Ep. 2: The Crucible of Creation

Explicit content warning

11/05/23 • 33 min

Having successfully evaded security, our tragedians arrive at the mall’s central fountain, which is mocked up with lights to look like fire. There they brave a multi-character convergence with an old man mid-flashback, a mischievous set of bowlers, and Blair’s crush from the escalator. Chaos looms by the food court, and in the dust out back, just shy of the megaplex, where wicked beacons call.

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Ep. 1: Escalator Down

The now dead mall once known as The Royal Galleria occupies the whole of Blair Van Auken’s memory. He strives through the fog of years to recall the start of that November day when he and his best friend, Conrad Cliff, came down from the K-Mart on the long escalator toward the carousel. Signs of Conrad’s deteriorating mental state were evident from the beginning, but Blair ignored these warnings and turned his focus on a girl who smiled at them. Conrad and Blair’s mutual melancholic exercise carried them through the mock Medieval mall, down the North Hallway, toward fate.

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Ep. 3: Otranto

The dark of the movie theater, the light of the arcade, our two boys’ melancholic quest bifurcates into love and death, romance and oblivion. Blair navigates the sudden fortune of teenage affection as Conrad obsesses over an arcade cabinet from the 80’s. Little is known of the lost game Otranto, but our research presents some clues to its content. Dark dungeons, living paintings, giant knights, and an ill-fated tragedian who shares a name with ours. Moments before madness, before finding further depths into which we might descend.