In a hole

Date: 8/10/2025

I was with both of my nieces and my grandma at a mall somewhere in Virginia. We were sitting at a table in the food court, and some cute asian guy came up to me and started cleaning my shoes. I was confused but let him do his thing. He asked me something like 40? 35? And i said 30, trying to negotiate. Then I laughed and clarified that I was just kidding, I didn't want to pay for any services today. He finished cleaning my shoes and I didn't realize how dirty they were before until I saw them. My shoes were perfectly all white. I thanked him and finished eating this saucy octopus thing before looking at the restaurants in the food court. I had been really wanting to try Takoyaki and I found just the place that would sell it, looked them up on Google and everything. But by the time I gathered the courage to get up and get it, grandma and the girls were ready to go. So I just sucked it up and went to leave with them. Before I fully left though, these two girls had sat where me and my family were just sitting, so I told one of the girls about the guy cleaning shoes in this specific seating area. She didn't look up from her phone, she just said something in this snarky ass tone and I returned the sentiment before I left. We all went outside where it was nighttime. While we were all walking to the car, I noticed these small circular hatches in the sidewalk were just open. I told my older niece to be careful and watch her step, guiding her around the hole. I tried to help my younger niece too, but she ended up falling right into the hole. Me and her sister caught her arm at the last second and tried to pull her out, but her sister let go and my younger niece fell all the way to the bottom. I yelled in frustration and tried to get a look into the hole to see if I could see her. It was a very long drop down, but I could see her at the bottom crying in what I assume to be shallow, murky sewage waters. I called down to her and told her it'd be okay, we'd get help. I tried to call for help on grandma's phone, but I didn't know how to use it, so I just gave it to her for her to call instead. She called and a single ambulance arrived pretty quickly. By the point we were sitting in the car for some reason, so she pulled up beside the ambulance to tell him what was going on. (I woke up pretty soon after but I'm sure we managed to get her out)