Days have long since stopped being recorded as myself, Mitch, Nathan, Charlie, Em and Laura trek wearily through a jungley-forest-woodland of sorts. The specifics of the environment tend to shift from moment to moment as do the exact members of our plucky band of survivors in this significantly post-apocalyptic Earth.
We're all bruised, battered and wearing filthy torn clothes as well as probably starving although frustratingly I've lost no weight because of this. We hunch and push our way through the undergrowth until we come upon a vast dirt clearing with a surprisingly well-maintained shopping centre standing proudly in the centre. The sign above its doors identifies it as "YOU WORLD" and we all stagger towards it with as much cautiousness as our weariness will allow.
Time skips and we've all settled quite well into the survivor's community of YOU WORLD. To our exhausted, starved bodies and minds it must have seemed like paradise. Offering food, shelter and copious entertainment of all things with mysteriously functioning arcades, theme parks and roller-coasters. Clearly the inside of the place has something of a dream-approved Tardis effect going on.
Most of the other survivors seem to have arrived recently as well and wander around with a child-like awe to their oasis in the storm of whatever unspecified Armageddon befell the world outside. We slowly become aware of the leaders of YOU WORLD despite never seeing them in person. The longer we stay the more we mingle with longer-term residents who are noticeably not as gleeful as the newcomers. Perhaps that's just normal though I think to myself.
Eventually we see the leader and presumed owner of the shopping centre city. A slimy businessman who has managed to stay relatively unruffled by apocalyptic circumstances. He's a typical grinning sleaze-ball who lures people in with his marketing buddy-pal patter but takes on a more subtly threatening tone with the older residents.
Myself and two of my rotating group of friends (perhaps the switches are meant to signify different days) overhear some of the older residents talking about people going missing. Some of them sound angry at the occurrence whilst others are scared of the mysterious background happenings.
In what can only be described as a disastrous lack of context, we time skip again and we're all trapped in our bedrooms that have been hastily refurbished into prison cells...Or maybe they always were, OOOOOEEEE.
Evil businessman tries to justify his abductions of people but none of us or the other imprisoned residents are convinced. In retrospect I would really like to know what horrible back-alley shadiness was taking place but at the time I felt suitably angered and horrified to give the snake-oil suit no quarter.
As night falls and our kidnapper retires, we talk amongst ourselves and with remarkable speed and lack of persuasion decide that a violent revolt is our only choice of action. Upon concluding this and grasping the bars of my cell I discover them to in fact be oversized pipe cleaners and thus rather simple to bend and remove.
Bloody revolution turns out to be reassuringly easy when YOU WORLD employs only three security guards. As the more courageous (or bloodthirsty) of the residents deal with them we all run for our lives and the shopping centre exit. In the chaos I lose track of my friends but approaching a set of stairs just before the exit I do find a cushioned long rectangular luggage trolley. I think to myself that this will impress and please my friends as we now have somewhere to put our stuff out in the wilderness and even sleep upon whilst still travelling.
I wait by the entrance for my friends but no matter how hard I look through the fleeing crowds I fail to locate them. I find myself surrounded by groups of Hasidic Jews and other elaborately costumed religious types from religions some of which I'm fairly certain don't exist. They all keep giving me funny looks for my trolley.
Eventually there's only a small crowd who hasn't fled the building and big boss businessman and some guards step out and address the crowd. The businessman whose heinous crime remains unclear looks distinctly more dishevelled and bitterly admonishes us
"Fine go! You ungrateful hooligans! You'll be sorry for what you've destroyed here today and you'll be hearing from our lawyers!"
The crowd jeers him and we all finally leave YOU WORLD. I despondently leave the trolley inside only to find my friends waiting happily outside. I must have missed them or they escaped through a different exit. I consider the trolley back in the entrance hall...It would be awkward to go back and get it now...
