Lost Keys in the Mall Beyond the Gymnasium

Lost Keys in the Mall Beyond the Gymnasium

I was back at my old middle school, but it was connected to the local shopping mall downtown. I was trying to find the nurse's office because I thought I had left my car keys there, but the corridor just kept going past the gymnasium. I pushed open a set of heavy gray double doors and found an entire wing I had never seen before. It looked like an old, quiet department store with carpeted ramps leading down into darker levels. My high school friend Mark was suddenly walking next to me, holding a flashlight even though the emergency exit lights were on. We kept wandering through these massive, empty display floors, looking for a way out to the parking garage. There was this huge rush of curiosity, like we were trespassing somewhere forbidden right in the middle of town, but I also had that low-level dread about my keys being gone forever.