Ezra fell, his back meeting the cold ground, forcing the air out of his lungs.

A few laboured breaths later, he set himself upright, still sitting.

“The school hall?” he said out loud, surprised to hear his own voice.

It was indeed. Lockers lined the walls to his left and right, the polished concrete beneath him—a sight Ezra was familiar with, though to a much less intimate degree, considering how little time he spent in school compared to others.

It was relatively dark, and the cheap fluorescent lights above were not quite dead but not quite eager to share what little life they had in them either.

Ezra, feeling recovered, stood up and walked forward. He couldn’t quite shake the feeling that something was watching as his instinct assaulted him with that pressing feeling, that push from within, telling you something is close.

His mind tried to wander, tried to calm him, and tried to concern itself with things that mattered very little, like the sliding wooden doors the principal had installed, clearly taken by some force to have what must have been the desire to get a Japanese touch inside his school.

The principal in general was quite the character outside of the very unconventional choices when it came to the architectural uses of space. Like the aforementioned sliding doors, instead of the cheap normal installations or the emphasis on natural light, which meant many lockers had to make way for windows,. Having to manage what could be considered a very ‘Experimental’ school was bound to attract characters like that, Ezra thought to himself, still not quite able to calm himself.

He stopped at one of those windows, now hearing more than just the drumming of his heart.

Rain, lashing, almost beating on the window; beyond it, nothing but a veil of black. None of the lights outside worked; the only thing one was able to see was the faint silhouette of rain beneath the blanket of darkness.

Usually, rain would have been a source of calm for Ezra. He never knew exactly why—maybe as a testament to the safety he felt when he didn’t have to be outside, or maybe he just liked the cold the rain brought with it.

But something wasn’t right about this; it didn’t feel like there was much of anything beyond the rain, like the confines of these walls were the only thing that were really there.

His contemplation was cut short as a scream echoed through the halls, genuine, life-fearing terror evident in its pitch.

The moment he turned around, his body suddenly had its own ideas about what it wanted to do. Ezra was met with painful spasms, his legs giving out and sending his knees down into the polished concrete.

Again, the flashes of light in his vision, this time with the familiar pain of the migraines he usually gets, completely engulfed his vision, effectively blinding him.

Then he suddenly began to know things. Feel things, as though someone was shoving information right inside him, courtesy of an ice-pick, that Ezra swore was being shoved into the top of his head.

He suddenly knew that there were boundaries all around. He knew he was being watched constantly, and he knew something much more important. A warning? Or a promise?

‘Hide and run, or be consumed’

The message buried deep inside, branded into the mind. A taste of something yet to come comes with it.

It seemed like that was all there was—a simple slap to the head meant to prepare you and frighten you.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Ezra didn’t feel frightened; his feelings went more in the direction of morbid curiosity.

Run and hide from what? The pieces Ezra caught about what was going on began to fall into place. It was obvious he was meant to run and hide from the wolves, something he was supposed to represent.

That ‘girl’ that pushed him out of whatever make-belief, pocket rubber-cell he was being kept in, said something about him resisting and freeing himself. As much as Ezra would have liked to pat himself on the back for that, it meant there would be others who didn’t. People that would be around here would be doing what they were told.

People that would cause someone to scream, just like someone did a few moments ago.

Without contemplation of whether it was the right decision or a smart one, Ezra moved forward, towards the scream, in a scramble that almost had him planting his face into the ground again.

Another scream, followed by laboured breaths, already painted a grim picture for any help Ezra intended to offer.

He went down a flight of stairs, still shaking from the muscle spasms, barely making it down without falling, hoping against his odds that he could still offer help to whoever was screaming for their life.

Another hallway, remarkably similar to the one before, down to the most minute details. A carbon copy, void of any personality. As if plucked and then set down.

Everything was the same, except for the person standing far off in the distance, almost frozen.

Ezra could almost taste the danger in the air. He didn’t approach the person; he couldn’t. The switch was flicked inside him.

Approaching that person was too dangerous; every fibre inside him was screaming for him to stay put and to observe, if anything.

A minute passed. Then another.

Slight movement, stepping just inside the edge of the lights, barely revealing a school uniform.

Another step, then a tremor visible on the student’s body, like being forced to move in a different direction.

Another step closer: the student’s long blonde hair cascading down. A girl. She seemed to struggle to even go backwards, like she had just figured out how to move her legs and was taking her steps in the wrong direction.

Her arms suddenly bent, her elbows stretched away from her body, and her hands were close to her front, where Ezra couldn’t quite see them.

She suddenly bent backwards in such a manner that you could just barely see the tip of her nose.

It was when there were audible cracks, followed by the erratic movements of her limbs, that Ezra's hesitance proved right.

Something was holding her, something tall, hiding within the shadows, massive chopstick-like fingers grasping at her limbs. playing with her.

Like a child playing with a doll, moving her around and slightly shaking her.

A dull step forward, large and heavy. A twisted visage, showing its frenzied smile, warped and elongated in its features, bending over to accommodate whatever kind of body it was hauling itself around in, arms thin as twigs but as long as the sturdiest branches.

It was groaning, chuckling, and amusing itself by playing with her, making her dance half-heartedly on the cold floor, her legs giving out under the pressure eventually, then bending under a wet cracking sound, which seemed to amuse the creature greatly.

What put Ezra under greater duress than witnessing this creature treating someone like a toy was the fact that he could still make out the laboured, pain-staking breaths of the girl, still clinging to life as best as she could.

It was the almost silent, muffled pleads that truly horrified Ezra beyond anything he witnessed.

The movement stopped abruptly, and Ezra's eyes widened when he suddenly saw the girl being turned around slowly, almost mockingly. He saw the bloodied body of the girl being put on display, gently swinging from one side to the other, It was then that the face of the creature was illuminated by the little light the hallway held, and it was looking directly at Ezra, almost as if to present to him what the girl’s captor had done.

The creature's mouth opened wide, revealing rows and rows of teeth; it opened far enough that the flesh around had to accommodate its stretch by ripping itself.

It was then that Ezra took a step forward, with force behind it, only a single step, as if the step itself could make what happened to the girl undone.

The creature, on the verge of engulfing the girl's head, stopped, seeming surprised but chuckling in a distorted, frenzy-fueled way nonetheless.

It threw the girl to the side, its spindly arms coming to the ground, supporting the steps it took. It shambled forward, not quite able to move with grace, not that it cared to do so.

It stepped properly into the light, revealing its horrifically formed body, requiring it to bend down to even take steps forward, and its facial features, excluding its now bloodied mouth, hidden beneath clumps of greasy, knotted hair.

Its mouth opened once more, blood spilling down on the ground. One of its arms rose up straight ahead, its index stretched out, pointing right at Ezra, laughing manically.

And before Ezra could take another step, he spotted the outlines of hands grasping for him in his peripheral.