Where Dreams are Lost: The Second Nightmare - Eight Nightmares, #2

Within the carcass of Detroit's prosperity, something dark has arisen. James, Harvey, and Alice have all lost their jobs-  victims of the 2008 financial crisis. Listless and scared for the future, they explore an abandoned shopping mall along with their friend Latisha, in the hopes of going viral on YouTube. Their adventure takes a turn when a mysterious fog takes them to another world, where pain, fear, and loss manifest, and their dreams blur with reality. How can one escape a place that doesn't want them to leave? James and his friends might just be rats in a maze. Where Dreams Are Lost is the second entry in the Eight Nightmares Collection, a collection of horror stories about the dreamlike, the surreal, and encounters with the fantastical.
Where Dreams Are Lost is rated R for gore, homophobia, suicide, death, homelessness, poverty and implied drug use. Reader discretion is advised.  In this story emotional hell turns into a physical reality and the characters are tortured by their guilt and shame, as horror scenes come to life in abandoned mall. The lines between nightmare and reality are so wonderfully blurred and left me properly shaken.
Well done. C. W Malan: Goodreads