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I died at a crosswalk on Fifth and Maple. A delivery drone clipped a power line, dropped like a brick, and turned my skull into a speed bump. I remember the impact. I remember the dark.
I don't remember waking up.
But I'm awake now, and I can't move. Can't breathe. Can't blink. I try to lift my hand and nothing happens. I try to scream and there's no throat, no lungs, no tongue. Just this weird, spreading awareness that rolls out in every direction like I'm lying flat under a sheet that goes on forever.
I can feel carpet. Tile. Cracked concrete. I can feel the way the air moves through a broken skylight three floors above me and how the rain pools in the food court and drips through a busted pipe near what used to be a pretzel stand. I can feel the weight of every collapsed shelf, every shattered display case, every boarded-up window.
I'm not in a building.
I am the building.
The angels mentioned reassignment. They were pretty vague about the details. I figured maybe I'd get sent back as a baby, or a cat, or some guy in a world with stats and skill trees. I did not think I'd wake up as a dead mall.
And it is dead. The place feels like a hollowed-out tooth. There's no power. No people. The stores are gutted, the signs are faded, and half the second-floor walkway collapsed into the atrium sometime last year. I can sense all of it. Every crack in the foundation, every piece of trash, every broken light fixture. It's like having a body made of drywall and duct tape, and all of it hurts.
I try to focus. Try to pull myself into something smaller, something I can actually control. The awareness spreads out too far, too thin. I'm three stories of ruin and I can't even move a door.
Then I feel it. A pulse. Faint, but there. Somewhere near the old food court, something is alive.
I push my attention toward it, and the world shifts. It's not like walking. It's like turning a camera, or flipping through channels. One second I'm trying to sense the whole building, and the next I'm focused on a dark corner behind an overturned vending machine.
There's something small back there. Round. Fuzzy. It's about the size of a softball, with stubby legs and a tail that flicks back and forth like it's annoyed. Its fur is mottled gray and cream, and it has two black eyes that don't blink. It's sitting on a torn bag of chips, the kind that expired two years ago, and it's staring out at the empty food court like it's guarding a fortress.
I don't know what it is. Some kind of animal? A rat? A magical… thing?
It shifts its weight, and I feel it. Not like I'm watching. Like it's part of me. Like the vending machine and the tile and the bad fluorescent light that's still flickering in the corner. The little creature is connected to the mall. To me.
I try to reach out, try to say something, but I don't have a voice. I don't even have a mouth. What I do have is intent, and I push it toward the fuzzy ball of defiance.
Hey.
The thing's ears twitch. It looks up, head tilting, eyes scanning the dark like it's trying to figure out where I am. Then it makes a noise. A soft, chirping squeak. It sounds annoyed.
I feel a flicker of something that might be amusement. Or relief. At least I'm not completely alone.
The thing settles back onto its chip bag, tail curling around its feet. It looks ridiculous. It looks determined. It looks like the only living thing in this entire wreck that gives a damn.
I pull my focus wider, trying to get a sense of the whole building again. The mall is four floors if you count the basement, and it used to cover half a city block. There's a main entrance on the north side, a loading dock on the south, and a pedestrian bridge that connected to the subway station before the city shut it down. Most of the skylights are broken. The escalators are frozen. There's a smell I can't quite pin down, something stale and faintly metallic, like old rain and rust.
And there's a notice nailed to the front door. I can't read it, but I can sense the shape of it. Paper. Ink. Official.
I push my focus toward it, and the meaning clicks into place. It's not like reading. It's like knowing.
CONDEMNED. DEMOLITION SCHEDULED. KEEP OUT.
The date on the notice is two days away.
Two days. I've been dead for who knows how long, I woke up as a building, and in two days a crew is going to show up with sledgehammers and a wrecking ball and turn me into a parking lot.
I try to move something. Anything. A door. A window. A loose tile. I focus on the front entrance, on the heavy glass doors that used to slide open automatically, and I push.
Nothing.
I try the lights. The escalators. The busted fountain in the atrium.
Nothing.
I'm a mall with no power, no money, and no idea how any of this works. I can feel everything, but I can't do anything. I'm a passenger in a building that's two days away from getting flattened.
I pull my attention back to the food court, back to the little fuzzy creature guarding its chip bag. It's still there. Still watching. Still absolutely sure that this corner, this one sad pile of junk food, is worth defending.
Something shifts inside me. Not physically. I don't have a body. But the intent is there, sharp and stubborn.
If this thing can guard a bag of stale chips, I can keep the lights on for one more night.
I focus on the food court, on the broken vending machine, on the faint hum of something buried under the tile. There's a power line down there. Old. Frayed. But it's still connected to the city grid, just barely. I can feel it like a thread, thin and fragile, and I pull.
The fluorescent light in the corner flickers. Then it stays on.
It's not much. One light. One corner. But it's something.
The fuzzy creature looks up, ears perked. It makes that chirping noise again, louder this time, and its tail flicks twice. Then it settles back down, looking pleased.
I feel a weird little spark of pride. I just turned on a light. I'm a building, and I turned on a light.
Maybe I can figure this out. Maybe I can keep the place standing long enough to—
The front doors explode inward.
The sound is a shockwave, a crack of splintering wood and shattering glass that rattles every wall, every floor, every pipe. I feel it like a gut punch, like something just kicked me in the foundation.
Someone is running. I can sense the footsteps, fast and uneven, boots hitting tile. There's blood. I can smell it, or maybe I'm just sensing the chemical breakdown, the iron and salt and panic. The runner is human. Female. She's limping.
And there's something behind her.
It's not human. It's too big, too fast, too wrong. I can feel the way it moves, the way its weight cracks the tile, the way the air goes cold around it. It smells like wet fur and old meat, and it's hungry.
The girl stumbles into the atrium, and I catch a flash of her through the broken skylight. Dark hair. Torn jacket. A blade in one hand, slick with something black. Her breathing is ragged, and her eyes are wide.
Behind her, the thing steps through the ruined entrance.
It's got too many teeth.