“LET US IN. MAKE THE CHANGE.”

  The familiar broken record played in Ezra’s head but dampened, almost too quiet. All those voices trying so hard, regurgitating the same useless soothsaying’s.

  “ACCEPT IT. ACCEPT THE GIFT WE OFFER.”

  On and on... and then silence, just when he threw the Wormhead through that wall. It felt good, so damn good, like a constant supply of your favorite feeling, the constant taste of your favorite food. Ezra looked at his hands, drowning in red. Feeling the blood, knowing he caused that thing to bleed, to have caused it pain, was simply ecstatic. And exactly that was the issue. It shouldn’t feel like this. The realization that the longer he tapped into this'state’, the more he opened himself up to suggestion, to changes he had no control over.

  Then the convulsions started, more changes announcing themselves bit by bit, more voices, different ones. Multiple choirs drowning each other out. Right now, Ezra’s entire being was subject to their conductions.

  “Grow.”

  One simple, brief word, and Ezra’s forearm suddenly exploded in size, mass added unto itself from nothing, denser, higher, and so, so painful. He had given them an inch, and they were trying to take it all.

  “THIS IS THE WAY.”

  How many times did this happen? How many times would he have to test his mettle against the call of the void? Resistance wouldn’t be enough. Not anymore. They had their hands on him now, shaping his flesh the way they saw fit. Something had to be done.

  Ezra tore at the growth of his arm, ripping at it, but found his other hand simply stuck in the strings attached to chunks he clawed out, mending themselves around his fingers.

  “THIS IS THE WAY.”

  No. It wasn’t. This would never be. They weren’t going to decide. Not then, not ever. He wouldn’t let it happen. He just needed a way to cut himself off from their power. Tapping into it was easy enough, but getting out of it? The entire ordeal felt like clasping a live wire, impossible to break out of by himself.

  Even better, even during Ezra’s little episode, he could see the Wormhead slowly getting up among the destroyed furniture. And just like Ezra, its wounds mended themselves. Bones realigning on its human underside. They couldn’t even give him the victory of taking out one creature.

  And what about Lyle? Looking back, Lyle frantically looked back and forth between the broken classroom and the hallway to his right. He was mouthing words, none of them actually reaching Ezra; everything drowned out in the sounds of bone and a thousand voices who had their own ideas on how things were supposed to proceed. Something had to happen.

  He had to go about it differently. Trying to make sense of it wouldn’t work. So, what if he went at it in a more abstract way? So far, it was all about resistance, about denial, and them trying to force their changes upon him from beyond. Until now, he could always close that door that allowed them to have influence. It was until he wanted to make use of their power that the door was forced to stay open. If all their power was a pool of sand, everything Ezra needed was only a fraction—a tiny speck of that power. But with that door open and out of reach, their will now absolute.

  “THIS IS THE WAY.”

  No. This was their way. Theirs alone. Ezra had to take the reins. He couldn’t escape any of this; fighting it only stalled it. So instead of trying to break the rules, the ones he had only barely grasped, he had to bend them. Interpret them differently.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “…”

  Nothing. The train of thought alone, enough to cause a change. Clarity given to Ezra for just a second, a second given to make his voice heard.

  “I PAVE THE WAY.”

  No voices. No hands desperately trying to mold him into something new. Gone. All gone. His roar carried itself through the halls, his voice a deep rasp, echoing itself as if spoken seven times. It wasn’t just a simple word or an empty promise. It was an edict. Unquestionable, incorruptible, and absolute.

  Ezra had reached into their pool of power, and with it a fraction of it was taken for himself, but its grains were slipping through his hands no matter how desperately he tried to hold on to them.

  Out of his daze, he felt the changes they had made revert. Growths and malformations gone, his head clear, and the only sounds of the world around him assaulting his ears, particularly that buzzing he was tiring of.

  “Come on, come on." Lyle, meanwhile, was scrambling around in the bag that fell off Ezra in the hallway, looking up again and again, prolonging his search inside.

  Ezra wanted to call out to him, but the Wormhead in the classroom, whose entire upper body had disappeared into the ceiling, announced itself crashing towards Ezra; the maw closed, seeking to hammer him into the linoleum floor.

  Instead, it crashed against the former’s arms, held in a crossed stance, the impact sending a wave of air throughout the room. The last standing tables skittered across the floor, their legs scraping against the linoleum with a high-pitched whine, and with a sudden sharp crack, shards from the windows flung themselves around the room. The ever-ongoing rain outside slipped into the classroom.

  With an intense push from his left arm, the Wormhead recoiled upwards, just enough time for Ezra to go for a swipe with his other arm. The cylindrical shape phasing through the ground beneath had other ideas.

  The second Wormhead clamped around Ezra’s leg, hundreds of little teeth digging into his flesh. In the hall, he could barely even feel the damage done to him, but now every little prick and rip at him was a statement of how much strength he had left at the door, and more of it was slipping from his hands by the second.

  Trying to free his leg had proved more than a little difficult without the raw force he could exert before, now barely enough to hinder the creature from locking down with its flaps further. A stray thought gnawed at Ezra’s consciousness, dampening the pain of the struggle. Lyle, where was he? When he looked at the broken-up wall, he expected to see his frantic ally still rummaging through the backpack. Ezra couldn’t help but smirk; maybe Lyle finally did the sensible thing and tried to use the distraction to save himself. It provided a sort of ease of mind.

  Looking back to his right, the drooling jaws of the first Wormhead hovered just inches from Ezra’s face, which gave him an intimate look at the bleeding gums of the creature. It huffed and puffed, trembling like a man scorned, biding its time to attack. All it had to do was bite, and Ezra’s entire head would be swallowed in an instant. He could already feel its warm breath turning wet on his skin.

  It felt as if everything slowed down when the Wormhead finally began moving—salt in the wound for the fact that Ezra was allowed to feel like he could make a difference for all but two minutes.

  The flaps of the creature shot towards Ezra’s head, darkness nearly engulfing him whole, except for one thing. Something flashing up, light reflecting from something visible through the gaps. Metal embedded flesh, just where the humanoid body of the Wormhead ended. Lyle hadn’t made his escape but was instead hacking at the neck of the worm, which recoiled upwards once more.

  The cleaver had its trouble to cause more than pain, the blade barely reaching any impressive depths, the flesh refusing to take significant damage.

  Ezra immediately capitalized on the moment. The embers of power he had left had to burn bright for just a second. He focused on the need to hurt the creatures around, and for only a few seconds he managed to tap into it again, the process even easier than it was before, though its benefits diminished, but the strength that he needed was his.

  One breath. A swipe from his nails turned claws to free his leg from the living clamp in the ground.

  The second breath, and his punctured leg was raised up and then stomped onto the creature’s head; the force felt in the entire room, a foot-sized chunk of flesh parted, the opponent still alive but retreating.

  The third breath, and he lunged towards the remaining Wormhead, narrowly preventing it from attacking Lyle, the humanoid torso’s abdomen ripped open by another swipe of Ezra’s hand, guts just barely falling out, but then retreating back, the gushing wound mending itself slowly.

  The last breath, and Lyle was grabbed, thrown towards the broken windows and into the never-ending abyss, Ezra following, the feeling of hands barely out of reach for his neck the last feeling before everything faded to black.