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My fingers blindly dove into the bag in my hand and grabbed a handful of the powders within. As soon as I reached it, I slammed my front door shut behind me hard, making the entire house resonate. Even as I threw down the dust into a line on the floor I knew it wouldn't be enough. I'd need to surround the whole house if I wanted to keep him out. I hurried up the stairs, two to three steps at a time, then sprinted across the landing into my room. Another line of powder at my door and then a panicked blind toss at the glass of my window. Time was running out. I reached under my bed and quickly pulled out the wooden box that held everything I was going to need. I didn't have any other choice anymore.

Suddenly my door flew open, the doorknob crashing so hard into the wall I could hear the plaster crumble. Samuel stood in the doorway, looking as calm as if nothing had happened. And the Husky mix also stood behind the barrier, the powder hardly displaced by the violent swing of the door.

"Hello Felix."

I felt a burning tension build up in my throat. "Get away from me."

"What are you going to do Felix?" he asked, his voice casual. "Cast a spell on me?"

"I'm stronger than you," I warned. I prayed in my head it was true. It had to be.

"You think so?"

"I made it home," I pointed out. And I had made it to my room. Barely.

His eyes shifted to the box I clutched in my hands. "Do you really think anything in that box is going to protect you from me?"

"Prove me wrong then," I dared him, motioning with my eyes to the line of dust on the floor. "Cross my barrier."

He didn't move. We stared each other down, neither of us taking our eyes off each other. One second. Then two. Three. That was it. My fingers frantically undid the locks as I felt Samuel's energy surge on the other side of doorway.

"You can't keep me out forever," he threatened, his voice now much more dangerous than I had ever heard it before. I didn't respond. Once I got the box open I put it on the bed and quickly started grabbing the pieces I would need. There was no time to put things together from scratch so I had to work with what was already prepared or available.

I felt a rush of bad energy wrap around the chest, trying to destroy it, but it was too well protected for that to have any affect. I had learned too much from him for the container to be weak, but I needed to keep my hands within the chest until I was finished.

I grabbed a photo of the two of us I had been using for a protection bond and started tearing it up. There wasn't any bond between us anymore so it was useless anyway. I tore until I had the scrap piece of his face and then drove one of the already prepared pins through it.

"Felix," he called with a soothing tone. "It doesn't have to be this way. Just talk to me." He sounded the way he had before, just this morning when I still thought...but he was lying. He was just trying to stop me. Because he knows I can beat him I assured myself. I grabbed the sand filled burlap doll I had made, careful to keep it in the box and out of view, and stuck the pin with the picture of his face onto its vacant head, whispering the prayers as fast as I could. I hadn't told anyone about making a voodoo doll. They were meant to influence the lives of others, and I had promised myself I wouldn't use my powers on anyone else until I had better control over them. If either Samuel or Marie, a Dog, had found out about it before they probably would have been angry with me.

If Samuel found out now I bet he would be furious. I'd find out in a second.

"Just let me have it," he said as his energy left the box and surrounded me instead. I was protected too, but not as well. I could feel his essence around me like an invisible blanket. So much of it was familiar to me by now that it made me pause. But in a way that had nothing to do with energy or influence. "You don't have enough control. You'll start to discharge again."

The memories flooded back violently, and I instantly repelled his essence off of me as I yelled. "I am not going-" My voice caught as I realized that I had accidently blew apart some of the dust in front of the doorway. Freaking hell I had weakened the barrier!

His energy swallowed me again, stronger than before, and this time I was able to feel other parts of him, warped and twisted parts that I hadn't ever felt before. My body felt rigid, but my hands were still in the box, protected enough to grab another pin. I whispered more prayers as I used it to stick another charm onto the doll. Another protection charm, but this one to protect myself from him. Almost instantly his metaphysical grip on me slackens, and I'm able to push the rest off, careful this time not to push too far.

He growled in frustration. "Are you really going to throw away everything we had so you can keep your powers?"

"Shut up!" I yelled, furious that he could say something like that with a straight face. "You lied to me! You never cared!"

I had let my guard down. All of a sudden I was dragged forward, shoes sliding frictionless on the carpet until I was standing right in front of him. Now we were only inches apart, with only my barrier between us.

"Felix," he whispered, his voice soothing again, "you know I care." Then his eyes travelled down to the doll still gripped in my hands. I tensed, ready for him to lash out, but instead he just looked me in the eyes again, his expression almost hurt. "Maybe you're the one who didn't care."

Stupidly, pointlessly, I became defensive. "It wasn't supposed to be for you."

"Who then?" he asked.

"My mother." I said quietly. "She's..."

"Felix," he chided sympathetically. "You can't try to cure your mother like that. What if something went wrong?"

"I wasn't going to. It was just...in case."

"Let me in Felix," he said. "We can get Marie and see what we can do together."

Could we? I considered it for a second, the possibility of being able to help my mother get better. And then I remembered reality.

"Get away from me!" I backed away from the door quickly, clutching the doll close to me. I wasn't going to let myself be some stupid lovesick puppy drawn to every nice word.

"Don't do this Felix."

"Stop saying my name like that!"

"Like what?" he asked innocently.

"Go to hell!"

"Felix," he said again. Everything in his demeanor, his voice, his facial expression, everything was warm and inviting. He could have easily been the person I thought I knew. But the air around him was dangerous, blood hungry. "Let me come in."

I took a few more steps back, until I was back at my box.

"No."

One heartbeat. Then the room exploded in subtle chaos as his power pulled me forward again. The furniture in the room started to strain as the energy began to expand and contract their wooden structures. I focused my power into the charm on the doll, weakening his grip enough for me to grab another protection charm and pin it to the doll. I forced his essence away from me again, causing my bookcase and my drawer to implode with violent wooden cracks. My hand reached one more time for the box when suddenly his power pulled the bed sheet out from under it and sent everything inside flying all over the floor. I fell to my knees, grabbing at anything I could reach, but he scattered them even further with another blast of energy and all I managed to hold onto was a single pin.

"Last chance Felix," he warned. "You don't know what you're doing, what are you going to do when someone gets hurt?"

"I'm not going to lose control!" I countered. It would have been more convincing if I weren't kneeling on the floor clutching onto a voodoo doll I had no real practice using and hiding behind a slowly crumbling barrier.

I felt his essence climbing over me again, slowly this time, almost gently. He was trying to influence me. "You're strong Felix. But you don't have control. One day you're going to get too mad or too scared and you're going to panic again, and I won't be there to stop you."

"Stop talking," I cried. It was quieter than I wanted it to be. My eyes were shut and my hands were holding onto my head, trying not to lose their grip.

"Let me have you're power. I can protect you. You won't have to worry about hurting anyone with it ever again. And we can go back to the way we were without you having to be afraid."

"I..." His words weren't supposed to make sense, so why did they? No, there was something wrong, I knew there was, I just couldn't reach it. My head was starting to become too foggy.

"Please Felix. Let me take care of you." I looked up. His eyes were worried, his face pleading for me to agree. Samuel. Samuel was my friend. He helped me, taught me, listened to me. He wouldn't...he wouldn't lie to me. We were friends. And, maybe...

His lips moved. I could barely hear anything anymore, but with perfect clarity I could follow the sounds he shaped with his tongue. They began to spell out everything I had wanted. Everything I had been too afraid to hope for.

Those three words, and I was under.

And then, a completely unconscious thing happened. Instinct. My power flew out of my body, screaming in my head for dominance until I could find myself again. I focused it into the doll again, and the rest of Samuel's influence burned off of me instantly. The burning didn't stop, my whole essence was iron hot now. I glared at him with more hate then I had ever thought I could feel. "Die!" I screamed as another wave pulsed out of me, aimed directly at him. The doorframe cracked as he slid backward away from the door. He lost his footing and fell to one knee, and for a second I knew I had the advantage. And then I realized my mistake. I had damaged the barrier again.

It was even weaker now.

"Fine." Samuel said dangerously. "Then I'll make you come out." My eyes widened when I realized some of his fur had started to change. The bottom left corner of his face was now very clearly covered in black scales. His left pupil had turned into a slit, surrounded by a sickly yellow colored glowing eye.

Without moving he shot a hex right at me. I tumbled out of the way only to have it hit the broken cupboard behind me, instantly engulfing it and the window frame above it in flames. The fire quickly caught on the carpet, and it began to spread with supernatural swiftness around the room. I had only a second to realize my only option now was running out the door.

I didn't know any hexes. They were meant to hurt people, and we had all decided early on the less I knew about hurting people the better. So instead I focused all my energy into a defensive wave as I ran headlong into what used to be Samuel. I got as far as two feet before he overpowered me, grabbing me by my neck and pinning me against the wall. He had gotten bigger too.

"This could have been a lot easier," he hissed into my ear. His voice had warped into a twisted multi-voiced version of the voice I had come to know. "I didn't have to hurt you."

My vision was getting blurry. Already my body was starting to panic from the lack of oxygen. Then I felt his other hand close around the doll and my instincts flared into life again. He cried out as my energy flowed into the charms, repelling his hand from the doll and giving me an opening to blast him off my neck with another pulse of power. He released his grip and fell back, slamming into the railing. Quickly another wave shot out of me, breaking the wood and sending him plummeting to the floor below. That decision had been a little less unconscious.

I wasn't stupid though. I knew all I had done was bought myself a few seconds.

For a moment I considered trying to stop the fire, but the flames started climbing out the door so instead I bolted for the stairs. With every step I was terrified that Samuel was going to wake up and attack me. In the three seconds it took to get down I could hear the cracking of the wood along with his moaning as he regained his senses.

I also realized my original barrier was still in place and immediately came up with two options. The only usable things I had left were the doll and my bag of dust. If I made a break for the outside he might crash into the barrier chasing after me, stunning him long enough for me to get a head start in finding Marie. But then he'd just break through a window. Was I fast enough to outrun him? My second option was to use the powder. I could make a barrier around him now while he was still down. It would still leave me with a head start at least, and if I did it right I could get away and leave him to the fire. But if he stopped me...was I strong enough?

There, I was at the bottom, decision time. Run or trap? I spun on my heel. I was stronger than him. I wanted him to burn.

Wrong decision.

My back exploded into violent pain as Samuel crushed me against the wall with supernatural speed. My vision swam, and at first I thought I was hallucinating the dark forms behind him. The left side of his face had become even more reptilian, and the fingers around my neck had become scaly. And twitching behind him were two wide black fleshy wings with torn bits of fabric hanging off them. Running probably would have been the wrong decision too.

His mouth opened in a hissy roar as he brought one hand back, claws pointed forward to finish me. I felt my power kick in again, ready to try and fight back when suddenly his chest heaved, cutting off his voice. He released me and jumped back before I heard a familiar voice shout from down the hall.

"Felix!" I turned and saw Marie, standing at the entrance to the basement near the front door. "Run!" she yelled.

I sprinted forward, stopping in front of her to open the front door so we could get out. But as soon as I grabbed the doorknob Marie pulled me away towards the entrance to the basement. My confusion turned to clarity as I saw Samuel crash into the barrier, right where I had been standing.

He didn't slam into it the way one would into a solid wall, instead it absorbed his force, slowing him down almost immediately until he dropped onto the floor in front of it.

"Get down!" yelled Marie as she pulled me into the basement. Quickly she slammed the door before pouring powder from her own bag into a line in front of the door. Just as soon as she finished the door lurched forward with a loud crack as Samuel banged on it from the other side. As long as we were on the side that the door swung into the powder would help keep the door strong. But Marie had only bought us some time. Now we were trapped in a doomed house.

"Marie the house is on fire, we have to get out of here."

"It's fine," she assured me as she grabbed my hand and walked me down the stairs. That's when I realized the way her almost-black brown fur glowed in the abnormal light. "I made an altar to protect us from it."

It was true; the entire basement was filled with lighted candles, and in once corner of the room I could see an altar for protection, though I could barely recognize it as such. The was a mound of something with a red cloth over it and various object sitting on top. On the walls and floor surrounding it were various symbols I didn't understand. Marie was unbelievably talented at putting together really complicated spells, whereas I was barely getting into making basic charms on my own.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

There was a loud roar as Samuel continued to smash at the door. "Yeah...When did you make all this?" I asked as I looked around the room. Aside from the altar there was a large circle on the floor that dominated most of the space. It was, for the most part, drawn out in a slick looking pasty substance, with various different overlapping shapes within. Scattered all around it were clumps of what to anyone else would like random objects. There were twigs, leaves, rocks, shells, candles, bowels of various liquids, and different types of charms, all arranged in what I assumed were very specific ways. If that wasn't enough, there were loads of symbols drawn all over everything. It was a million times more complicated than anything I had ever even thought was possible.

"I saw a warning," she explained to me, knowing I'd understand she didn't mean with her eyes. "Something was wrong with Samuel, he was coming after you." The point was highlighted by a large cracking noise as the door began to give under the constant assault. "I tried calling you but my phone wouldn't work, and when I got here you weren't home. But I knew you would be so I made this." She indicated the circle.

"What is it?" I asked. Just looking at it was starting to make my senses squirm in distress. Whatever it was, it was dangerous. "It feels..."

Marie took in my expression before answering. "It's supposed to absorb power, I think. We can use it to stop Samuel." She walked over to the edge of the circle before turning to look at me. "It's really powerful. Your senses are strong, so you're probably sensitive to it."

I nodded my head, feeling my heartbeat in my ears. "...wait, you think?"

"Yeah," she admitted. "I saw it in my head, and then I found it in my book." Then a large chunk of the wooden door came crashing down the stairs, and we could see Samuel pull apart the remaining chunks. "Felix quick, give me the doll, we can use it!"

I swiftly handed it over to her, and in exchange she handed me something else. I quickly grabbed what she held out to me, and had to take a moment that I knew I didn't have to take in what it was. "...My necklace," I murmured to myself. The one Samuel had made with me. It was supposed to link us together, he said so he would always know if I needed him. And it had worked, not just when I was in trouble, but other times. Times when I had just not wanted to be alone and he would show up and keep me company. I thought I had lost it.

Now I wish I still had.

"Where did-"

"In the woods. It's still linked to you two. You have to get in the circle and-"

"You want me to go into it?" I interrupted with panic. Everything inside of me was screaming to get as far away from it as possible. But another roar reminded me that away wasn't much better.

"Let me in Marie," Samuel growled from the top of the stairs.

"You have to stand in the center," she told me, ignoring him.

"Marie!"

"No matter what happens, just keep focusing on the bond between you, keep it strong. I'll do the rest."

I looked at the different symbols. I knew that they were more than just lines, but I could almost actually feel them lunging at me. "I don't think I can-"

"Yes you can."

"I..." I looked at the symbols more closely, and felt something happening in my head. I understood more of them then I thought...no, wait, I definitely didn't know those. Yet...there they were clear as day. The jumbles started to connect, slowly forming collective meanings. "What did you say this was?"

"Felix," she breathed, her voice not quite amazed but something like it, "can you read them?"

"I...I think..."

And then an intangible wave of energy flew through the room. I knew what it meant, stupidly turned around to confirm it, and saw Samuel standing at the foot of the stairs. But not the way I expected. His clothes were torn, his trench coat even missing a sleeve, revealing patches of his washed-out grey and white fur. His hair looked more disheveled than usual, and it was hard to tell but it looked like one of his eyes might be bloodshot or something.

"You didn't show up," he stated, meaning it as a question.

I was supposed to meet him today on the hill. But I knew he was going to talk to me about...about what had happened, and I didn't know if I was up for it yet, so I had stalled by wandering around for a while.

"I was going, to see you."

"What happened?" he asked.

"I..." What happened? I remembered walking, and then my sense pulled me... "...I got distracted." That sounded insincere. "Sorry."

"Sure you did," he snickered, but most of the humor was missing. Had he always been this big? "We need to talk." Instead of replying I just crossed my arms and looked away. "You lost control Felix."

"It was an accident," I countered quickly, almost shouting.

"I know," he sighed, stepping towards me. A sudden impulse made me step back, but I didn't understand why. He froze, watching me carefully, and I felt like an idiot.

"Sorry," I muttered. He walked forward and put his hands on my shoulders, squeezing them comfortingly.

"I know you're trying, but...maybe we're not developing your powers fast enough."

A warning bell went off somewhere deep in the back of my mind. "What do you mean?"

"Marie and I were talking. We're really worried about you." I felt another horrible pang of jealousy. Horrible because Marie and Samuel had become my best friends. But they were friends long before I had met either of them, and it was hard not to feel like a third wheel sometimes. Especially since Marie was the kind of beautiful people put on magazines on movie screens. "But we think we've found a way to help you."

Help me. Help me not hurt anyone else.

"What happened to your eye?" I asked suddenly. There was a blackish splotch that I now realized was covering almost half his face. How did I not notice that before?

His hands went rigid on my shoulders. "What do you see?"

"Um, it looks black," I answered, confused by the phrasing of the question. "What happened?"

"Felix," he said, ignoring my question, "did you hear me? I said Marie and I can help you."

"Help me how?"

"Marie thinks she found a spell."

Was his eye getting worse? I knew... I knew I needed to be paying more attention, what he was saying was important...but my mind felt...distracted. Like, today when I was walking and...suddenly I had found myself standing outside Samuels's front door. Samuel lived alone, so it should have been locked, but there was no resistance as I turned the knob and stepped into the house...

"Felix...I want you to let me take some of your power."

There were splotches on his body too, and it almost looked like there was something behind him. I couldn't think straight anymore. "Huh?"

"Marie can transfer some of your-"

"Transfer." I repeated, interrupting. In Samuel's house, something had pulled me down into the basement. I pushed a heavy trunk out of the way, revealing a trapdoor underneath. I deftly broke through the security charms and pulled out a small box. Inside were necklaces, just like mine. I picked one up. My sense took over, and I saw where it came from. "...No." And finally I could feel it, his influence slithering all over me like a nest of snakes. "No!" Scales, wings, a slit eye. I saw the predatory look on his face and tried to push him away, stepping back fast only to bump into someone. I swiveled around. "Marie! We-"

And at just about the exact same time, she lifted me with supernatural strength and threw me into the circle, and I remembered she was the one who had returned the lost necklace to me.

There was also a tiny muffled snap. But no one noticed that.

I landed in the empty center, hard. The world went fuzzy. I heard Marie's voice, then the circle came alive and everything went black.

Maroon.

Yellow, red.

Time stopped meaning anything. Snippets of sights and sounds. Parts of the circle on fire. Marie's voice, praying. Laughing. Talking. Samuel holding a knife. Something about a button. My voodoo doll on a table, useless to me. Groans, my own. Samuel putting his arms around Marie, their lips brushing. That one hurt. Everything kind of hurt.

The world comes back, almost like waking up.

I was lying on my side, and my whole body felt heavy. The necklace was around my neck again. Somewhere in my head it registered that Marie was standing at the head of the circle, and that the forces in it were waiting to tear me apart. But I was distracted by Samuel, hovering above on one knee, leaning over me with the large knife in one hand.

"Awake?" he asked, smiling like I had just nodded off. He looked normal again. I tried to get up, but he pressed the knife against my throat. "Nu uh, It's better if you just stay down." I tried using my power, but something was wrong, it felt stuck, frozen.

"Why can't I..."

His smile widened. "Your necklace. I told you, I made it just for you."

Physically, nothing changed. But a malevolent energy surged around me, and without actually hearing anything I knew the circle was ready. It was breathing.

"It's ready." I heard Marie confirm.

Samuel looked up at her and smiled for a second before looking back at me.

"I really did like you Felix." Samuel said quietly. "...Maybe if I had met you first." I wanted to hit him. I wanted to yell every horrible word imaginable at him. Instead I just felt my eyes mist over. "But Marie and I have been together for a long time. She's everything to me. And we both want what's inside of you."

When I had touched those necklaces I had seen every person Samuel had given them too. I saw the way they looked up to him, trusted him, and even a few idiots like me, the ones who had felt for him. Not a single one of us had really mattered to him.

"There's two versions of this ritual Felix. In the first one, I stab you in the heart. While you're bleeding to death all your power will flow into us. But I don't want you to hurt like that." Then he leaned further down, almost climbing on top of me as he brought our faces too close together. My energy thrashed behind its bonds, trying to rip his throat out. But all I could do was realize I was going to die. "In the second version, we can kiss. Then it'll be just like falling asleep. You don't have to feel anything but me, here with you. You can pretend were home, just like any other night."

Like this, with Samuel leaning over me, I could. I could be home, with Samuel right next to me as I fell asleep. I felt more tears fall across my face, and he wiped them away with his thumb.

Nothing was in my hands. Then there was.

The voodoo doll that had been sitting forgotten on the table had been brought to my hand by the slightest trickle of power that had overflowed the bonds of the necklace. It wasn't a conscious decision; the power had acted alone on an instinct. I really didn't have enough control over it. In my other hand was the single pin I had managed to grab before my room had been set on fire.

Samuel pulled the knife away from my throat and leaned down until our lips were almost touching. "I'll miss you Felix," he said. I felt my heart break. He had never said that to anyone before me.

I lifted my hands and swiftly dug the pin into the voodoo doll. Samuel's eyes went wide as he saw what I had done.

But nothing happened.

He looked back at me, all the kindness gone. "Fine," he uttered as he lifted the knife.

And then he stabbed me in the heart.

It was over. Just...not the way he thought.

Because, none of us had heard that quiet snap as a button had been cut from the sweater. It had been too subtle, my energy cutting the thread too smoothly for Marie to notice at the time, especially since it had happened in less than a second. Even I hadn't notice. So neither had Samuel really noticed where the button that was attached to the pin had come from, probably thinking I had taken it from him. But I hadn't. The button came from Marie. Instinct directed my hand as I guided the pin right through the heart of Samuel's voodoo doll. My power manipulated the energies inside the circle and my doll, making up a spell of its own.

And it had worked.

There was a gasp, and I watched as Samuel's face looked up and contorted with horror. I didn't need to look, I knew what he was seeing. Marie, with a blooming stain of blood on her sweater from the hole in her chest, right where Samuel had stuck the knife in me.

"...You broke my heart," I whispered, still able to feel pain from the knife inside of me. He looked back to me confused and horrified. "...So I broke yours."

I thought he would murder me. Stabbed me somewhere else, set me on fire, something. Instead he just dropped me and quickly ran over to her. That hurt too, and not just physically.

He screamed her name as I pulled the knife from my chest. It came away clean, the only evidence of where it had been was a tear in my clothes. My body ached as I picked myself up. The necklace slid from around my neck onto the floor, the chord falling apart in different pieces. It had been overwhelmed, I realized. The circle had been strong, so I couldn't really change its purpose. My power saved me from being the sacrifice, but Marie took my place. So now all of her power was inside me, and all the power she had stolen before.

Samuel had his back to me as he clutched her in his arms, trying to stop the blood. I could kill him right here. I could take the knife and stab him in the heart and make sure he never hurt anyone ever again.

But I couldn't. So I just watched as he held Marie until the light left her eyes. I didn't know I was crying until a sob escaped my mouth. He looked back, eyes full of hate, but more than that, sadness. I realized then I had been hoping for something, but now it was gone.

In a second his was right in front of me, hands gripping my neck so hard I was seeing spots. My power shot out at him, but his met it with equal force. I should have been stronger than him, but now I realized that I hadn't been able to rework the circle as must as I thought. Samuel had been given some of Marie's power too. Now we were even.

Except in natural strength.

I started seeing spots. He was going kill me. He was going squeeze until my body went slack, end me for what I had done.

But he let me go. I fell to the floor, taking huge breathes of air as my body cried out for oxygen. His hands came on me again, lifting me up so he could snarl in my face. "Get. Out." And then he let go, turning back to Marie.

I backed away, confused. He went back to her, holding her lifeless body to him as his shoulders shook. Why didn't I kill him, and why didn't he kill me? He loved her, didn't he? I was just another victim. He wasn't crying for me, he was crying for her. Although...I had seen tears in his eyes, hadn't I?

Maybe...maybe it wasn't gone. Not completely.

I climbed up the stairs, passed the shrapnel on the first floor, and walked out the door. They had put out the fire at least. Had anyone seen it? The houses outside of town were secluded enough, but if there had been smoke someone would have definitely noticed.

I half expected Samuel to come flying out of the house, that he would change his mind and come after me. As long as I didn't let him sneak up on me I was sure I could at least hold him off. Maybe he would come after me later. However long later was. Marie's power came with new knowledge about spells and charms and things. I was pretty sure I was going to be young for a while now. Maybe that was going to be my life now, always looking over my shoulder, waiting for him to strike.

Or maybe...something else. Before, when Samuel had said he would miss me. And now, even after I had made him kill the person he cared about most, maybe the only person he cared about, he had let me go. Maybe not soon, but like I said, we both had a long while for things to settle. I thought about the way it had always felt, when he would show up at my house, sometimes through the window because he said he was too cool for knocking, or when we would walk in the woods at night, or sit in his living room. I thought about the way it felt when he almost kissed me, just a while ago...

Then I changed my mind.

I don't know if Samuel noticed when the altar fell apart, or if it would have given him enough time to react anyway before a gas pipe burst and the candles did their work. Probably not.

I wasn't going to be another victim.

The house erupted into a violent, fiery explosion as the souls of everyone before me cried out, finally avenged. The fire surrounded me too, but I was fine.

Physically anyway.

Mentally I was broken. In the past few minutes I had just killed my two best friends, the only two friends I had in the world. I felt the darkness close in around me.

I felt hollow.

Alone.

And also powerful.

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