That the car park was eerily futur­is­tic, with auto­mated sen­sors telling you how many spaces remained in each lane, should have been your first warn­ing. No, yet ear­lier than that. You should have realised when it took you four attempts to leave the dual car­riage­way at the right junc­tion. No amount of poor nav­i­ga­tion skill could have led you to fail that many times. You should have realised, then, that the place dis­torted real­ity around it. Whether it was just unusu­ally mas­sive, or unusu­ally evil, you couldn’t tell from the out­side. All you could tell was that it twisted your per­cep­tions, made your mind and your car run in cir­cles. But these cir­cles were con­cen­tric, spi­ralling ever inwards, towards the core. Once you saw the sign and the invit­ing arrow beside that junc­tion, all hope was already lost. You were caught in its net.

As Gen­eral Adama would say, “Frak”.

From the moment you step inside the door, pick up your eye-wateringly yel­low bag and utterly use­less paper tape mea­sure, it has you. You will fol­low the arrows on the floor, never devi­at­ing from the pre­de­ter­mined path that your Swedish over­lords have ordained for you. There are short­cuts, sure, but do you really want to try them? The other cus­tomers will give you strange looks, they’ll know that you’re not yet truly one of them. And they will report it to a mem­ber of staff, as is the duty of a Loyal Cus­tomer. Then you will be dealt with. No, no, dear cus­tomer, it is bet­ter to stay on the path.

Heed the throng of Loyal Cus­tomers. Their bel­lies are full of nour­ish­ing meat­balls, and they have set off on the Great Pil­grim­age with you. Their chil­dren scream and wail while they peruse the bland infin­ity of moderately-priced flat-pack fur­ni­ture, but to no avail. The adults are con­sumed, they have become cogs in the machine, and you are elated to be join­ing them.

The names, the names are what seals it. The twisted, mad­den­ing names, the names that per­haps once were Swedish or some other lan­guage before the Taint reached them. Now they are trapped in a Limbo between mean­ing and non-meaning, lur­ing you in, try­ing to get you to under­stand them. You look, you try to pro­nounce them, you curl the sounds around your tongue, prob­ing for mean­ing, but there is none. They will haunt you for the rest of your days, sit­ting in the back of your mind, lur­ing you back to this place just in case you can extract some mean­ing from a sec­ond expo­sure. Behold the names, behold their ter­ri­ble glory! Behold the crea­ture of mad­ness that spawned them! Chant with me! Ia! Ia! Cthulhu f’thagn!

Beware most of all what seems to be the end of your jour­ney, for there is a ter­ri­ble choice that awaits you. There are steps up and steps down. Those lead­ing up are warm and invit­ing, ush­er­ing you on with a yel­low tone you now find sooth­ing to your soul. But beware it, beware it! It leads back to the entrance again, from where you have no choice but to com­plete your whole damn­ing jour­ney again, hop­ing and pray­ing that you will still have enough san­ity left to choose dif­fer­ently next time. If not, all hope is lost. You will fol­low the Path again and again, forever­more walk­ing the spa­cious show­rooms of this cursed place. One day you will awaken from where you had col­lapsed on a com­fort­able pine-effect divan and find your­self changed, wear­ing a yel­low polo shirt and with a spa­cious util­ity belt for pen­cils and tape mea­sures. You will have become an employee.

No, such things should not be men­tioned. It is too ter­ri­ble a fate. Take heed of my warn­ing, Loyal Cus­tomer, and choose the steps going down. They lead into the belly of the beast, a grey expanse of unend­ing shelves where boxes are born and die. Peo­ple here have dis­carded their yel­low bags in favour of metal trol­leys, all the bet­ter to gorge them­selves on the wares of this place.

This is the most dan­ger­ous place of all, but you must endure it. Your life depends on reach­ing the end of it. It is guarded by the beep­ing, clack­ing check­outs and the fallen employ­ees who feed them, but get up to speed on the trol­leys and you just might make it through.

Take heart, dear Loyal Cus­tomer. Escape is pos­si­ble, but you must per­se­vere. Here I have told you every­thing I know, every­thing I have expe­ri­enced, in the hope that it will aid you. I ask of you, if you should make it out alive with this doc­u­ment, place it as near to the entrance as you dare ven­ture in the hope that some other poor soul will find it and sur­vive just as you have.

Farewell, and good luck.

Yours in faith,

Sul­tan Hamnvik

Lord of Mesopotamia

Part-time Viking Hamster