Chapter 1 The last time anyone heard from Margaret Watson was a seventeen-second video. The screen was dark. The light from his flash light shook as she walked. Her footsteps were slow, like she was tired. Then, for just a second, the light hit a wall. Gray concrete. A door painted faded green. Above it: B-07. The video stopped. That was three weeks ago. The police searched. After two weeks, they said he probably left on his own. Jane Shores, assistant to Detective John Evans, placed the case file on his desk. “Missing. Margaret Watson. Twenty-nine years old. The police closed it.” “Then why are you bringing it to me?” “Because I knew him,” Jane said firmly. Her voice did not waver. “He would not just leave. I don’t believe that.” John leaned back. “You know the rules. We do not take personal cases.” Jane stepped closer to the desk, her eyes locked on him. “Then call it duty, if you must. But I will not let this case vanish like he did. Someone reported it, and I need you to accept investigating this.” He was quiet for a moment. Then he picked up the file. “What do we have?” Jane smiled so slightly. “A seventeen-second video. And a building that should not exist.” Three days later, they stood at the edge of the old district. The buildings were going to be torn down. The entrances were blocked with chains, but the chains had been cut. The marks looked fresh. “Someone came through here,” John said. “Maybe Margaret,” said Jane. They slipped through the gap. The first hour was nothing special. Dust. Broken glass. Their flashlights cut through the dark. “The underground connector should be straight,” John said, checking the blueprints. “Three doors on each side.” But when they got there, the hallway bent. “That is impossible,” John said. Jane pointed her light at a door on the left wall. “And that door should not be here.” The door was metal. Painted faded green. Rust at the bottom. Above it: B-07. The same number from Margaret’s video. Jane tried the handle. Locked. John looked at the blueprint. Then in the corridor ahead. The map said the hallway ended here. But in front of them, it kept going. “That corridor is not on the blueprint,” Jane said. John was quiet. Then he stepped forward. “We keep going,” he said. Jane struggled for a moment, then followed behind the detective. Behind them, the green door stayed closed. Ahead, the dark hallway stretched into nowhere.
Chapter 2 Two days ago As Jane entered the tiny, old detective agency, she looked around. It was quiet and deserted. The other detectives weren’t there, since they’d been working hard on the last case, so John let them take some rest. John passed her some documents. The documents were very old, and looked like they'd been forgotten by people in a storage room for a long time. Jane read the documents very carefully, then looked up, staring at John. “That’s all we’ve got for now?” “Yes, and the latest missing happened 8 hours ago.” John sat down. “I need more information about the missing people. Especially the live streamer and the mall,” Jane leaned through the wooden table, “I think we should talk to the reporter first. She might give us more clues about what happened that night.” “Good idea. Shall I call the others too?” the detective asked. “No, I bet they’re tired of the last case. We can just go first-” Suddenly a voice interrupted the conversation. It was the reporting party, Linnea, the friend of the latest missing person, the one who escaped from the mall. She opened the door and sneaked in, “So-sorry for disturbing your conversation, detectives, but I think I-I found something about the case.” She was a young woman with long, straight brown hair. And she looked very nervous. She couldn’t stop shivering, like she was still in that horrible night. “What is it?” Jane Asked. She gave John and his partner a nervous look, “I found David’s camera this morning. In the mall, ” she replied, “I know it’s dangerous, but I have to find him. I’m so scared if he never comes back…” her voice went lower and lower, almost crying. “We understand your situation, but we need to know more about him and what you did in the mall that night, so we may find more clues that lead to your friend. We can talk about that later if you want.” John said. “I…I am fine, we can continue about that.” Jane comforted Linnea, then pulled out her notebook and started to write down what Linnea said. “It all started when David found this mall in a strange magazine.” “One day, he asked me if I wanted to go explore the mall with him that night. Although it’s an abandoned mall, I thought nothing would really happen there. So I followed. I felt something was strange when I stepped into the door, there were bizarre doodles everywhere. I wanted to warn David, but when I saw David was so excited, I decided not to warn him. I…I thought I was just too nervous, but I was wrong... Very wrong.” “How did you escape from the mall?” “As we got deeper and deeper to the mall, David found out that the map was wrong.” Interesting, Jane thought while copying what the reporter said, maybe the map is too old that they’ve already rebuilt it. She continued, “It…It was the newest map we could get, the mall made a new map right before they closed it. David noticed that, but he just continued walking. He thought we got to the secret area, and he called me to wait for him for five minutes to go to the toilet. But thirty minutes passed, and he still didn’t come back. I thought he may have just left the mall, so I went to the entrance.” “But when I arrived there, he wasn’t there. I was so scared. So I left the mall, and called the police. But the police didn’t trust me and closed the case.” “So you find us for help?” John asked. “Yes, and that’s all I know. Thank you so much for investigating this case.” She said. Jane stood there for a while, thinking about this strange case, and said, “Shall we go to the mall and check again? Maybe we can find something new.” “I can go with you two, I think.” The reporter said. The detective nodded, “Let’s go,” he said, “I’ll call the others to help find more information about the other missing people later.”
