"Alright, last I remember, the shop is somewhere on the second floor in here. And since we came in through the back, we have to go to the very front of the mall before we find any stairs."

"W-Well, ok, but...d-do you have to be so fast?!" Vincent requested, struggling to keep up as I pretty much dragged him by his sleeve through the mall.

"If I let you go again, I know you'll just abandon me."

"I n-never abandoned you! I g-got you th-the flashl-light, didn't I?"

"Without informing me ahead of time, hence the abandonment!" I seethed through grit teeth, grip around bat tightening with my hand beginning to sweat from the tension.

"Well I'm s-sorry I didn't know y-you were the type that r-required constant m-monitoring!"

"THAT'S IT!" I stopped dead mid-step, swerved around towards him and swung the bat around with my body's momentum, aiming directly for his head. But, still in my grasp, Vincent managed to dodge underneath the bat, and my body continued to twirl around. With the continued momentum, the bat slid from my grasp and flew far across the mall, shattering loudly into something in the distance. My body kept the spin, and from my grasp, Vincent's arm flew around my stomach. And through all of this, we both lost our footing in the almost clumsy ballet. Trying to maintain, I released my grasp from him and tried to stand back up, only to wind up facing him on the way down.

We each fell with a hard thud on the ground, myself on top of Vincent. My mind took a moment to realize what had happened, and I cursed myself repeatedly, mostly for losing my only weapon. I began to try to push myself back up, head buzzing from the loss of equilibrium. As I pushed off of him, the flashlight clipped on my shirt shined onto his face. He was looking upwards, slightly dazed from rushing at first then winding up on the ground, after coming close to getting his head knocked off.

It was the first real time that I had taken a good look at his face. Most of the time, I had tried to ignore him, rush him or avoid his Cheshire smile. But naturally, I had never actually even looked him in the eye before. Something shot inside of me, and I couldn't help but continue to memorize that look. I was even able to feel my face filling with more blood than usual, though there was no sign of the curse I was under.

Soon after, his face contorted with pain, and he began to groan out for me to get off of him.

"Please...m-my back...the stab wound st-still hurts me..."

I snapped out of my sudden infatuation and pushed off of him completely. I stood up above him, not offering any help right now. I removed the flashlight from my shirt and held it up to shine better around the mall. I tried to see if I would be able to find the bat, though from my judgment, it sounded like it was quite a ways off. I heard Vincent struggle to stand behind me, and I avoided his glance once again, though I felt it burning holes into the back of my head.

"What's up with you, honestly?" He began with what I hoped he wouldn't. "You're always either trying to get rid of me or trying to find me, and either way, you're furious at me. What exactly is it that you want from me?"

I remained silent, trying myself to think of the right answer.

"I...I just want help out of here," I started, hands shaking. "I don't know why this is happening to me...and I just want it to end...but...it seems like you're only interested in making it more difficult for me..."

"'More difficult'?" He repeated, beginning for me. "I helped you out of your curse...I helped you get in here...and I helped you with that flashlight...I think I've been making things easier for you, don't you agree?"

I couldn't help but agree with him on that, but I didn't want to say yes or no. I turned to him and merely nodded, knowing that he'll get the picture.

"And I'll be more careful on what I say. I know I can run my mouth often," he said, the smile coming through his voice once again. I looked to him and couldn't help but glare.

"Let's just get to the shop already. We don't have the bat anymore," I began to the direction of the stairs.

"You LOST your only weapon?!"

"Well if you hadn't dodged, we would still have it!"

"It's not my fault and you know it!"

"God, shut UP already! I thought you said you'll be more careful with your words!"

"You're the one that's easily insulted!"

We continued with the useless bickering until we finally reached the hunting goods store...

Upon finally reaching the store, both Vincent and myself saw that there was a series of busted windows, shelves in disarray and flickering fluorescent lights. I looked to him, questioningly about what had gone on here. Vincent sighed and held his hand to his chin, both thinking and knowing at the same time. An odd combination, but that's just the expression he had.

"I see," Vincent sighed.

"What? What do you see?" I asked him, holding the flashlight up towards the broken windows.

"We need to be careful...there's...something here..."

"S-...Something?" I asked, nerves beginning to build. "But...I thought we were in the normal, not-demonic possessed area...we walked all the way here just fine..."

"I thought so too...but I think we've shifted back. It's so dark in here, we couldn't even tell." Vincent said with almost no expression of his own.

I began to tense up. Every noise either of us made built my nerves that much more. I scanned the walls with the flashlight and saw that they were indeed rusted and bloodstained, just like how my apartment was. My shaking was visible on the light beam from the flashlight, and Vincent took note.

"Well at least we have a way in now, so you should be able to gather some weapons." Vincent said. I could tell he was trying to calm me down, so I nodded agreeing, clipping the flashlight back to my shirt. "I'll keep a look-out around here. Be quick about it, and grab something you think I could use."

I looked to Vincent, surprised that he would be willing to bear a weapon on his own decision. I thought for sure that I would have to try and force him to pull a trigger on a simple water gun. I smiled and nodded as I hopped up onto the ledge of a busted window. I couldn't think of just what made him agree to help me this much, but whatever it was, I wanted to take full advantage of it.

The inside of the hunting goods store was as expected. A series of taxidermy animals, mostly deer heads and small animals like foxes and raccoons, were displayed proudly amongst the shelves of scents, stands and feeds. All of the guns, pistols and rifles on the racks were display purposes only and required several keys and codes just to remove one from the stand. A customer would put in an order for a choice gun and provide the proper information, then receive it in the mail within a week. They would then have to return to the store for ammo. The only sensible weapons that could be accessed were crossbows with the bolts remaining behind a thick sheet of glass.

I picked up a lightweight crossbow from the selection of elaborate choices. I would need something I could aim quickly and load effectively. The next step was to actually acquire the bolts needed to fire. I walked up to the display of paintball rifles, airsoft guns, ammo, arrows and bolts, imagining once I could get the bolts I would grab two airsoft guns as well, knowing they won't kill but at least do some damage and maybe stunning. It would also be a good enough weapon to give to Father Vincent, after a little direction first. I looked to the glass surrounding the required essentials, thinking the only way to access them was to destroy the glass. An alarm would sound obviously, which got me nervous.

It might alert whatever it is Vincent was talking about... I thought for a moment, then sighed and looked down the length of the stand. Once my eyes reached the very end of the stand, I saw there was a little red light blinking on the opposite side from where I was standing. I decided to investigate this. I hopped over the stand and approached the light. It was in the bottom center of some sort of square device that seemed to have a few buttons on it.

My head throbbed for a slight moment. I knew what this was, even before I removed the flashlight to hold it close to see it better. And there was a familiar sight. A 9 button security device with letters instead of numbers. Almost exactly like the one on the entrance, however this one had different letters on it.

|C||N||B|
|S||V||H|
|E||X||O|

I sighed, looking down to my forearm and seeing that the letters were still visible but beginning to fade just a little bit, probably from sweating. I matched them together with the letters on the keycode, but it didn't seem to come out to the name of the mall, or even the name of the store. I looked back and forth from the device to my arm, trying to come up with something. There wasn't a single thing I could come up with. I tried looking around the device, when a white corner of a piece of paper caught my eye. It was tucked tightly behind the seam of the device and the wall side of the display case. I wiggled it out of the crack carefully as not to tear it. Once I managed to get it out in one piece, I saw it was folded thickly. Once I unfolded it completely, the paper was full sized 8 1/2 x 11 inches. It seemed to have been folded that way for so long that the creases darkened out the page with age and cracks through the paper. On very small print in the center of the paper read a five sentence story, then a quick description on the bottom.

There once was a fierce beauty who was mine and mine alone.
Running through my mind and heart, she was golden.
Until that day she ran something else through both.
Calling upon my strength, I had to stop her before she stopped me.
Yes, I killed her, but she was already dead long before.

A tragic story of a murderous couple. One could see this was doomed from the start. However, the start of each event may have been the solution long since foretold. One could have prevented this end by just paying close attention.