Last-minute shopping is the worst, Aaron thought with a sigh as he rode the packed escalator up to the third floor of the crowded mall. He hated being here two days before Christmas. Still, somehow, that hate never stopped him from doing it year after year like an idiot.

  “It’s just my little Christmas tradition,” he muttered. “Like hanging the stockings, putting up the lights and—” The world seemed to end along with what he was saying in that moment as the mall shuddered from some violent impact. Then, with a cacophony of shattered concrete and screeching metal, the mall’s roof caved in.

  For an instant, he imagined the entire building would collapse because of an earthquake. The way the building was shaking, he couldn’t imagine anything else that might be happening. Then he saw it through the rain of churning wreckage. A dark magenta cube smashed through the building like a meteor.

  The thing slammed into the heart of the mall moments before the crushed concrete and shattered ceiling tiles buried it along with everyone else who had been standing there seconds before. A moment ago, the giant Christmas Tree and the long lines of families waiting to let their youngest sit on Santa’s lap for a picture or two dominated the bright, colorful plaza. Now, there was nothing but ruin and darkness.

  He couldn’t be sure what he’d seen. He’d only glimpsed it for a moment before the escalators ground to a halt, the lights went out, and the screaming started.

  The strange object had been a little larger than the industrial air conditioners that rained down around it when the ceiling collapsed, so it would have been a hard thing for him to just make up. Still, he would have been willing to concede that he’d imagined the whole thing if it hadn’t started glowing in a dim, throbbing light. That was disturbing, and it gave the dust that filled the air with an eerie, tremulous glow.

  What in the fuck… He thought to himself as he allowed himself to be swept forward by the human tide, making for the next floor.

  Everyone was screaming and panicking, but he was too shell-shocked to do either. Instead, as he reached the mall’s top floor, he moved over to the balcony to avoid the crush of the fear-driven stampede as he took in the carnage. It was only after he was in no danger of being trampled to death that he tried to understand what had happened.

  Some of the emergency floods had come on. However, their blue-white light did little to penetrate the throbbing pink gloom. The only lights around him were the cellphones of the idiots who were more intent on filming this than running away.

  Sounds like good advice, his brain told him. You should take it.

  Aaron slowly backed away as he tried to figure out how he could get down there to help those people as the Christmas lights started coming on. Not all at once, of course. Still, someway, somehow, a few of the strands that had decorated the grand plaza at the mall’s center only a few minutes ago flickered to life.

  He thought that meant the lights for the whole place were about to come on as the entire grid failed over to some backup. That isn’t what happened.

  For a moment, he considered going for the nearest escalator, but it was clogged with people who had exactly the same idea. People still crowded those to get a better look at the growing light show below them, slowing the few that were actually trying to evacuate.

  As he deliberated on what he should do, the tree lit up. Before he knew it, some of the strings that had been strung up to the second and even third floor started glowing.

  The overhead lights weren’t on yet, though, and the throbbing pink light hadn’t dimmed, making the whole thing look more sinister than festive. Still, as ominous as all that was, by the time the warbling sounds of the Christmas carols started playing over the loudspeakers again, and people started dying, he was already pretty far from the railing.

  Oh, the w-weather outside is fight-frightful… in a oooonnneee horse, o-o-open sleigh… Won’t you, won’t you guide my… sssssi-lent nnnnight… As the glitching PA system flicked back and forth between songs and tempos, Aaron’s pace increased.

  Then, one of those light strings that had made it all the way up to the third floor yanked itself off the wall, and reared up like a crazed, impossible limb. The glowing tentacle ripped someone off of the balcony and down into the darkness below. Everyone he could see was too shocked to even react until it happened again.

  By then, everyone had scattered by a flock of birds as whatever it was down there that had turned the Christmas lights into weapons. That wasn't enough to stop it from picking them all off one at a time.

  No, not all, he realized. Just the pricks with cell phones.

  Aaron immediately threw his phone away as he ran toward the stairs hidden just off the food court in the dark. He found lights in the stairwell, but that was from only a few dim green exit signs. The gloom wasn’t enough to stop him from taking the stairs two at a time on the way down. It also wasn’t enough to stop the screams that were growing louder outside.

  Part of him still wanted to try to help, but as he reached the first floor and burst out of the door, he knew that there was no helping the scene before him. The carnage was intense enough that blood was pooling out from beneath the rubble and the dust down there was chokingly thick. Neither of those would have been enough to stop him from digging through rubble in a search for survivors. That fear was reserved for the dark silhouettes that were partially hidden by that colorful pink fog weren’t fully human.

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  It was hard to tell what was going on exactly; only the colorful, glowing tentacles helped with that part. From above, he’d been able to see them getting dragged down here, but from where Aaron stood right now, he could see where they ended up. The cube was devouring them. It was shoving people and pieces of people into its glowing depths.

  Jin-jingle aaaallll the way… way… way… way… the music echoed, making it all that much more surreal.

  No sooner had it swallowed someone then it would spit out something vaguely human looking again. Whatever happened, they’d been changed. They might have an extra limb or two, or maybe a few glowing bits that didn’t belong. Others trailed strange wires, or their own strings of Christmas lights, but all of it added up to bad news.

  This can’t be happening, his mind assured him. Aaron was happy to believe that, but that reassurance didn’t stop him from moving.

  The things that were coming out, well, he didn’t want to get a close enough look to say for sure. They were hunchbacked and malformed. Some of them definitely had the wrong number of limbs.

  You’re going to be okay, he told himself. That became his mantra. You’re going to be okay. I can’t save anyone else, but I can save myself, maybe. Maybe I can.

  Aaron slid along the wall, making his way toward the nearest exit one quiet step at a time. This far from the center of things without a cellphone, the things seemed to be ignoring him. Instead, they were swarming the corpses caused by the ceiling’s collapse and the nearest electronics stores.

  He might have gotten away clean if not for the cellphone repair booth between him and the south door. He’d known that was a risk from the moment he saw it, but it wasn’t until he got far enough to one side to see the child that he cursed inwardly. The little girl standing there looked normal enough at first glance, but something in his mind screamed that something was wrong with this picture.

  That was where he saw one close up for the first time. The child was standing there looking at a few broken phones. Each time she would touch one, it would flicker to life in a way that made his heart hammer a bit faster. Something inside him broke as he realized that little girl was already one of them, whatever they were.

  Aaron knew that there was no saving that kid. However, when her head turned a hundred and eighty degrees while her body stayed put, and she opened her mouth to scream, he was sure of it. She let out a terrible screech, but even past that inhuman noise, it was her eyes that were the worst of all. In those terrible eyes, all he could see was the flickering light of television static.

  There were words there, or symbols that were almost words, and understanding too. For a moment, his brain froze as he tried to read them. They almost made the screeching and the broken, echoing music make a terrible sort of sense. However, that trance was broken when he saw the thick tentacle of braided electrical cables and Christmas lights coming for his head.

  Aaron ducked. He didn’t see it take a chuck out of the marble veneer on the wall. He heard it, though; he just didn’t care to look back. Instead he ran like his life depended on it.

  A hundred feet from the entrance, he could hear the footsteps of monstrosities chasing him. Fifty feet from it, a swarm of tentacles missed him for a second time, attacking a nearby cash register instead. Twenty feet before safety, the security cage doors started to roll down.

  Aaron didn’t even hesitate. He just put his arms up in front of his face and slammed right through the glass. He wasn’t stopping for anyone or anything.

  He made it to the foyer only a little bloody, and he was back up on his feet in only a few seconds. That was just long enough for him to push out the front doors. Even as he tried to do so, that tentacle unbraided into a hundred smaller tendrils. Then, each of those passed through the barrier in a desperate effort to reach him.

  He opened the far glass doors to escape but suddenly felt something tugging at his arm like a leash. “Fuck!” he screamed as he looked down and saw that the thing had grabbed him by his smartwatch.

  I forgot I even wore that stupid thing today, he noted in frustration as he looked down.

  There was no removing it now, but that wasn't the worst part. Even worse than that were the little circuitry patterns the wires were starting to make as they crawled deeper under his skin, and the main wire thickened to increase its hold on him.

  That horrified him more than any of the inhuman zombies that were shaking the metal grating now. All they wanted to do was drag him back to whatever it was in the center of the mall, consuming everything it could touch.

  This can’t be happening, he reassured himself again as he looked around for his options. This is just a nightmare. I’ll wake up any second.

  Just to be on the safe side, though, he ran to the fire cabinet and grabbed the axe. It took a few swings to break free. However, eventually, he severed the tether that had been reeling him back toward the gate with ever-increasing amounts of force.

  A roar of frustration echoed through the mall as he escaped to the parking lot. It would have been terrifying on its own, but the way it made the little bugger that had burrowed into his wrist squirm was worse. It was also a terrible reminder for what had to come next.

  “You have to get out of here!” he yelled at the gathering crowd, but they ignored him as they tried to understand why the mall was strobbing with magenta light.

  When words didn’t register, he started waving around his axe instead. After that everyone quickly got the message and ran. The pink glow from inside the shattered building was getting brighter and brighter. Aaron ignored it as he knelt at the curb and removed his belt to make a crude tourniquet just above his elbow.

  He could hear the sirens and he knew the ambulance would be here at any moment, but he also knew they’d be way too late for him. He was already losing control on his left hand, and Aaron was ready to do what had to be done.

  I have to take care of this now or there won’t be a later, he told himself as he raised the axe and looked away from his left arm. It’s fine. None of this is really happening.

  . . .

  Victim #0001 Aaron Thompson was cutting his own arm off with a fire axe by the time the first police cruiser arrived at the scene. Though he was not the first person to die as a result of the anomaly, he was the first person to survive long enough to be studied.

  The Lakeview Mall was consumed in its entirety within twelve hours of manifestation (thereafter designated Hive 0). Thanks to his quick thinking, he survived almost 48 hours. The hospital he was housed in (designation Hive 3) was consumed less than 24 hours after Victim #0001 expired.

  His sacrifice, more than even the nuclear bombs that dropped in the days that followed, is the only reason that humanity was able to put up as much of a fight as they did against the Devouring in the months and years that followed.

  Written By: D. Winchester ()

  Writing Prompt: “In a world upended by a catastrophic encounter, a young programmer witnesses a shopping mall transformed into chaos as a mysterious pinkish-purple cube crashes through the ceiling, unleashing tentacled horrors that consume people and create grotesque creatures targeting anything electric. Fast forward 5-10 years, and Earth is ruled by a brutal alien AI race that bans all technology, viewing it as a form of enslavement. Humanity, fragmented into resistant pockets, now depends on bioengineering and monstrous biological creations for survival, while familiar technology is strictly forbidden. In this twisted society, conflicts flare between those who adapt to bioengineering and those who resist, as the remnants of humanity grapple with themes of survival, control, and the blurred lines between creator and creation.”

  Themes: Alien, Supernatural, Horror