Hidden Mall Thirty-Eight: Open Air ☁️

[aldersprig]

☁️

Abby’s heart was pounding and her stomach was churning.  She sternly told both of them to calm down.

“I want air.”  She glared at the doorway.  “I want open air and rain and nature.  I want out.”

Vic-French murmured to one of the Livs.  The Liv responded in French. Vic started to pull back.

“I don’t know if she can get back to her own mall from here,” Abby admitted.  “Or even go through a door without help. She might be better off staying with us.”

One of the Livs translated that, just a murmur.  Abby caught a word here and there, enough to be pretty sure Liv was actually relaying her message.  Then she glared at the door again.

The Liv on her right released her hand and grabbed on to her belt loop.  Abby wondered if, when they got out of here, she’d ever stop needing to know where Liv was all the time.

They had to survive, first.  She grabbed the door, turned the handle.  

read on…

Comments

[sauergeek]

Hrm. She asked for open air and rain and nature. She got at least something resembling open air. The sound of water may pass for rain. If nature shows up with enthusiasm, then the plummeting to doom may happen — I hope not.

[aldersprig]

Be kind of hard to write a novel if I kill off the protagonist :-D

Then again, with this novel, I could replace her......

[sauergeek]

It sounds like there's a distinct shortage of Abbys available. How many can you kill off before the anti-Abby faction wins?

[aldersprig]

Good question!

Well, how many other ‘verses of people have we met?

And how many Abbies do we know are dead?

[sauergeek]

Without going back and mining the archives, I can think immediately of at least three Livs we've met other than Abby's original Liv. There's skinny-Liv, old-Liv, and faun-Liv. So far as I recall, all their Abbys are dead, either found (faun-Liv) or reported (skinny-Liv, don't remember for old-Liv). I think there was also a Liv with one of the Vics we've met, but that's from a different 'verse where Abby and Liv weren't the pair-up, so that may throw off the Abby count. We've also seen a handful of other people — at least two Vics, I think a Sandy, plus a few boys whose names I'm not immediately bringing to mind.

Of those, the only known living Abby is the one we're following. I'm still pretty sure something is out to get Abbys, and is having pretty good luck at it so far save for our current one. I don't have enough to work from, but I'm going to guess the lifespan of an Abby in the back of any given mall is measured in days, if not hours, and ours is a notable exception.

All that boils down to: if you kill off this Abby, there aren't that many others available, still alive, in the mall.