The floor of the Cloverdale-Vortex Thermal Outlets in Sector 7-E was currently a slurry of neon mustard and radioactive salt.
Ryan dodged a flying cinnamon sugar bomb as the owners of Salt-Lord Pretzels and The Dough-Zone screamed in seventeen frequencies.
The Salt-Lord, a crystalline entity with a massive superiority complex, had just installed a gravity-well to pull customers away from the Dough-Zone’s kiosk. In retaliation, the Dough-Zone’s manager—a pile of sentient yeast—was pumping industrial-grade CO2 into the Salt-Lord’s air supply to make him crumble.
“Guys, the Mall Policy clearly states a three-foot neutral zone between kiosks!” Ryan shouted, waving his tattered map at the chaos.
“Policy is for those who lack vision!” the Salt-Lord shrieked, activating a tractor beam that accidentally sucked up Nebula’s entire supply of El Pluto Loco tacos.
Dover groaned nearby, his metal steps vibrating with existential dread. “Why bother? We are all just going to be crushed under the weight of consumerist spite anyway.”
The war escalated when the yeast pile launched a tactical fermentation strike, causing the Salt-Lord’s crystals to swell and crack. Desperate, the Salt-Lord opened a localized rift to the Outer Limit Factory Outlet, summoning a horde of Gluten-Eating Goblins to devour his rival.
The goblins, however, did not care about the rivalry; they started eating the mall’s structural support beams instead.
“Look!” Ryan yelled. “You have destroyed both your shops and the floor integrity of the entire sector!”
The two rivals paused, surveyed the ruins of their businesses, and then looked at each other with mutual, burning hatred. With a simultaneous huff of pride, they both signed a legal blood-pact to file for bankruptcy together, purely so Mr. Meankinder could not collect the rent.
As the floor finally collapsed into the thermal vents below, Ryan realized his paycheck was currently falling into a lava pit.
(This story created by a California earthquake on July 31, 2026. Magnitude of: 3.67. 7 km ESE of Cloverdale, CA. URL: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nc75409452)
