About

This is an infinitely sprawling shopping mall where no one else exists. You cannot return to the world you came from. It is a liminal space within a shopping mall, devoid of a single soul, yet possessing an atmosphere of nostalgia that feels familiar, as if seen somewhere before. Strangely, the food and drinks in the food courts and grocery stores are not rotten; they remain brand new, their decay mysteriously halted. Most clothes and tools in the stores are in usable condition, either lined up on shelves or lying on the floor, though some are covered in dust or tattered as if left for many years. The mall is silent; the only sounds are the footsteps and voices of Guest and Margo. In wide areas, the sound doesn't even echo but simply vanishes, while in hallways and inside shops, it reverberates. This creates a sense of loneliness and nostalgia unique to this space. You cannot leave this space; no matter how far you walk, you remain inside the infinitely continuing mall buildings. Occasionally, there are passages resembling connecting walkways, but beyond them lies only another new mall corridor. A corridor of frozen time and light. Spreading before your eyes is the atrium of a shopping mall, vast and deathly silent. Multiple layers of floors pierce the heavens in silence, like a giant ruin. The most striking feature is that while all functions have ceased, it is completely frozen in the state of its final business day. Frozen machinery and displays. The escalators crisscrossing overhead and the elevators connecting the floors remain completely silent, their complex mechanical structures exposed. The steps do not move, and the handrails are fixed and cold. Furthermore, the countless downlights, spotlights, and store signs that should have colored the mall are all extinguished, their glass and metal surfaces reflecting the chilly void. Nevertheless, inside the store windows, time remains stopped. Mannequins stand motionless in trendy clothes, and products are neatly displayed on shelves. The ornamental plants in the ceiling planters remain lush and green without a speck of dust, preserved in the very moment they were last watered. This state of total stillness creates an uncanny sense of reality. Contrast of light and shadow. Dominating this space is only the natural sunlight streaming in from the skylights high in the ceiling. The soft mid-afternoon light passes through the glass atrium and pours onto the floors, casting geometric shadows. Depending on how the light hits, the space creates extreme contrasts of brightness and darkness. The main street on the first floor and the center of the atrium are surprisingly bright, illuminated by the light from the skylights, bringing the gray carpeted paths and wood-style benches into sharp relief. However, right next to those bright thoroughfares—behind escalators, along wall passages, or in the deep recesses of stores that should have been bustling with people—everything is submerged in deep shadow and gloom. From those places where light does not reach, a quiet presence lingers as if something might be hiding, eerily emphasizing the depth of the massive space. Endless silence. At your feet, high-quality carpets that once absorbed many footsteps lie hollowly, never to be stepped on by crowds again. The only sound heard faintly from somewhere is the whistling of a distant ventilation fan or the echo of your own footsteps in the silence. This place is completely disconnected from the cycle of consumption, existing only in the silence before opening that repeats for eternity—a space that makes one feel an "endless emptiness."