Nobody moved for a second.
That voice from the corridor hung there wrong.
"Hello?"
Close enough to feel nearby.
Wrong enough to make Joshua's skin tighten harder.
The red-polo man didn't answer.
He should've.
Even if he was scared. Even if he was stupid. Even if he was trying to prove something. He should've snapped back fast with some shaky "yeah?" or "who's there?" or "shut the fuck up."
Nothing came.
The blinking fluorescent in the corridor buzzed once.
Died.
Came back weak.
Lucía took one step toward the hall.
Joshua put an arm out without looking at her. "Don't."
She stopped anyway, but her head turned sharp. "If there's somebody else in there—"
"There isn't," Hana said.
That one came too quick too.
Again.
Everybody heard it this time.
Hana swallowed and looked like she hated that she'd spoken at all. "I mean… I don't think there is."
"You keep doing that," Joshua said.
Her eyes flicked to him. "Doing what?"
"Saying shit too fast."
"Because this place is wrong."
"Yeah." He kept staring at the hall. "I know."
The same voice called again.
"Hello?"
This time it sounded farther down the corridor.
Not much farther.
Just enough that if you were dumb enough to follow it, you'd keep walking.
Idris muttered, "That ain't him."
The nurse started crying harder. Lucía crouched back down and got one hand on her shoulder, other hand up like she was ready to spring right back to her feet.
Priya's face didn't change. "Everyone stay here."
Tomasz gave a little laugh through his nose. "That never works."
Abeni looked at the teenager beside her. "Don't move unless I move, okay?"
The girl nodded too fast.
Joshua adjusted his stance.
The corridor sat twenty yards away, black mouth cut into the service side of the mall. Too narrow. Too clean a line. Too easy to get lost in.
The old man in the brown coat whispered, "Maybe he found somebody."
Joshua looked at him.
"Maybe," he said.
He didn't believe it.
Didn't have to.
He could feel the lie of the place already. Same way he could feel a roof that wouldn't hold before he committed weight to it. Same way he could feel when a jump looked good from one angle and stupid from the angle that mattered.
This corridor felt like a bad landing.
Dae-hyun flexed his hands once. "We should shut that door."
Idris nodded. "And stay out of the side halls unless we have to."
Another voice came from deeper in the mall.
This one from the parking ramp side.
Not the same words.
Just sound.
A wet little laugh.
Then a hard metal scrape.
The whole level flinched.
"Stop that," Tomasz snapped into the open dark, like being angry at it made him less scared.
No response.
Just the low dying hum of emergency lights and thirty people trying not to breathe too loud.
Then the woman in scrubs finally looked up at the rest of them, eyes wet and furious with fear. "We cannot stay in one open spot like this."
Lucía nodded once. "She's right."
Joshua's gaze was still on the service corridor.
Something in him hated turning his back to it.
"Then where?" Dae-hyun asked.
Idris pointed toward a shuttered electronics store two units down from the corridor entrance. "There. Rolling gate half down, interior still open. Counters. Back room. Better than standing out in the middle."
Priya looked. Assessed. "Good. Move together."
"Wait," Lucía said. "What about him?"
Nobody had to ask who.
The red-polo man.
Joshua's jaw tightened.
There it was. The first real test.
Go get him.
Leave him.
Split the group.
Stand here and die stupid.
The same corridor voice came again.
"Hello?"
Lucía's head snapped up.
Everybody's did.
Abeni blinked once, slow.
Then frowned.
Joshua looked at her.
She looked back.
That was enough.
"You know that voice?" he asked.
Her face changed.
Only a little.
Only enough.
"No."
Lie.
Not a full one. More like her body said no before her mouth got there.
Priya caught it too. "Abeni?"
Abeni's brows pulled together. "It sounded like—"
The corridor voice came again, and this time it was not even subtle.
"Can somebody help me?"
Abeni flinched.
The teenager beside her grabbed her sleeve. "That's you."
The whole level seemed to lean.
Joshua's stomach dropped.
Because yeah.
Now that they heard it with context, it was obvious.
That was Abeni's voice.
Not similar.
Not close.
Abeni's exact voice.
The real Abeni stood ten feet from Joshua with one hand still near the teenager's arm.
No one spoke for one of the ugliest seconds Joshua had ever lived through.
Then the nurse made a high broken sound.
The old man in the brown coat crossed himself.
Lucía was already on her feet again.
Tomasz backed up one pace and said, "No."
Just that.
No.
Abeni's copied voice floated out again from the corridor.
"Please."
The teenager started crying.
"Everybody move," Priya said immediately. "Now. To the store. Together."
Joshua didn't wait for everybody else to catch up. He grabbed the nearest shopping cart frame with one hand and shoved it sideways toward the electronics unit. Metal screamed across concrete.
That snapped people loose.
Dae-hyun moved fast, herding the nurse and the old man.
Lucía pulled the teenager by the wrist.
Idris headed for the storefront.
Tomasz moved because he wasn't dumb enough to stay alone, even if the fear in his face looked close to mutiny.
Abeni didn't move at first.
Joshua caught that and barked, "Move."
That did it.
She stumbled into action, eyes still fixed on the corridor like a part of her couldn't accept her own voice being in there.
They piled toward the electronics store in a tight, ugly rush.
The half-down rolling gate left enough room to duck under. Idris got there first and yanked it a little lower from the inside until it clanged and stuck, leaving a waist-high gap and ugly bent slats to see through.
Not safe.
Better.
Joshua ducked through last except for one.
Because the skinny man in the suit hadn't gone in.
He was standing three steps back from the corridor entrance, face white, staring into the dark.
"Get in," Dae-hyun snapped.
The man didn't look at him.
Abeni's voice drifted out again.
Closer now.
"I'm in here."
Abeni slapped a hand over her own mouth.
The man in the suit blinked hard. "No, no, no, no—"
Joshua knew the look on his face.
Hope and terror at the same time.
Worst kind.
The man took one step toward the corridor.
Lucía hissed, "No."
He took another.
"Aye!" Dae-hyun barked.
The man finally looked back at them, and Joshua saw it clear in his eyes:
he was gone already.
Not dead.
Past reason.
Because if that thing could copy one voice, then maybe his wife's voice was next. Maybe somebody he loved. Maybe if he moved right now, if he just got there before—
"Abeni, say something," Lucía said.
Abeni's hand shook against her own mouth. Then she dragged it down and yelled, "That isn't me!"
The corridor answered in her exact voice:
"I'm in here."
The man in the suit made a sound like his insides gave out.
Then he ran.
Straight into the service hall.
"Fuck," Joshua breathed.
Lucía surged toward the gap. Dae-hyun caught her arm.
"He's dead if he goes alone," she snapped.
"He was dead before he moved," Tomasz muttered.
Lucía twisted on him like she might hit him.
Inside the corridor, footsteps slapped concrete.
Fast.
Panicked.
Then stopped.
A hard silence hit.
Abeni's copied voice came one more time.
Softer.
"Help me."
Joshua moved before he could think too long about it.
He dropped to one knee at the bent slats, squinting through the gap down the angle of the corridor.
Weak fluorescent.
Dirty service wall.
Cleaning bucket.
Shadow.
Then the man in the suit stumbled back into view around the bend.
For half a second, relief hit stupid and useless.
Then Joshua saw his face.
Mouth open too wide.
Eyes already empty with terror.
A black-gloved hand clamped over the lower half of it from behind.
The figure attached to that hand stepped with him.
Tall.
Lean.
Dark maintenance jacket zipped all the way up.
Black work pants.
A ring of clipped keycards and tools at the belt.
Off-white emergency smoke hood pulled over the head, stretched wrong, eye openings cut wide enough to show only darkness inside.
No mouth.
No visible mouth at all.
And from that blank hood, in Abeni's exact voice, came:
"Help me."
The gloved hand jerked the man's head back.
The other hand flashed once.
Segmented utility blade.
Up under the jaw.
Hard.
The man spasmed so violently he hit the corridor wall with his shoulder.
Blood sprayed black in the bad light.
The hooded thing dragged him backward while he was still trying to die.
Slow.
Not rushing.
Like it had all the time in the world.
Joshua's whole body locked.
The women behind him screamed.
The teenager started wailing.
Dae-hyun cursed and shoved down on the gate instinctively, like metal could become enough if he forced it to.
And the thing in the corridor stopped.
Just long enough to tilt its hooded head toward the storefront.
Toward them.
Toward the bent slats.
Toward Joshua's eye-line.
Then it spoke again in Abeni's voice.
Perfect.
Calm.
"Help me."
Joshua got up so fast he slammed his shoulder into a display rack.
"Everybody away from the opening," he snapped.
Nobody argued.
Not even Tomasz.
They staggered deeper into the dark electronics store, knocking old promo stands and dust-caked boxes aside, breath ripping loose, nerves gone.
The bent gate rattled once.
Not from impact.
From a hand testing it.
Then stopped.
No pounding.
No wild slamming.
That made it worse.
Lucía had both hands on the teenager now. Abeni looked like she might throw up. Priya's face had gone colder than before, which Joshua was starting to understand was what happened to her when she got more scared, not less.
Idris whispered, "It listened first."
Joshua looked at him.
Idris swallowed. "That thing. It had to hear her talk before it copied her."
Nobody liked that.
The nurse's crying turned to choking little breaths.
Dae-hyun looked toward the gate, then back to the store interior. "Back room."
Idris nodded fast. "Yeah. Now."
Joshua turned.
Past old televisions. Shelving. A register counter choked with dust and old impulse-buy plastic. A broken wall display. A back employee door hanging crooked.
Then he heard it.
Soft.
From right outside the gate.
In the dead perfect voice of the man they had just watched die.
"Please."
Every person in the room stopped breathing.
Joshua stared at the dark behind the bent slats.
The thing outside scraped the blade once along the metal.
Then, in that dead man's voice, it whispered:
"Don't leave me out here."