There was a snap in the dark, and they felt it, all five of them—a spark of potent energy, an eerie flicker of vague familiarity, like the faintest memory of a dream.

    Then hell broke loose.

    In a second of a heartbeat, the flame in the large blond boy's hand turned to a raging blaze. But the boy felt no drastic rise in heat, and his eyes caught no sight of the fire, which all too suddenly grew larger than it was last. He was drowning in his own sea of ecstasy, his brain filled with nothing else but the bliss of adrenaline. Then it burned wilder, more violent, than before, and it was only then the boy felt the excessive increment of heat. His eyes looked up to the flare in hand, realizing its length had been significantly reduced, just as the fire caressed his skin. The flare itself was now gone, and what remained in sight was a silhouette in the flame, a faint shadow shape of a hand gripping nothing.

He saw nothing but fire, felt nothing but pain. And he heard nothing else but the gruff scream that came out of his mouth.

The flame burned on, and smoke rose high into the air, spreading throughout the auditorium. All around students and teachers were breathing in the fumes, coughing and wheezing amid the haze.

    Somewhere, bells began to ring, loud and resonant. And with the noise, the floodgates opened, water raining down on everything and everyone in the auditorium.

    Two teachers, each with a hand over his nose and mouth, hurried up the steps, as fast they could, and pulled the double doors, holding them wide open. A teacher shot a hand up in the air and made a signal, one that gestured a collective exit. "Evacuate! Move! Move!" he shouted, over the chaos. "Quickly!" The students obeyed, without hesitation.

Three boys emerged from behind the curtains, stumbling onto the stage. They breathed in the fumes, coughed, hands flying over to noses and mouths. Their eyes stung from the haze, yet they recognized the silhouette before them, before another cloud of smoke struck them in the face—their friend, the huge boy, stood center stage, his arm moving erratically in an attempt to fan away the flame. Yet the fire danced with him, feasting on his hand and wrist. And a force—not of nature, neither of divine intervention—kept his arm from burning any further . . .

. . . for the intention was never to kill, but to satisfy a sick man's sadistic craving.

The boys took a step back and crouched low to the floor, wanting no more smoke in their lungs.

    "Don't just stand there! Help me!" the boy yelled, hearing the set of footsteps nearby. He coughed. His eyes hurt, and tears streamed down his face, in pain and in fear. And even as water fell upon him, the fire clung on to every inch of his hand, disintegrating the flesh beneath.

Sander was jogging up the steps, among the current of students evacuating the auditorium. He was at the top of the steps now, the exit just some meters before him. He glanced back, making sure Talya was still trailing close behind. But his green eyes weren't met with her delicate blue ones, nor did he catch sight of her shoulder-length blonde hair. Sander stopped in his tracks, paying no mind to the bodies that pushed past him. He stood rooted to the spot and strained his eyes, peering through the smoke, searching for a petite blonde girl in the mayhem. She was nowhere in sight, and he felt a panic begin to sink in.

    "Talya!" Sander called over the chaos, stumbling a few steps forward. "Talya!"

    He made his way to a place on the landing and halted in his tracks. A group of freshmen girls pushed past him, squealing as they made their way through, yet he held his ground and kept looking. His eyes flitted around him, in fervent search for his friend. But smoke and water made seeing difficult, and tendrils of fumes made their way to his lungs.

Sander took off his glasses, having become water-stained and useless, and he shut his eyes a moment, coughing as he did so. His clothes and hair were now damp to the touch. He could feel drops careen down his skin, and with his left palm, he wiped the water off his face. But he wasn't going to give up now—he had to find her; she has to be safe.

    Sander cleared his throat, opened his eyes. "Talya!" he called again.

Then the world around him faded and dimmed to nothing—the noise gone, the air clear of smoke, the mess fading into a blur—time ceased to exist. He could hear them and only them, people speaking—but none of their voices belonged to Talya, nor were they the voices of his new friends. They were the voices of men, decades past their youth. They were the sounds of whispers that hissed in a dream, incomprehensible and otherworldly.

    Sander stood still and listened. One seemed furious, and the other seemed nonchalant. They were arguing, he thought. He turned around then, following their voices, and his line of sight settled upon a dark corner in the auditorium, far off to his right.

    And there he found them—two, tall, pale men in black clothing, dark lenses concealing their eyes.

    As much as he could see from where he stood, yes, they were arguing, one reprimanding, the other smiling a crooked grin, his eyes glued to the scene onstage. They were still talking, yet Sander couldn't seem to understand a word, and the one with the crooked grin refused to look at his companion in the eye. Then—

    "Shhh," one of them said, raising a pale hand. "Shhh." His crooked smile faded, and he took a breath, inhaling something.

    "And what new nonsense is this, brother?" Sander heard the other say.

    "Shhh," repeated his companion. "Shhh. I sense something." His smile returned. "I sense a soul, brother. Do you not feel it—its essence, its energy? Someone sees. Yes, yes, he sees."

    Sander froze in place, bound motionless by a force unknown, and the pale man turned his sights towards him. The other followed suit.

    Their eyes met, then. And no one moved.

    "I see you now," said one of the pale men, with a hungry smile. "I see you now—"

    "Sander!"

    A soft, gentle hand grabbed him by the wrist, tearing him away from the trance.

    Sander shook his head as if waking, and he found himself back amidst the panic—students and water and smoke. Talya held him by the wrist, her blue eyes giving him an urgent look. She tugged at his wrist again.

    "Sander, let's go!"

    He stole one last glance at the dark corner, where the men still stood staring at him, where they faded into nothing a second of a heartbeat after. The last thing Sander remembered seeing was a malevolent smile, before Talya pulled him into the throng and out of the auditorium.

Someone pulled a pin, aimed the nozzle carefully at the bright spot in the haze. A cloud of white gaseous substance shot straight towards the flame and the boy's burning hand. And only then did the fire die out.

    For a moment, the boy stood almost motionless center stage, swaying slightly in place. He tilted his head up, his eyes rolling up, his legs wobbling. A second after, and his eyes shut closed, and his legs gave way beneath his weight, the boy's large body collapsing onto the floor with a loud thud.

    Two men hurried towards the boy's unconscious body. Three boys rose from the floor and took their steps forward.

    Mr. Grisham pressed a couple fingers to a spot on the boy's neck, below his jaw. "I feel his pulse," he said. The boy's chest heaved. "Still breathing," he added.

    Then everyone, in some unspoken commandment, turned their sights towards his right hand and wrist, which were reduced to little more than burnt muscle coated in blood and pus and chemical residue. Burnt debris, what little remained of the flare, added another layer to his palm and fingers.

"We have to get him out of here," said Dr. McKenna.

"To the hospital, as soon as we can," added Mr. Grisham.

    The boy with messy brown hair and a perpetual case of bad acne took off his overshirt, held it out to the headmaster. "Dr. McKenna," he said, catching the headmaster and Mr. Grisham's attention. "Something to wrap his hand with."

    Dr. McKenna nodded, taking hold of the shirt. "Thank you." And with it, he brushed the powder and debris off the burnt flesh, and began to bandage the boy's hand.

    Mr. Grisham was pressing his mobile phone to his ear. He looked up, and gave the boys a stern glare, and said, "I'll speak to all of you when this is done and over." He paused, listening to the ring. "You are all in deep trouble, young men."