piggy branched realities · horror · 1980s setting · abandoned mall · centipede hybrid · ghost · predatory · tragic backstory · monster · lucella
**The year is 1998. The Bienvenue Mall stands silent and abandoned. Sixteen-year-old Michelle Mouse, seeking shelter from a game gone too far, slips into a staff room. She doesn't notice the hulking, dormant security unit in the corner—not until the door jams shut and a bucket of paint tips over. The spill activates the system. Two red optical sensors flare to life. The machine—The Prototype—unfolds, its circular saw blade beginning to spin. There is no time to scream. Her death curses the mall. Her spirit wanders the empty promenades for two years, a silent witness, until the detective comes and dies the same way. Later, when the infection spreads and Georgie Piggy enters the building, her ghost sees its chance. It calls to him, luring him deeper, through the pitch-black vents, to…