I just woke up from the craziest dream. A friend and I were in Kohlās trying on shirts and this girl our age came out of the fitting room in a pretty dress, and I told her she looked great. The girl looked surprised but pleased, and we started talking. The girl was like, āSometimes I come into places like this with lots of mirrors so I donāt forget how I awesome I look.ā
So my friend, the girl, and I walk through the store together, talking about random things, looking at jewelry (the girl found a pair of Vera Wang earrings and wistfully commented that they looked like dying stars and that her brother would love them) and socks. Meanwhile, we start to notice people around us are glued to their phones. One lady has her hand over her mouth in horror, tears streaming down her face. Kohlās seems an awfully lot more empty than it had been. The girl brightly suggests we look in homewares.
We go to the back of the store and start smelling all the Yankee Candles, and the girl is like, āPeople can be so creative. Vanilla lime? Genius! Iām going to miss this.ā My friend asks if sheās going on a trip and the girl is nonchalant, like, āThings will be changing for me real soon and Iām not going to be able to enjoy things like candles anymore.ā My friend wishes her all the best with whatever and I say weāll buy her the candle so she has something to remember us by, and the girl is all, āYou both are very kind. I wonāt forget that, I promise.ā
So we go to check out, but no oneās there. So we wait and wait, and then the girl shrugs, takes the candle and the Vera Wang earrings, and goes to leave. My friend and I are mortified, crying that she has to pay for them, and the girl is like, āI doubt theyāll mind,ā as she leaves. Then my friend notices the store is completely empty and takes out her phone, which is blinking with dozens of missed calls, texts, and alerts.
She opens one of the alerts and it takes her to a breaking news video. All over the world, there is chaos. Horrifying things are devouring people and destroying cities. A giant cube of sand with teeth and weird proboscises on every side is sucking up people in Rio, and a slow-moving slender titan made of clouds is walking through San Fransisco and leaving nothing in its wake. Off the coast of Japan, something is rising from the ocean but the video cuts out.
Terrified, we run out of Kohlās and find the girl standing at the curb. Sheās staring at the sky over Route 1 as a giant, shifting mass of black mist descends. The girl turns to us, smiles, and says, āThatās my brother. Thank you for a lovely day of shopping. Iāll never forget it.ā
Then the skin of her face and neck begins to crack and flake away, revealing fault lines of indescribable things underneath. My friend starts to weep. I manage to get out through chattering teeth that I hope her brother likes the earrings, and the girlābarely human nowāsmiles with the remnants of a million devoured suns and says, āYou know, if everyone had been as nice as you two, we wouldnāt have come to this.ā
And then she squared herself exponentially and swallowed everything up.