The darkness is a useful ally as I creep around through the sea of bodies the Word had pulled towards itself. I spare a glance back at Will once I successfully creep around the monster until I am behind it. The illusions of his late fiancée have vanished. Now he fights off the remaining survivors. The eight or so people are still locked in the Word's illusions. I can’t imagine what they are seeing in their unique prisons, but it’s enough to make them fight him like their very souls are on the line. The loud bang of his shotgun almost makes me tumble over a stack of bodies, and I silently curse from the pain of catching myself, jolting up my leg. I glance back once more to see the girl with the black eye laying on the floor. Blood and shotgun pellets pool underneath her as she gurgles and chokes on her own blood. Will is far too busy defending himself to finish his kill. I find myself wishing she'd die quicker.

The closer I get to the Word, the more my eyes begin to play tricks on me. I keep whipping around, convinced there's something behind me. Sweat beads down my neck from the weight of a thousand pairs of eyes. I’m so close, it’s only a few feet away from me now.

“Mr. Illia?” My head jolts up to stare at Thomas, asking to go to the bathroom. I am not falling for this again. My knuckles have gone white from how hard I’m gripping my pencil. I stand with so much force that my seat bangs into the wall behind me. “Phantasmagoria, phantasmagoria, phantasmagoria…” I mumble over and over again to keep my memories from slipping away. “What does fantamoria mean?” A faceless student calls out to me. “Are you ok, Mr. Illia?” Ellie asks as she hops up on the closest desk and leans into me. The memory of her little lifeless body rushes over me with so much emotion that I have to catch myself on a nearby chair to stay upright. Mangled and broken from forcibly breaking as many bones as she could until her ribs pierced her lungs and she suffocated in my arms.

 She wanted to be an author. She never even got past the age of 15. My pain builds until it solidifies in my veins, and I use it as a crutch to stand back up. “No, I’m not,” I respond shortly to her question before my eyes begin to scan the classroom once more. There, just a few steps away, is the picture frame with a large, creepy smile plastered on my wall. The eerie bold lettering PHANTASMAGORIA smeared across its surface. “I’m so sorry I couldn't protect you, Ellie. It’s a teacher's job to protect you guys in school. I am forever sorry I failed.” The words come out strangled and quivering as I lift my hand and jam the back end of the pencil into the poster. The rubber tip of the eraser pierces it with a fizzing sputter. Reality around me bends before it snaps. When my eyesight comes back into focus, I’m standing over the amalgamation of letters. The end of my pencil shoved through the letter M. I’m breathing so hard I can’t hear anything over my own ragged breaths. A guttural scream rips from my throat. My heart feels like it will rip out of my chest any moment as I pick up the pencil and jam it into it once more. I do so over and over and over again. I don’t stop until I feel Will’s hands wrap around me and force me away from the dead construct. His arms are soaked in blood that seeps into my skin on contact. But his hold is so warm and reassuring, I could die in it. “Come on, let’s get Marcy and go back to the countryside,” Will trills with a smooth grin as he wipes a drop of the monster's black, inky blood from my cheek.