too?”
Austin had noticed Randall’s worry too, looking at his white-furred companion with his own look of worry on his face. His eyes seemed to say, “What’s wrong?”
“I’m getting pretty worried about this place, guys,” Randall admitted. “But, we can’t go back because of that, you know? We can’t give up just because of a bad feeling! We can still explore the place!”
“But still! I can’t shake this feeling of uneasiness! I don’t think I’ll be able to go in there!” Rosemary declared in a panicked voice. She seemed to almost completely change her mind about the exploration, but it also seemed where she could be convinced otherwise.
“Randall has a point, Rosemary,” Austin said quietly. “We can still go in there and explore. It’s not like we’ve been to worse places, right?”
“Yeah. It’s true, Austin,” Rosemary admitted. She sighed embarrassingly and let out a small, humiliated laugh.
“Come on, let’s go in already!” Randall exclaimed, getting quite fed up with waiting for his friends.
“Alright, alright, Randall. Calm down,” Austin said. He sauntered towards the mall in a very relaxed way. Rosemary and Randall looked at each other in excitement for a brief instant and the, followed Austin towards the entrance.
Once there, Randall pushed the old, glass door open, with some difficulty thanks to a small mass of debris blockading the door. The place looked even more prodigious than the rumors and stories had foretold. The place seemed to go on forever.
“Wow..” Rosemary breathed. “It’s huge…”
The trio entered the mall, standing in the entry corridor. They all started to walk, stepping over debris and taking glances at the eerily beautiful building. Though debris was strewn about the building, the trio had found a strange beauty in the interior of the dimly lit mall.
Soon, they reached what appeared to be a food court. Tall, cracked pillars stood tall to support the ceiling and upper floor. The ceiling was made out of glass so surprisingly clear that it looked as if it were made of the sky itself. Randall just had to take a picture with his camera.
“Man, this place is way more peaceful than I thought!” Randall called out. His voice reverberated around the empty walls of the mall. But, soon, he heard a strange sound, like a mix of a gurgle and a growl. Then he knew what was up. “G-guys… over there… that’s someone with Cloud’s Disease. She seems too far gone with the disease to be in the earlier stages. S-Should we put her out of her misery?”
Randall had pointed to a female Holland Lop Bunny. It was true that she had Cloud’s Disease, for her stance was crazed, her expression maddened with fury, and her gurgling growl showing her vocal chords had broken down. The look of pure fury, murderous intent, and insanity was flashing in her eyes.
“If we must,” Rosemary said, her eyes gazing down on the angered rabbit. “S-she seems to be in a lot of pain… that must be why she’s so angry.”
Suddenly, the rabbit lunged at Austin, biting down with immense force on his left shoulder. He let out a loud howl of pain. Then Randall pounced on the bunny, driving his teeth into the rabbit’s neck. The rabbit fell limp after the Norwegian Forest Cat bit down harder on her miniature neck.
He dropped her and said, “Well, looks like that’s over with, huh?”
“Yeah. I didn’t realize she would do that. Thanks, bud,” Austin said as he got up, clutching his injured shoulder. He had a thankful look as he looked at his white and brown furred friend.
“You’re welcome,” Randall said back. “Wait, Rosemary? Did you bring the first aid kit? We need to get this wound treated and bandaged.”
“Yep! I have it!” Rosemary said, giving Randall the box. When he received the kit, Randall started to put some ointment on the wound and quickly bandaged it. When finished, Austin nodded his thanks to his two friends.
“Now, let’s get back to exploring, shall we?” Randall asked the rest of the group. The other two both nodded and they all continued on with their exploring. They reached one of the many sets of escalators. The automatically moving stairs obviously didn’t move at this point and debris covered them like dust on the tops of fan blades.
“This seems like a good opportunity for a photo,” Randall muttered to himself as he shot a photo of the scene.
It was a few hours later and the trio had sat down in a different food court from the first they had explored. They were exhausted from walking around the ginormous deserted mall. Randall had suggested taking a break for the day and heading to a hotel to rest but the others said that they were fine.
They also had encountered another person infected with Cloud’s Disease, this time a female Fossa. They had put her out of her misery after being attacked like with the Holland Lop Rabbit.
“Gee, two million square feet of space really is huge, huh?” Randall asked the rest of the group. “Never thought it would be this huge, you know?”
“Yeah,” Rosemary responded, exhaustingly. “This place is way bigger than what I’ve expected, for sure!”
Austin nodded in agreement. He looked pretty exhausted as well and he closed his eyes to rest up a bit. He hadn’t gotten injured a second time, thankfully. Randall had suffered from some cuts to his face but they weren’t all that bad.
“Do you think we should start finding our way out?” Rosemary asked after a few moments of silence.
“Yeah. Why not?” Randall said with Austin nodding in agreement. Randall got up, with the others doing so shortly after. They made their way to where they thought they all came. This was all to no avail, for the exit they had found had led out to a nearby forest. They looked around for a long while, finding wrong exits. Then reality hit them.
They were lost and they had not found a way out.
They all knew what they had to do. They had to keep going, find the exit no matter what it took. Even if they had to kill many people with Cloud’s Disease, they would still try their best to find their way home.
“Ok, so. What’s the plan for getting back?” Randall inquired. He sounded committed, determined to find his way out.
“We’ve already checked down the areas to the left,” Austin stated. “We have yet to find out what’s down to the right, behind us, and in front of us.”
“That’s true,” Rosemary said. “If we stay in a group, we could defend ourselves much easier than if we split up. We could also lose ourselves here! Especially in a mall like this, being two million square feet and all.”
“True statements there, Rose,” Austin said, nodding.
“We’ve got a good start so far,” Randall said, determination filling his eyes like water filling a pond. “But we need to find out where we’re going to go.”
“Hmm.. maybe we should check the right first?” Rosemary asked. “Maybe we can check there and then find our way back here? Does that sound ok, guys?”
“Yeah,” both Austin and Randall said in unison. Randall had nodded in a determined way. He also seemed a bit homesick, for he wasn’t accustomed to being in a building for as long as he did.
Right as they were talking, they all heard the footsteps of two people with Cloud’s Disease. They all turned and noticed that the two infected people had tried to launch a secret assault on them. The trio could just tell from the gaze in the other two creatures’ eyes.
Thanks to the two encounters beforehand, Randall, Austin, and Rosemary knew how to duel out with the infected. They knew that, to follow their strategy, always let the infected attack first. Then they could unleash their own attacks to stupefy the opposing forces.
Of course, they let the maddened duo attack first. They lunged at them in a crazed, angry way and fiercy swiped at the faces of the three cats before them. But the powerful swipe to the face from Randall had shocked his attacker. Before realizing anything in her almost primal ways, the African Clawless otter Randall was facing had fallen limp.
The other, a male Turkish Angora, was going through a huge onslaught of gashes, bruises and wounds from Austin and Rosemary. The deep crimson red of his blood stained and matted his fur. Randall joined in after getting the otter to fall, in order to help his friends. They all soon killed the Turkish Angora, putting him out of the suffering he must’ve suffered for so long.
“Sheesh, these infected people really are starting to come at us,” Randall stated through exhausted, bone-tired breaths. “I knew people like this would be here but four in just a couple of hours? That’s just astonishing, especially for how uncommon the disease is.”
“I wonder, how many people are really here? There definitely must be way more than ten living in the storefronts, anchor store buildings, and the rubble,” Austin stated.
“Yeah,” Rosemary breathed tiredly.
They all had suffered miniature cuts as well as some bites here and there but, other than that, their injuries weren’t all that bad.
“Now, should we go to the right now? We REALLY need to find our way out of this place!” Randall declared. He started to walk to the right hall, motioning for his friends to trail him. They obliged and followed, hungry to find their way out.
The long, winding hallways showed no exits. The storefronts seemed eerily dark, debris and trash strewn about. When the triad of cats passed a few storefronts, they felt as if the crazed eyes of the infected were watching them ever so carefully. Soon, they reached the entrance of a two-story anchor store building. It was on old Macy’s, the glass windows that once put some of the store on display, had become dark, brooding, and sometimes, broken.
“Well, looks like we’ve found ourselves our first anchor store to check out,” Randall stated, motioning towards the dusky building presented to them.
“Randall,” Rosemary said, an annoyed undertone lacing her voice. “We didn’t enter through an anchor store.”
“Oh, yeah,” Randall said, embarrassed. “I forgot about that. Why do I always forget the most important things?!”
Both Austin and Rosemary sighed, knowing that their friend was getting quite moody about how he tends to forget important things. Most of the time they found it funny, but now they couldn’t find the humour that they once found within these tantrums. The situation was too dire, too grave. They were lost and couldn’t find their way out.
“Come on, let’s just get back to that food court,” Randall said gravely, knowing that they had to search another way from the food court they were in not too long ago.
The pair of friends that accompanied him had only nodded. They all walked off towards the food court.
It was about an hour later, after the exploration of the hall behind them there were all sorts of intersections that they had to wander through and plenty of contaminated people trying to rip their faces off, which were killed like all others encountered.
Austin sighed, pointed to the final hall and said, “Looks like that’s the way to go. We’ve gotta go there.”
“Got it.” Randall said with Rosemary giving a slight nod. They ventured into the long corridor, getting the feeling of being observed by crazed, lunatic-like, infected animals. They were, in fact, being observed by Cloud’s Disease patients. The infected had followed them through the dark storerooms.
Soon enough, another intersection. Randall groaned in annoyance, Rosemary facepalmed(pawed?) at the fact that there was ANOTHER intersection, and Austin stood there, the most annoyed glace that he ever gave on the intersection.
“NOT one of THESE,” Randall shouted, emphasizing a few of the words he said. “This place is just a big NIGHTMARE.”
“I KNOW, RIGHT?” Rosemary cried out in question, annoyance about the intersection clouding her voice.
“Guys, calm down,” Austin said. “We’ve cleared the last one quite fast, haven't we?”
“I guess you are RIGHT,” Randall said, a displeased tone still caught in his voice.
“Then let’s finish this one up then. Since we’ve come from that hallway,” Austin said, pointing to the hall they came from. “We must go down any of these.”
“Alright then. Wait. We haven’t brought our radios so…” Randall said, his voice lowering. “We can’t exactly split up, can we?”
“Yeah,” Rosemary said. “Let’s get the left and the right over with and then, we’ll do the last one.”
It was about two hours later and they’ve found nothing down the left and right halls. An anchor store, wrong exits, and dead ends. Things they have already seen in the vast mall.
“Looks like that hall is our only choice, huh?” Rosemary asked.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Austin replied. “If we go down there, we might find our way out.”
“Alright then,” Rosemary said. “Let’s get going and find our way out of this broody place.”
The triad started down the hall and saw some familiar scenery. The first set of escalators and the first food court far ahead. They had found their way back. They knew where to go now. They finally, FINALLY, found their out of the gargantuan mall.
“Guys,” Randall breathed, exhaustion and excitement lining it. “We’ve found our way out!”
“W-we did it!” Rosemary exclaimed, although exhaustion clouded her voice like how it clouded Randall’s.
They all had started to walk in the direction of the doors. But once they had reached them, everything seemed to go downhill. Gurgling growls could be heard all around them, surrounding them, preventing escape. The trio was trapped by eight Cloud’s Disease patients.
“You all know what to do, right?” Randall inquired to the others. They both nodded a response. Then the fighting broke out, eight against three. Yowls of pain seemed to spread across the entire mall, coming from both sides. Blood was splattered everywhere. The trio battled them out, using all of the strength they had left to fight. After what seemed like a long, hard duel, all of the Cloud’s Disease patients had fallen.
“We’ve… done it..” Rosemary breathed, exhausted from the drawn-out battle. “Now, let’s get back, shall we?”
The trio had opened the doors and went into the outside for the first time in what felt like days. The sky was dark and filled with stars, the moon giving a faint white glow to the surrounding area. It was time to go home. The trio knew that there was still some people around so they had to take precaution.
It was until Randall started to feel dizzy. He collapsed with a slight thud onto the paved floor beneath him.
“Oh no,” Austin said, taking notice of Randall and running to him. “Randall!”
“Dehydration, maybe?” Rosemary asked in a panic, standing over her collapsed friend. “Either way, we need help, NOW! Can you call 9-1-1?!”
Austin obliged, calling them. During the call, he tried his best to stay as calm as possible, yet, he was in a tizzy about Randall. After about thirty minutes, the ambulance came and they loaded Randall onto it, Austin and Rosemary entering the tiny space of the back of the emergency vehicle.
It was a few days later and Randall had just been released from the hospital. He had been treated for his wounds and dehydration and had felt way better. He was looking through the photos he had taken at Palm Leaf and he edited them to make them look better than ever.
It was until he heard a knock at his door and he immediately stopped and went to it, knowing his friends were there to visit. He opened the door excitedly.
“What’s up, guys?” He said, a small grin on his face.
“Oh do we have a story to tell you!” Rosemary exclaimed, a huge smile on her face. Austin had a similar smile and he was nodding enthusiastically. “Looks like an exploration team wants us to collaborate with them!”