The Mall
Selected from Annex IB-TM.
The above video is the account of Corbin Weckhardt. Selected from Annex: IB-TM.
The story below is the continued account of Corbin Weckhardt. Selected from Annex: IB-TM. Looking for the audio version? Scroll all the way down!
The human brain is not so good at seeing things that should not be, which is exactly how the mannequins manage to so easily sneak up on Corbin as he idly sits on the edge of a fountain in the center of one of the mall’s many large rotundas, finishing recording his audio diary. Mannequins aren’t supposed to be independently mobile beings. The idea of a mannequin that can move and walk of its own accord simply isn’t RIGHT. It is, if nothing else, an egregious affront to the way things are supposed to work, an inconvenient distortion of reality that Corbin’s mind is all too happy to ignore or write off as a trick of the ceaseless, flickering lights that illuminate the Mall. It’s an unconscious psychological survival instinct, really, his brain’s attempt at staving off the blinding fear that would surely accompany the realisation that the mannequins are in fact moving, following, watching, and waiting.
Such an instinct is of little use, however, when the reality of the situation at least rears its ugly head. The mannequins are on him before he could have ever hoped to react, a whole swarm of them, bearing down on him like murder of angry ravens, silently clobbering him with their stiffly falling hands. He barely has time to get his phone back in his pocket before they knock him off his seat on the edge of the fountain and into the softly bubbling waters below, his yelps quickly turning into gurgles as dozens of the stiff, single-jointed arms of the mannequins hold him beneath the surface of the water. He thrashes against their rigid plastic arms, but there are just too many, and the shock of getting jumped by a dozen mannequins was so great that he pushed most of the air out of his lungs in surprise right as he hit the water. His arms reach out to the side, grasping for something, ANYTHING, that could give him purchase against the onslaught of the man-sized plastic dolls, but all he manages to grasp is a handful of coins, no doubt tossed in the fountain by other lost souls wishing to find their way home. His vision begins to blur, and he screams, releasing the last of the air from his lungs. The last thing he sees as the world fades to black is the distorted, blank faces of the mannequins, unflinching as they drown him in the fountain.
