About the Contest

This story is an entry to @tristancarax’s 31Sentence Contest. The contest is exclusively on Hive.

If you fancy participating, you can find the contest here.
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Prompt

Here is the expected sentence order:

20, 24, 6, 27, 28, 4, 11, 30, 16, 21, 31, 19, 12, 13, 17, 26, 15, 29, 10, 7, 22, 25, 2, 18, 3, 8, 9, 23, 1, 5, 14

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The Pie Demon

“No skateboarding, bicycle riding, roller blading, loitering,” Stern read out loud for his camera to pick up, “aren’t we loitering?”

“Hmm,” Sheena nodded while being fixated on the light bulb above the board, “there is no electricity here, then how is that light on?”

Stern’s idiotic grin began to fade. The rest of the abandoned mall was pitch dark, illuminated only by Stern’s and Sheena’s camera lights, barring the pie shop which eerily had a baking aroma.

Sheena and Stern were YouTubers visiting abandoned and haunted locations to get a glimpse of paranormal activities for their discerning virtual clientele, who also ensured the duo’s income.

“S**t man,” Stern remarked.

YouTube views and subscriptions ensured that the duo earned their living. With views crossing millions on each of their videos, Double-S, as the duo were known, lived a lavish lifestyle in Switzerland and travelled to paranormal locations all across the world.

“And that’s also the shop where Aaron had witnessed strange activities,” Sheena remarked while still filming.

Stern realized that they were already filming a paranormal activity, after all, how often does one see the light without electricity.

Aaron was a fellow paranormal investigator and friend who had visited the same location a year back and barely came out of the place with bleeding claw marks and broken equipment.

The structure that Double-S were investigating was one of the first concepts of a mall back in the seventies. It closed down in the nineties when massive malls sprung up everywhere. With no humans for nearly three decades, something more sinister took refuge there.

Inside, the mall had paint peeling off from every wall in sight, and the wooden structures had seeped in enough water for suffocating molds to flourish.

“Let’s get in,” Stern said while reaching for the door of the ghostly pie shop. The well-lit shop was contrasting the darker than hell surrounding, had a soul-lifting aroma against the toxic smell around, and appeared humanly active against a dull and dead mall.

“Get back,” Sheena shrieked as the door opened by itself. It was said that hell advertised well. That shop was an excellent example of such an advertisement, but the only question was who was managing the show in there.

Stern took out his EVP meter to gauge any paranormal presence, “s**t, a level ten entity is in there but am not sure what kind.”

“Definitely, hostile.”

Both froze as they heard the whisper, while Stern was hoping that his camera picked it up too.

“Don’t go in.”

“I think some other entity is warning us.”

“Yeah, we’ve got enough recorded, so let’s go, Sheen.”

As Stern put the EVP meter in his backpack and turned around, he felt a sharp tug on his bag, “S**t, Sheena, help!”

“Dammnn..”

Just then sunlight pierced through. The shop's light went off, and a devilish laughter accompanied Double-S to the exit.

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Image Courtesy: @tristancarax