Accidental Dimension Walker

POV: Ren

Ren had made it up the stairs, looking around the area and assessing. She notices racks of old clothing on the balconies. The floor and objects look to be covered in dust but there was no damage or signs of aging besides for that. 

Suddenly she hears a loud thud and the sound of creepy music coming from below, followed by an eerie red light. She glances down, catching sight of Esther, holding a stone warhammer. A cold chill goes down her spine as she continues looking, feeling like a deer caught in the headlights. 

Ren quickly ducks down on the edge of the top level to observe. Looking through the glass she could see that Esther seemed to be struggling with some unknown force. She watches Esther shaking her head and looking around. Ren quietly thinks to herself, "Gods above, she looks like she's fighting with a ghost." She continues to watch, staying hidden on the balcony. 

After a minute there is an eerie calm that comes across Esther as she grabs the weapon that she had dropped during her fit and begins to look around.

Ren hastily scoots back, debating on her next move.

Looking around all she sees is a computer next to her, there is nothing around that she could use as a weapon and there seemed to be no other escape routes other than the stairs that led up there.

Esther begins to look around the room, weapon at the ready, she sets her sights on the stairs and starts slowly approaching the side to the balcony that Ren is hiding on. Ren's mind is thinking fast on a way to escape. Should she jump off the balcony, try to hide in the clothing racks, jump to the other set of spiral stairs while Esther goes up one set?

 Luckily at this moment the sound of an alarm goes off in the distance. Esther whips around and runs towards the direction of the alarm. 

Ren breathes a sigh of relief, before realizing she was in a bit of a predicament. They were looking for computers, and here one was right next to her, but there was also no escape other than one set of stairs.

 If Esther were to come back to check this room again Ren would be in trouble. Of course there was always the possibility of jumping off the balcony and hoping to be fine after the fall. But that seemed like too much of a risk for Ren, especially since this room was very open and it wouldn't be good to be caught. Ren shivers at the thought, thinking of how she felt looking at Esther. 

Eventually Ren decides that she should at least try to see what was on the computer first and gets up, walking to the computer and starting to investigate it. 

POV: Zoe

Zoe goes out a single set of doors from the big room, she looks around the now creepy hallway she's standing in, and glances at the door right in front of her. She approaches the door, and opens it. She sticks her head in and glances around. 

The room has eight stalls, four on each side, some of them missing doors, revealing old broken toilets on one side of the room, and shower heads on the other. 

The room had a tiled floor and stone walls, parts of it chipped, and odd fungi growing through some of the tile. Across from the door she came in on, there was another white door of the same design. 

In the corner next to a broken window in the back, Zoe takes notice of a red stereotypical looking science experiment tube, a gust of warm air seeming to be coming from it. 

She shudders, all of the hair on her body going rigid with little goosebumps, she pauses thinking, but eventually she decides to walk into the room, going against the fear she's feeling, shutting the door behind her. 

Zoe studies the room for a couple more seconds, feeling incredibly uncomfortable and on edge. She decides that she should get away from the tube and the room, not entirely understanding why. 

She glances around once more before hurriedly walking to the door across from the one she entered. She frowns at the odd heat in the room and quickly opens the door, sliding through it and shutting it behind her. She breathes a sigh of relief, unsure what about the tube gave her such a bad feeling, but happy to no longer be in the same room. She takes a deep breath, glancing around the hallway she's now standing in, glad to be in the cooler air again. 

The hallway has the same stony design, with cords running along the top of the walls, the ceiling being concrete with a couple working lights every so often. The lights look like circular office lights they had back in the store of the world she lived in. She ponders the hallway design of the mall, wondering where she is in it for this to be the design. Deciding to keep moving she walks down the hallway, taking a left around the corner. 

Just then from the room she was in, the sound of an alarm starts blaring loudly. The working lights above her blaring red. Flinching Zoe takes off down the hallway, running as fast as she can. She reaches the end of it, panting and leaning against the wall. Taking deep breaths she raises her head, looking at the door next to her. She glances behind her and opens the door walking through it. The start of the room is a hallway. She starts making her way down it, shutting the door behind her. 

The hallway opens back up into more closed stores on either side. She slowly walks down the path, spotting a store that looks a bit lighter than the others. Zoe looks closely at each of the stores, one selling clothes, another selling food of some sort, an image of a bowl of soup, noodles and eggs on the sign, tables outside of it, somewhat in the way. She can see further down that there's more tables, some tipped over and falling apart, other strewn chairs and metal cans cluttering the walkway. 

She speeds up, avoiding tables and fallen chairs in the way, finally reaching the store with the light. Reading over the sign: Misty's Muckhouse, and becoming more confused as there's no menu or other details, she walks in, looking for the odd light. 

The store is full of a bunch of oddities, related to technology and mechanics. A cash register in the corner, a table with a wrench and laptop on it. 

 Zoe, remembering the conversation they had earlier, decides to head over to the computer. As she touches it a series of questions pops up on the screen. 

A prompt above the questions reads;

-answer quickly and correctly in order to bypass the security systems. 

3…

2…

1…

Begin.. 

The first question appeared on the screen: 

Hello!

How many bolts are in this room?

Below it was a blank box waiting for an input. 

POV: Yin

Yin, having gone up to the computer just as the message for the beast being released appeared. She saw the same screen as zoe. With the same prompt. Noticing the keyboard attached to the computer she begins answering the questions.

Question 1: 

Hello!

How many computers are in this room?

Yin read the question, then read it again to make sure she understood. Looking around the crowded room she wondered how in the world she was supposed to answer this question.

"Uhh… can I get a hint?" she asks a little exasperated 

In response, the computer began a timer, starting at 60 seconds. Startled, Yin began to run around the room counting all the computers that she could find. 1, 2, 3… 10, 11, 12… finally stopping at 16. Holding her breath she ran back to the main computer as the time reached 20 seconds. Quickly typing in 16 she pressed enter and held her breath.

The question disappeared and the computer was silent for a moment. For Yin it seemed to stretch on for years. 

Finally there was a ding;

Correct!

Question 2: 

How many rooms are in this mall?

"Shoot, how am I supposed to know that??" she exclaims slightly panicking, "can I get a different question?"

The timer seemed to pause for a second, then the screen started flashing. Startled, Yin jumps back, looking at the screen with confusion. The computer screen began to change, parts of the question were warping and the edges had spots of red green and blue. 

Observing for a minute longer she saw that something else was typing in the answer for her, through the glitching screen eventually she could see the answer; 15. Hesitating for a minute she pressed enter. The computer stopped glitching as it processed the answer. It took even longer than before for the screen to flash green

Ding!

Correct!

Yin sighed in relief and looked at the screen as the next question appeared. Reading through it she furrowed her brows in confusion.

Question 3:

What do the machines do?

"What…" she mutters under her breath, not even understanding what machines the computer was talking about. However, she didn't need to think about it for long as the screen began to glitch again. 

The screen seemed to go blank for a minute and then it started to flashred as an alarm began to sound loudly throughout the room. On the screen there were bold letters that read: INCORRECT.

Yin panics and quickly runs to the back of the room to hide between the giant computers. 

Squeezing herself into a small space near some boxes and old trinkets, she begins to stifle her breathing as she hears heavy running coming towards her room, where the computer was still going off.

Hearing a loud crash, and the sound of breaking glass coming from the other side of the room, she lets out a muffled squeak. After a few moments the alarm turns off. The transition between sound and silence was jarring. Yin had to take a moment to adjust. 

When her ears adjusted she could faintly pick out the sound of quiet footsteps heading around the outer edge of the room. Thinking about it she realizes that it was probably the hunter, Esther. The footsteps were coming from her right and with the way she was hiding, eventually Esther would be able to see her very clearly. 

Her mind raced as she tried to think of a way out of this, looking around there was nothing that she could use as a distraction, but with the way the room was set up, she might be able to go a row over and stall for more time to think.

With a little hesitation, Yin gathers the courage to begin moving as the footsteps pick up the pace slightly. 

As quietly as she could, she slowly detaches herself from her hiding space and then quickly and quietly makes her way over to the next row. Looking around she saw two possible escape routes. 

Right in front of her, an old slightly rusted door that was closed but looked to lead into another hallway, and to the side, an open vent on the ground that looked like it was big enough to fit through.