PERSONAL LOG: "THE MALL" & NOSTALGIA
CLASSIFICATION: PERSONAL / THERAPEUTIC
DATE: July 04, 2026
AUTHOR: Specialist "Luca" (A-992-L)
NOTE: Recorded via HBI Voice Note per Dr. Thorne's request.
Dr. Thorne said I should talk about the Mall. The big discovery. Everyone else is writing reports about spatial anomalies and threat vectors. Wulfsige is making sure the security team has enough ammo and enough exits. But me?
I couldn't stop looking at the neon.
When we walked in past the shutter, it didn't feel like a trap. I know Wulfsige says it's a hunting blind, and he's probably right because he's always right — but it didn't feel that way to me. It felt like a memory I forgot to have. Like something from a life that happened somewhere just off to the side of the life I can actually remember.
There was a fountain. Tiled blue. No water anymore, just a thin layer of dust at the bottom. But I could smell the chlorine from when it used to run. Ghost chlorine. Old and faint and absolutely real. And there was a store called "Suncoast." I don't know what that is — I don't know what it sold or why it existed — but seeing the sign made my chest hurt in a good way. Like I was supposed to meet someone there on a Friday night and I'm late and they're still waiting.
I found the arcade. "Time-Out Tunnel." Most of the machines were dark and silent. But one — a racing game — was still flickering. Just barely.
I sat in the plastic seat. My knees hit the steering wheel and my tail got completely squished against the back of the chair and I looked absolutely ridiculous. But for a second, I wasn't a biological asset. I was just a kid trying to beat someone's high score on a machine that had probably been running since before I was born.
Wulfsige found me there. I braced for it — I thought he'd tell me to move out, that we had a corridor to clear, that sitting still in the Mall is how you become someone else's problem.
He didn't. He walked up and put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. Just once. Then he asked: "Did you win?"
I told him no. The machine ate my quarter, metaphorically. He laughed — a real one, chest and everything. Then he said: "Come on. We have to clear the upper deck. But we'll mark this spot. When we secure the zone, I'll find a generator. We'll play a round."
He won't. He's too busy watching everyone else's back to play a racing game in an abandoned mall. But he said it to make me happy. And it did. That counts for something.
The Mall is dangerous. I saw the Shadow thing. I know it's hunting in there. But — can we maybe save the arcade machines? Could we bring one back? I think a high score board in the breakroom would do more for morale than another mandatory safety briefing.
I'm going to put it in my official request form. Wulfsige will sign it if I ask him nicely enough. Probably.
End of Log.