Introduction:

Long ago pioneers plopped down in the middle of nowhere and started the settlement Heterra. Since then the small cluster of people has grown into a large city, where it wasn't uncommon to see lots of culture diversity. In the North Western part of the city exists a mall, unlike any other.

I immigrated to Heterra from Lithuania when I was just a young girl, never have I encountered something like this. I have been in the business of law for three years. I graduated high school early for my high marks and determination to get work done. University came as easily to me as early years of schooling did. Before I knew it I was one of the best detectives in the local region. I had thought life would continue on like that, I would keep solving crimes, keep climbing the ranks. My goal was to reach the highest level I could, much like a child playing a silly video game. My life changed one day. I was called into the station after they discovered the body of a young man in the river. The fifth one that week, all being murdered in cold blood. My job was to go undercover, use the resources we had to find the killer. So I went up as a young college student looking for an apartment and a job at a local mall our guy was supposed to work at. Little did I know that after moving here,and after becoming a detective, for the first time in my life, I would have no idea what to do.

I should have known something was up just by the entirely insane building. The first floor was full of shops, which doesn't seem unusual for a mall, yet my mind was changed upon seeing the second floor which was a massive residential area that looked to have no regulations at all.

The mall itself was small I don't know if I could even call it that. It is crowded has a total of sixteen shops, not including the probably illegal gambling ring in the basement. Don't even get me started on the basement, there are technically no walls the only separation from 'room' to 'room' are giant bookshelves filled to the top with books. Once I got lost and stumbled upon what appeared to be a pagan ritual of some sort. Apparently it's a bookstore and there's a tea shop somewhere in the book labyrinth, to me it looks like the meeting place for a resistance group going against a fascist leader, long since abandoned. It isn't actually abandoned it's full of life the only reason everything is dusty is because the 'Prussian' janitor never bothers to clean down stairs even though the utility closet was in the basement, meaning he had to drag all his supplies upstairs to clean. I'm told the building itself was built in the twenties and refurbished in the eighties. Eighties would fit the description of the green floral carpet, the paneled walls, and the extremely tacky wallpaper in some of the rooms. Yet the hotel feels like home, it has that spiced apple smell and music always playing softly from hidden speakers.

I remember seeing people running a muck the first time I arrived, children were sliding down the banister, A full grown adult was sticking "Made in China" stickers on everything and a blank faced Norwegian just sitting there, reading, amongst the chaos. It was at that moment in time when I asked God "Why? I have done nothing to deserve this."

After being there for a period of time those that lived on this crazy, chaotic, insane second floor became my family. So here I am having to face the choice of my new family, or justice. Some days I will look at these faces, like when someone calls out that they're doing laundry and they get attacked by random articles of clothing. And what I see aren't criminals but instead people, sure they definitely are screwed up in the head, but they care and love all the same. How can I throw these people into jail for trying to keep up with bills. Most of the people that live here are in their early twenties, not hardened criminals.

When I went in for this mission I was expecting a small, get in and get out job, but no life just had to throw a curveball. I thought that it would only be a few suspects. All of them, all of them were into something. Fifty people, all working under the table for one thing or another. From the drug dealing Dutchman, to the Mafia involved Italian family. This mall is so much more than a mall. It's a safe house.