When I open my eyes, I find myself lying on the black tiles of the corridor, right in front of the school's exit. Although my body aches all over, my wounds have mysteriously healed. Everything is surrealistically quiet. No fighting, no bloodshed, no paintings massacring each other. The corridor is completely deserted. It seems that I've made it out, although I have no idea how and there's only one way to find out if I'm also back in my own time.
Slowly, I push myself up against the wall, reaching for the door for support. But when my knees buckle, it slips from my hand and slams shut with a loud bang.
I hold my breath and strain my ears, but I hear no voices, shouting, or footsteps. “It’s okay, Tinderstick, it’s okay,” I mumble to myself, exhaling in relief. For a moment, it’s all quiet again. Then… I hear something after all—a strange, ominous cracking sound. What the h…? I look up. Cracks appear in the ceiling, walls, and floor—above, next to, and beneath me. Tiny hairlines at first, but growing bigger and bigger with every passing second.
This is not good! Not good at all! I need to get out of here! Now! But when I turn around to open the front door and get out, it's locked. Damn this school with a will of its own. I throw myself forward, just in time to avoid a large chunk of the ceiling crashing to the floor exactly where I stood only a second ago.
Once again, I find myself running through the corridors—this time to outrun the building itself, but no matter how fast I go, I can't outrun the fast-growing wave of cracks and ruptures, tearing through entire corridors behind me like a shredder through paper. One thing is certain: if I slow down for even a moment, I'll be buried alive.
My mind races as I try to think of a way out. Maybe I can find refuge in the gym hall. But when I turn the corner, I crash into a wall that shouldn’t even be there. I hear my nose break, but I hardly feel it. This is it. I’m trapped, cornered by a school gone crazy. I turn around and raise my fist in a meaningless gesture of defiance at the rapidly multiplying web of cracks spreading across the ceiling, walls, and floor. One thing is certain: it won’t be long before the corridor collapses on top of me. But I’m not afraid or sad; I’m furious. “So, this was it?” I shout at the ceiling. “This! Was! It?!”
I think of Gran and my father. I think of the shipwreck we call our home in that tiny smudge on the map we call our village. What an unfathomably sad, forgettable, insignificant life I’ve lived. Maybe it has already flashed before my eyes without me noticing, so meaningless it has been.
I've had it with holding back, trying to control my temper, and protecting everybody from my destructive talent all the time. I’m about to die, so what’s the point? The fire that I suppress every day is growing inside me. Flames bloom out of the palms of my hands, burning brighter and stronger than ever before. No pain. Only unabashed euphoria. For once, I can let go. There’s nobody I can hurt here. If I have to go down here and now, then I will go down in flames. The school hisses like an angry cat about to strike. I can only wait for the inevitable.
Suddenly, all the cracking, ripping, and rupturing stops. For a few seconds, everything is dead silent. Then the entire corridor collapses, not with a bang, but with a sigh.
I’m not afraid. There’s only one person I can blame for this mess: myself. I wait for the floor to fall away beneath me. Any moment now. But right before tons of rubble and debris crush me, I see someone at the end of the corridor. Slug? How? A second ago, he wasn’t there, and now he stands there, staring at me with his mouth and eyes wide open.
In that fraction of a second, everything changes. Although part of me is convinced this is yet another school mind-fuck that I need to ignore, the other part knows I can’t take that chance. If Slug is really here, he’s about to die because of me, and I can’t allow that to happen. A single word forms in my mind. Not a word, really, more a realization, in bright burning letters.
“NO!”
And then everything turns black.