His resistance came at a price. As he stood there, trying to regain his balance and composure, Ezra became acutely aware of his own body's protests. Every movement felt like an exertion, as if he'd been running a marathon and collapsed at the finish line.

His legs wobbled, threatening to buckle beneath him with each step. The cold, hard floor seemed to mock him with its solidity as he stumbled forward, hand bracing against the lockers to his right that lined the wall.

Each breath came ragged and shallow, like his lungs were fighting for more than just air.

A feverish sweat broke out on his skin, the black fabric of Ezra's school uniform clinging to his damp, overheated body as he stumbled down the dimly lit hallway.

His movements were increasingly leaden, every step an agonizing effort that sent waves of weakness coursing through his limbs, yet he pressed on, driven by his stubbornness despite the torment wracking his body, even if the thought of just lying down and letting the heat take him crossed his mind.

The halls never seemed to end. One continuous stream of cheap metal, dirtied polished concrete beneath his feet and door after door, leading to the inside of classrooms, almost as if someone was taking the spots he was passing and then setting them up in front of him ad nauseam.

Hesitant to lock himself to the confined space of any of these copy-pasted rooms, he needed to rest, to sit and let his body deal with itself, with whatever poison he had accumulated or illness he seemed to have caught.

“Here goes nothing.” He said to himself, expecting the worst, like something jumping him the moment he slid the door to the side, or even the walls, the ground beneath, or the very furniture coming to life to have a go at him. It really didn’t seem too far-fetched anymore.

Little figments, barely even flashes of thoughts, went through Ezra's mind, imagining him opening the door, then something grabbing him from the right, then from the left. Possible events he imagined that he wanted to be ahead of.

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His hand on the door, many more flashes, even imagining a rough layout of the room, disjointed thoughts all just to try and give himself a mental edge for what he could find inside, a maelstrom of worst-case scenarios.

He imagined himself stumbling into the room, only to have the floor give way beneath his feet, plunging him into some hidden abyss.

He imagined the door trapping him, not dissimilar to how he was stuck before.

He imagined himself dying. Over, and over.

The next breath he took was heavy, his sickly state not doing him the favor of lessening itself. If he was going to be a few steps ahead of them, he had to act, not just think of thousands of possibilities of how he would die by simply sliding a door open.

Instead of simply standing in front of the door, he pressed himself against the wall to the left, then checking both ways of the hall. He wanted to be quiet and listen, but the beat of his heart drumming up to his head, screaming for him to rest, didn’t allow him much use of his ears.

He stretched his arm out, clumsily grasping at the door handle, doing his best to pull it open in a single motion.

It opened with a loud thud, the sound echoing away after a few seconds.

And Ezra waited patiently.

Nothing.

After waiting for only a few seconds, he still wasn’t confident enough to move inside. Instead, he opted to exercise even more caution.

Leaning against the wall of lockers, he thought of something he could throw into the room, settling for one of his sneakers hastily, and with more than a little trouble, he took it off, crept closer to the edge of the door, and threw it in.

The worn footwear sailed through the air, hitting something solid and thudding to the ground.

Utter silence still.

Ezra took a hesitant step forward; his mind focused on reacting to any movement, stepping inside the classroom slowly.

The room itself, much like the rest of the rooms so far, was barely lit. 4 rows of chairs, neatly placed on top of their respective tables, the rows and the chairs themselves aligned with almost military precision, without soul, as if never touched before. It had more in common with a representation of what a sterile classroom was supposed to look like rather than one that was actually being used on a daily basis.

Ezra allowed himself to lower his guard, only by an inch, as he slowly approached the teachers desk, supporting his weight on it, nearly deciding to just collapse on top of it, his instincts forcing him to fall into the surprisingly comfortable chair and to face the still open door he could not be bothered to close, now that he was finally sitting down.

His paranoia still rampant, but overshadowed by his crushing fatigue. Even if he forced himself to stay awake, running or even fighting back was out of the question.

With thoughts of dread and reluctant acceptance, Ezra closed his eyes to let his fatigue take him.

At least if he died now, it would be in his sleep.