The Blue-Light Rink

I was killing time at the Galleria Atlântica in São Paulo, a sprawling mall my mother swore was better than Rio’s. My friend Luísa had dragged me there to buy cheap summer clothes for our upcoming trip to Florianópolis, but as usual, she’d vanished into a labyrinth of lingerie and swimwear, leaving me to guard our shopping bags near the indoor ice rink. The rink was a strange anomaly, a frozen oval in the middle of a tropical city, and its surface glowed with a sickly blue light that seemed to pulse like a heartbeat. Kids circled it, their laughter echoing off the polished floors, while parents slumped on nearby benches, scrolling through phones. I had an açaí bowl in one hand and a growing sense of dread in my chest, the kind that had been following me since we’d landed.

Something about this rink felt wrong. It wasn’t the usual post-Christmas ice rink, with cheerful murals and bad pop music. This one was colder, quieter, and the blue glow seemed to have a source, a faint shimmer at the center that I couldn’t quite place. I tried to ignore it, focusing on the kids, but my gaze kept drifting back to a little girl in a yellow sundress who was gliding alone in the middle, far from the other children. She moved with an unnatural grace, her arms held out like a ballerina, and she was staring at me. Not through me, but at me, with an intensity that made me shiver despite the warm air of the mall.

I glanced away, sipping my açaí, and when I looked back, she was closer. Still in the middle, but closer, and now she was smiling a small, tight smile. I had the absurd thought that she wanted me to join her, but that was nonsense, I was an adult, she was a child. I checked my phone for Luísa’s updates. Nothing. I tried to remember what my mother had said about this mall, but only a vague warning surfaced, something about the north wing being ‘bad luck’ and ‘don’t linger by the rink after dark.’ It was only 3 PM, but the rink seemed suspended in a perpetual dusk, the blue light muting all other colors.

A boy in a red jacket zipped past the girl, and she didn’t blink. She just kept her eyes on me, and her smile widened, showing teeth that were too white, too even. That’s when I noticed the ice beneath her was not the same. It was darker, almost black, and it seemed to ripple, not like water, but like a thousand tiny shapes were pushing against the surface from below. I told myself it was a lighting effect, maybe some water damage, but the deeper I stared, the more I saw faces. Not clear faces, but impressions, like sculptures trapped in ice, their mouths open in silent screams.

I wanted to leave. I gathered the bags, ready to abandon Luísa, but then I saw the girl’s lips move. I couldn’t hear her through the glass barrier, but I read the words: ‘You promised.’ My blood ran cold. I had never been to this mall before, never seen this child. But something in my gut told me I had made a promise, long ago, and forgotten.

The blue light flickered, and the girl disappeared. I blinked, searching for her, but she was gone, and in her place was a dark spot on the ice, like a stain that wouldn’t wipe away. The other children didn’t seem to notice. They continued their laps, but their laughter had a hollow ring now. I backed away from the rink, but I couldn’t stop staring at the stain, which seemed to pulse with a rhythm that matched my heartbeat.

A security guard walked by, and I grabbed his arm, my voice shaky. ‘Excuse me, there was a little girl on the ice, in a yellow dress, she disappeared. Is she okay?’ The guard looked at me with a flat expression, and for a moment, his eyes glazed over, as if he was remembering something distant. ‘There hasn’t been a girl in a yellow dress here for years,’ he said, and walked on.

I called Luísa, my hands trembling. She finally answered, sounding annoyed. ‘I’m just finishing up. Meet me at the food court.’ I told her to come to the rink, something was wrong, but she just sighed and said, ‘Five minutes, just wait.’ I sank onto a bench, my heart hammering, and watched the rink. The blue light grew deeper, and the shadows under the benches seemed to lengthen, reaching toward me. I checked the time. 3:47 PM. In the glass of the rink’s barrier, I saw a reflection behind me, a small shape in yellow, but when I spun around, there was nothing.

Then I heard a voice, not from the rink, but from my own memory, a child’s voice, high and sweet: ‘You promised you’d come back.’ The açaí bowl slipped from my hand, splattering purple across the floor, and I ran. I ran through the mall, not knowing where, past shops and cafes, until I burst into a corridor that was dimmer, older, with peeling paint and flickering lights. This wasn’t part of the modern mall, it felt like a forgotten wing, and at the end of the corridor was a door labeled ‘FROZEN GOODS.’

I shouldn’t have opened it, but I did. Beyond was a freezer room, but the shelves were empty, and the floor was covered in a thin layer of frost. In the center stood the girl, her back to me, her yellow dress crisp and clean despite the cold. She turned slowly, and her face was not a child’s face anymore, but a mask of cracked ice, with eyes that were two black stones. She spoke in a voice that scratched like ice on glass: ‘You forgot, but I remembered. We said we’d skate together forever. You left me here.’

I tried to say I didn’t know her, that it was a mistake, but my breath fogged and turned to frost in front of me. The door slammed shut, and the light flickered out. In the darkness, I heard the sound of ice skates carving across a frozen surface, coming closer, closer, and I knew that I had finally found what I had been running from all these years. And that I would never leave this rink again, not truly, not even when I awoke on the cold floor with Luísa shaking me, saying I had blacked out, that I had been standing by the rink for an hour, rigid as a statue, with frost on my eyebrows.

When we finally left the mall, I glanced back at the rink. The blue light was still there, and in the center, a small silhouette waved at me. I didn’t wave back. I knew that the next time I returned, I would be the one trapped under the ice, and the girl would be the one watching.