Black Candles and the Stretched Corridor

Black Candles and the Stretched Corridor

I was walking through the local mall near my childhood home, but all the shops were closed and the overhead lights were swapped with wrought-iron chandeliers holding flickering black candles. I had to meet my sister by the food court, but every tiled corridor I took just kept stretching out longer, lined with these heavy, decaying stone archways instead of normal store windows. I passed my old high school biology teacher, only his eyes were completely shadowed and he warned me quietly that the lower parking deck had flooded with something thick and cold. I tried checking my phone for the time, but the screen was just an ornate bronze mirror showing someone standing right behind me. A wave of heavy dread hit me, like the building was gradually swallowing the town and I was the last one trying to find the exit before curfew. I woke up with my heart pounding just as the floor tiles started to turn to cold mud beneath my sneakers.