The next few days after that were probably the most difficult for not just me, but for everyone in Xeinil who wasn't a blind Supporter. I quickly learned that Maya was the cause of this incident, as I heard a statement from her as she left to escape the damage.
"You should have made the invite public. Don't you realize that I am still here?" She said.
Shortly after that, I had to help as many people as I could from the building. It was starting to collapse, and we didn't have much time. I held and dragged out the injured, possibly dead, out into the open where they could be taken to the hospital. There were so many people who had no pulse, and they couldn't be recovered. I was nearly slipping on the bloody floors.
I thought that I had seen a lot of death from the inside of the building, but it was worse outside. Maya had enough time to attack a lot of people who were waiting in line, or partying out here because there was no more room inside. Most of those people were dead, and they couldn't recover.
I was up all night, and I kept going throughout the morning searching, transporting, and caring for everyone who was affected. I didn't feel the need to rest. I didn't want to rest. Adrenaline pumped throughout my body through the night as I kept working, as time was ticking, and people were dying. I wasn't going to give up on anyone here, not just yet.
The nurses, doctors, surgeons, all of them, they also had to work around the clock. There weren't enough people in the medical field to help so many people at once. They were overloaded, as volunteers tried to help. We didn't have enough room to put people in, we couldn't transport all of them. More problems started to arise, as the long night went on.
I was asked questions too throughout the night, as I was trying to help people who were dying, or dead. "Did you know that this was inevitably going to happen?"
"How many do you think are hurt?"
"Will we be able to recover from this?"
"Is Maya going to try and attack us again if we hold another meeting together?
"Why didn't you react right away when the warnings were first noticed?
"Are we still safe out here?"
"Is this revenge from directly attacking one of Maya's Supporter buildings?"
"I don't know!" I managed to say. I knew nothing about what just happened. All I could do is try to help people instead of finding answers right away. The people who had questions eventually left me alone as the night went on.
I was finally able to sleep around noon the next day. I was too tired to even think straight. I was working all night without any breaks, or drinks, or anything. It was my job as a leader to help the people who trusted me. As the adrenaline wore off, I was no longer able to help anyone.
I collapsed onto my bed the moment I hit it, not even changing. The only thing I took off was my shoes and my coat, which were hardened with the blood of the dying. I was going to need to wash them as soon as I woke up.
Of course, my slumber had to be interrupted by a dream. Not just any dream though, the one where I was super vivid and Light Ezra was in it. I was lying on the ground when I opened my eyes. They wanted to be kept shut, but I wanted to look around. I sat up and that's when I realized where I was at.
I laid back down on the cold, hard rock, hoping that I could just escape this and actually get some sleep. I didn't want to face Light Ezra again either. Regardless, he walked over to me, and peered down at me where I could see him.
"Wake up." He says to me directly.
"Why?"
"I need to talk to you. You cannot escape unless I want you to. Now get up."
"Fine." I sit up, and I don't move. Instead of him asking again to get up, he sighs, and sits down with me.
"Do you realize why you are here?"
"Yes, probably. Just please, let me sleep. I am very tired, as you may have noticed."
"Yes, I know. But I have been trying to contact you for days now, and I won't let this opportunity go to waste. I have been overworked to my limit, so I am relating with you."
"You seem fine though."
"I am not. I am incredibly exhausted for how much you have been tearing me apart. All night, you have been hurting me. It was an incredibly painful sixteen hours of trying to hold myself together, and I had no idea when you were to stop."
"Guess what? I was in pain too! I was carrying people, transporting them to the train so we could get them to the hospital! People grabbed onto me, begging for mercy, as they took their last breaths on the floor, never being able to say goodbye to anyone that they loved. Some of them died in my arms as I tried to save them, but they were too far gone. That was only just a small part of what I had to go through, I could go on about everything for hours. You think you are in pain? Try living through what I had to go through last night!"
"There is no need for that tone of voice. I didn't want to just address the situation that had happened last night. I also want to discuss how you have rekindled with your Gabriel. You had said that you weren't going to worry about him anymore. You lied to me. You are also putting too much pressure on yourself as being a leader. You need to not worry about the Supporters anymore, but about Maya directly. She is the one you need to attack."
"And how am I supposed to do that? These people put their trust in me because I had saved them, and I promised I would do the same to whoever else I could find. They need a leader, or else Maya will go back to power. And Gabriel? He is my best friend, I don't know how he feels about me right now, I haven't been able to talk to him ever since the party, but I want to be there for him."
"You need to realize that they are holding you back from your true potential. You need to let go of everything if you want to be able to fight against Maya."
"Why do I need to fight against her? Why do I have to unlock my true potential? Why do I have to listen to you, why do you always think you know everything?"
"It's because I do know!" He said. We both stayed silent for a moment, in awkwardness, but he spoke up again. "I know what the end is going to be like, and I need to prepare you for it. I do not know how to get there, so I am just guessing at this point. I do not know if letting go is the best idea, but it is the most straightforward, and it grants us the most time."
"Is there any other way that I can do this? It is nearly impossible for me to put everything that I have worked up for behind me. It is only going to come with consequences."
"I do not know of any other ways. This is not only about your end though, it is about how I am treated, and the consequences of that. You are going to die soon if you keep putting yourself in these stressful situations. There is no way to reverse the damage that has been caused."
"I have to do this though. If the people of Xeinil need me, I need to be there for them. I can't let any more of them die, and I need to free the rest of the Supporters. I can't let Xeinil think that I don't care about some of them, because I do. I may have to hurt you a few more times, but after all this is done, you won't ever need to be used like this ever again." I tell him.
"Then you need to act fast. You do not know the energy and strength of your power that is stored inside of you. Your radio powers can mend with your out of state powers, if you can close enough to the frequency and if you concentrate hard enough. I do not know if you will be ready to endure this task just yet, or if you ever will. Your infection has hindered yourself to where you are fighting to gain power rather than using it."
"Do you think that going to the cell tower would be the best spot to go? Is there any way I could use the electricity inside the tower to make it easier on myself?"
"I guess it could work. The electricity that you use on a daily basis is not related or connected to your powers. Of course, I don't really know much about it. It doesn't matter if it works or not though, you have a job to do, and it's to get rid of Maya once and for all. You need to be there to sacrifice yourself for everyone here."
"Sacrifice? You mean die? Will I die if I do whatever you're asking? I am doing not just for everyone, but so I can see my mom again, and Gabriel, and so life can go back to normal, and I can enjoy it once more, like I used to."
"No, no no no! This isn't about you, this is about Maya. I told you to forget about your mom, because she's dead, and you keep denying it! She isn't coming back, and you will be able to survive Maya's wrath as you will her!"
"What do you mean? You said if I kill Maya, then everyone will be fine. Why do I now have to die to save everyone? Isn't there another way to do this?
"There is no other way to do this. We don't have any more time to waste. You are letting your emotions get in the way of what you need to do. Maya has hurt both of us, and if we don't get rid of her, she will dominate everyone. Not just Earth, but other planets as well. You can't let her win."
I sighed. "So the only way to 'win' this is if I use the cell tower to convert everyone, maybe kill myself in the process, and then Maya dies too?"
"No, it's not going to be like that, probably. The tower is a risky decision, because you need to be alive to defeat her. You will see it play out, hopefully."
"But I don't want to die. Not just yet."
"You must be a leader in this situation. You are a leader as you call yourself, and though you must leave everyone behind, you will save them. Leaders will sacrifice themselves for the greater good, so they will hurt no one else."
"Right. But what about you? Don't you hate the idea of me overusing my powers?"
"Yes, I do, just as much as you not wanting to die. But I have learned something from you, that maybe I shouldn't put myself first all the time."
"That's good. Thank you for the information."
I wake up, and I immediately get ready for the day. Usually, I would have trouble getting up, staring at my phone for an hour, but I needed to get in contact with someone who could give me access to the tower. I would just do this quickly, and get it over with. I'll save everyone just like that.
Then I picked up my coat, which was bloody. All the memories from last night had flooded back in. I had almost forgotten about them. I will have to help the people who are still working out there before I get access to the tower.
I simply washed my coat with water and soap, and hung it up to dry. It was made out of a strong fabric, so it was difficult to handle. It wouldn't be dry for a couple of hours, and I didn't have time to wait around. I would have to go out without my disguise, which I didn't really need, but I wanted it to look cool.
I contemplated wearing gloves again, just like the night of the party. This time I decided to not wear the gloves. I didn't need to hide it anymore. They trusted me, and I wasn't any different than I was without them.
I was helping them as the sun set. My sleeping schedule was compromised after working for so long. I did get a few more stares than I normally do, but I couldn't be bothered with it. I needed to help my people first, who were still injured, or had to be hauled off because they were dead.
The building had collapsed while I was asleep. I was surprised that I didn't wake up from it. There were still lots of people inside who hadn't been able to get out, or people who were still injured that couldn't move. When you have a million people go to a party and someone decides to hurt most of them, it is definitely a disaster. There have been no days like this where so many people have died. Either directly because of Maya attacks, not being able to help so many people at once, now being understaffed, or having a building collapse on you. I couldn't imagine what these people had to go through.
Instead of trying to go to the cell tower to convert everyone back, I had to keep working through the night, and into the morning. Without as much adrenaline as last night, I couldn't work as hard. I had to go to bed just before the sun had risen because I had become too tired and weak to do much of anything.
My nightmares had started to stagnate back when I was doing mass conversions, but they have started to come back in the past week or so, feeding on more and more awful experiences that I have to go through.
"Ezra? Where are you?" I hear Gabriel say. I am hiding inside a partially emptied cupboard at my house. We are playing hide-and-seek together.
"You can't find me, I'm too good!" I say.
"Oh yeah, what if I was to find you... right now!" He opens the cupboard, and I scream in surprise.
"Okay, my turn! Maybe I shouldn't talk because then you can find me." I say.
"Yeah, you made it way too easy this time. Now you go count to thirty!"
I run upstairs, and hide in the bathroom to count. "One, two, three, four, five..." I said, and continued to count to thirty. When we were younger, we would always play hide-and-seek to pass the time. It was a time before we could go outside freely, or were able to play most video games.
"Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty! Here I come!" I say, and open the door. I go downstairs first. I look in the cupboard where I was just at. Sometimes we would copy each other and do that. This time, he wasn't in there.
I closed the cupboard, and now, everything around just suddenly changed. I was now much smaller than I was before. I was probably just a couple centimeters tall now. "Uh..." I said. My voice was now more matured, and my body was back to normal, not the size though. I ran round the island, hoping to see Gabriel, but he wasn't there.
Instead, Maya peered out of the corner. She was normal sized, which looked to be much bigger now. "Oh, how small you are." She said, and kneeled down to get a better look at me. "I could crush you with two fingers if I really wanted to."
"Where Gabriel?" I asked.
"He is right here. Her hand disappears behind the island, and it comes back with a puppet of Gabriel. There were strings attached to him, as he limply moved around to face me. He was bigger than me, but also smaller than Maya.
"Why do you need to do this?" Gabriel said, which was more like Maya trying to mimic his voice. "Why do you need to always play the hero and be so reckless? Why do you think it is right to kill yourself so you can save everyone?"
"Because I have to, what other choice do I have? Do I let some families not get their kids or parents back? Do I let others die because of Maya? Do I let Maya win? As Light Ezra said, I don't have any other choice."
"It will not just kill you and Maya though. Maya will unleash an attack strong enough to ironically kill herself, but you, and everyone here in Xeinil. It will wipe out the planet, and no one will win. Light Ezra never told you that part."
"What if you're lying? Maya can't have an attack strong enough to hurt so many people."
"She... she wasn't able to do it in one sitting though. I won't let the same mistake happen."
"That's what you think." Maya says instead of Gabriel, and her other hand is arching over me, and slams it onto the ground, crushing me, and I wake up in a fright.
The next day I was able to help get rid of the last known Supporters, and convert them all back to my side. Maya will not be able to function alone anymore. There will be no way to kidnap any more people and convert them. No one will believe in her anymore, and I will technically win. Maybe if she decides to finally be on our side, or escape to the outside world, then I don't need to kill her.
"Thank you, Entrapta, for letting me get access. I am so glad that you were able to help get the audio set up, and hinder Maya's use of the cell tower."
"Thank you, but why do you need access to the top of the radio tower anyways?"
"It's to give off an important message. We can save the last Supporters and not risk any more lives if this works." I tell her as she uses a key to open the door.
"Does it involve technology?" She asks.
"No, not really. Just the use of my powers, that's all."
"I really want to study your use of power sometime. I could see if I could manipulate it, and maybe pass it onto other people. Imagine having others with powers!"
I thought about Maya for a second. "That would definitely be interesting."
"Yes, it very much would be."
"So, do I just climb up on the ladder to reach the top?" I ask her, and she shakes her head.
"Oh no, that would take way too long to climb up. I created a small lift on the other side. Just press the up and down arrows to, you know... go up and down."
"Thanks, see you soon." I said. She waved, and walked away, leaving the gate open.
I walked to the other side of the tower and I stepped on the lift. It really didn't fit on the side of it very well, and it didn't feel very structurally sound. It was either this or the ladder. I decided to take the lift, and I pressed the button to go up.
Air whizzed by me as I sped up. I looked down at the city, but I stepped back in fear. This was definitely the structure to go on if you wanted to know if you were afraid of heights. It felt like the tower even wobbled as I went to the top. No wonder why this could only fit one person.
Entrapta and some others must have built this small ledge. I stepped off the platform, and I realized that I had no idea what I was even doing. Was I supposed to touch the tower, or would that kill me? I should be close enough though. How do I even use two powers that use my mind at once? Maybe this was all just an impossible idea. But I had to try anyway.
I faced the tower, and I started to concentrate, and closed my eyes to do it better. I tried to focus on both my radio manipulation powers and going-into-other-people-minds powers. I focused and concentrated, and nothing happened. I knew that I was sort of struggling with my powers now, but I didn't realize it was this bad.
Then, instead of trying so much, I calmed down, and stopped concentrating. Maybe I was being too hard on myself. I stopped thinking about everything, and I let myself breathe. Less intensely, I focused on the feeling of the radio waves, and the connections to people that I had to make.
Everything went silent. I opened my eyes, and it felt like I was in space. There were no stars or planets around me, but I was floating around in an abyss. I subconsciously felt if I wasn't careful, I could accidentally end the transmission, and I might have even failed. "Hello?" I said, but then I realized what I was doing here. "Oh right." I told myself.
"I don't know how many people this is going to reach, or if this is even working at all, but I need to send you a message, mostly to the Supporters. You guys have been lied to, tortured, and you are most likely dying. Is this what Maya wanted? She had promised that she was going to help anyone in need, but now, she isn't helping any of you. She can dispose of any of you right at this very moment."
I heard Maya's voice echo in the background. "With the help of many people here, you can help me, and the new supporters of my charity, we can help the people who are hiding in the shadows. We can help the people who have been tormented and are ashamed." I remember that Maya was publicly speaking for the first time when she said that.
"She has used you, and has promised you things that don't even exist. It's fake. You all must have noticed that your other Supporters have disappeared in the last few weeks. Maya has told you that they left, because they believed the lies that we told them, but that is not true. Me, and everyone else here had been able to break free from Maya's lies and manipulation. We want you guys to join us too. You will not have to work unless you want to, and you never have to be assigned orders again. You can go back to your home and see your family and friends again too."
"I have heard about all of the horrible things that you have seen, and have to go through on a daily basis. I have heard about the dead bodies that piled up. I have heard about the coughing fits that leave you dead if you were in the outside world. I have heard of how little you eat and how much you work. I have heard nearly everything about what Maya said about the Wise One, how your sins will be cleansed, and how you can live an eternal, healthy life after you are dead. Have you heard anyone else say anything else about the afterlife before Maya came along? Is there any proof that it even exists? Why does the afterlife even matter if you are going to waste your life down here on Earth, where you freely reign over what you want to do, you get to meet friends, have fun with family, and you don't need to always work. Even if the afterlife is real, will you be able to do everything that you enjoyed doing on Earth? Will you be able to meet your loved ones? Will you be able to play games? What if it is completely different from what you might think is up there?"
"What matters though is that you need to realize what Maya is doing is wrong, inhumane, and definitely illegal. You need to rise up and be your own person. We can help you with whatever you need once you are out, maybe not right now, but we care for you. Xeinil is supposed to be a Utopia, made from people who risked their lives so you could be happy, and safe. They didn't want you to waste your lives for someone who just wants to use you."
"Maya is also not the person who she seems. She isn't your savior, or god, or even a leader. Most of us here are in shambles because of what she did a few nights ago. She had attacked us after we had freed one barrack from Maya's grasp. We had saved about ten-thousand people, but she wanted to take them back, by executing them. We had our first party that night, which now feels foolish, and over a hundred-thousand people have lost their life to Maya that night, and we are still trying to count them all. Many more were injured, and we aren't fit to deal with this many people suffering so badly. We can't save people because too many were suffering all at once. So many families have been broken, losing members of their family because of what Maya did that night. "
"It had nearly reminded me of what Maya does to you, but on a much larger scale. She doesn't care if you get hurt. She doesn't care if you die. She will move on without caring. If you don't want to be treated like that, let go of her. She is an awful being who just wants power, and people to bow down to her, as if she owns them, like property. We will try to protect you at all costs, because you are a part of a great city. Me, and everyone else won't want to give up on you just yet. So please, listen to your heart, make a decision, and go with it."
I close my eyes, and the moment I open them, I am back on the cell tower, holding onto the railing. I feel very dizzy and weak. That must have taken a lot of life force out of me. My cheeks were also burning for some reason. I leaned in closer to the reflective metal on the tower to see what was going on.
There were two crescents on my cheeks, and they were glowing, but as soon as I examined them, the glow went away, and now they were green, kind of like my hair. I touched them, and it was like they were soldered onto my cheeks, like a sticker, but probably like a tattoo of sorts. Did this happen because I was using two powers at once? Was it because I used a lot of my powers? Maybe it was because I was hallucinating.
Regardless, my job was done. I could go rest, and maybe figure out what was going later. I went back onto the platform, but before I pressed the arrow that went down, I heard a large noise coming from the barracks. I walked over to the other side of the tower to see what was going on.
I didn't like looking off the tower, but I was surprised to see what I saw. There was a huge crowd of people bursting out of the barracks, and onto the streets. Maybe even hundreds of thousands of people were trying to escape. As they flooded the city, the people from down below were starting to meet up with those new people. It clearly had worked extremely well.
I went back on the platform, and pressed the down button. Once it was safe to step off, I did, and I could see Entrapta racing for me. She hugged me, yelling: "You did it! You did it!"
"Thanks, thanks"... I said.
There were even more people waiting for me outside of the cell tower. I was glad that everyone was so happy, but I was so tired. We also needed to focus on the thousands of people who might be in need of our help.
"Guys, I need to go. I'll be back though to party." I said to everyone, as they kept on cheering, and noticing my cheeks.
Gabriel budges from the crowd. "Hey, since we have finally accomplished our goal, why don't we go to my house and play some video games? We haven't done that in ages."
"Sorry, Gabriel, but I can't. I need to go get some rest, and after that, I need to make sure that Maya is occupied." I tell him, as he fights against the crowd.
"Well, will you have time to do it?" He asks.
"Of course I will. I promise." I say, he knows that I do not break promises, and he nods. He disappears into the crowd, as he no longer fights it, and as more people try to congratulate me and notice me. I hope he isn't upset about me.
I got a lot of sleep that day, but it wasn't very high-quality sleep. I kept hearing in one of my nightmares that "You need to go defeat Maya. You are the only one who can banish her. She will hurt everything you have worked on if you do not act now." Someone said in a very ghostly voice. That better not be Light Ezra.
I woke up, worried that I might have missed another attack, but luckily, everyone was fine. The thousands of people were getting their treatment, even though the hospital is completely full. I assume that a bunch of people are volunteering to help. That was one of the beauties of teamwork.
I was glad that Maya was not here, but none of us knew if she was going to strike back just yet. That morning, I had a meeting with a bunch of people, and we discussed how we can land the final blow on Maya. Some people didn't want her to die, and wanted her to leave, while others just wanted to kill her. I was technically on both sides, everyone deserves a chance, but she did thousands of people, so she clearly deserves it too. I was kind of forced to be on the killing side though, because of Light Ezra.
"We should launch our own attack against the castle! We can catch her off guard at night!"
"What if we convince her what she was doing is wrong, then she joins our side?"
"Then we can murder her in her sleep. That would be an amazing plan."
"She's clearly not going to side with us. She is so narcissistic to herself that she only thinks that she is right. We have no way to but banish her, or kill her."
"We can't just go banish her. She's going to come back and harm the city again."
'It is possible to banish her if she is tamed. Or maybe we can force her to find the rebels in the outside world. Even if there are no more of them, she's stuck out there forever."
"We don't know what she is going to do though if we don't kill her! Ezra, what do you think?
I was zoned out. "Huh? Oh, yeah, we can't just go and banish Maya. We don't know where she came from, what else she could do, and of course we can't trust her. Maybe there is hope inside of her though, and maybe she can realize what she is doing is wrong. That just doesn't seem possible though. Regardless, this meeting is about how we can get rid of her, not just about whether we should kill or banish her." I tell them all.
"As I said, we should just launch a night attack on Maya. She's already at her knees hiding inside the castle of hers. We can just set off some explosives at the base, and bam, she's rendered weak and has nowhere to go. We snatch her up quickly, and we do a final blow, it's very simple."
"There are still some guards around the castle. They will alert Maya, and she is going to attack us while we aren't prepared. We can't do that, we need to be stealthy, because that works much better. We can knock out the guards in the entrance, and then we get inside. We go to Maya, and we stab her behind the back! We can convert the guards afterwards, then we are saved!"
"There will be a lot of guards. Any person who was loyal enough to Maya and stayed behind became a guard. We also don't know what the inside even looks like, or where she will be at. We can't have a whole team go in at once. We will be found much easier, and then we are shot, and everything fails."
"I agree. We will need a team of only two or three to get to Maya. They will also need camouflage to blend in with the red walls. If one guard notices that we are here, everyone's going to know, and we might be trapped. Even if only two people, who knows if they could slip up or not."
"Maybe we shouldn't go into Maya's castle. It just seems way too risky."
"Well, we need to get rid of Maya, and she doesn't leave her damn castle anymore. The only way that we get to her is going inside of the castle."
"Maybe we don't need to go in through one of the doors. What if we used a couple of drones to fly to the top of the building, on one of the balconies, then we go on from there? Maya would be more likely to be near the top rather than at the bottom of the castle. There would probably be less guards too."
"What if we make a distraction at the top, then we go in from the bottom?"
"We need to get to the top. Maybe if we switch it the other way around, distraction at the bottom, we go in at the top, we won't even need to be that stealthy."
"I don't know about all of that. How are a couple of drones supposed to carry us? They can't hold more than ten pounds without being all wobbly. We would need an entire fleet of drones, which would look extremely suspicious, or we just ditch that altogether. I just don't think it's gonna work."
"What if we come from not the bottom, but from the bottom-bottom, like the sewers? That way we won't get caught while we are going in, and we can still be stealthy."
"You have been looking at way too many movies recently. That's stupid. How about we all just go in and don't care about how stealthy we were? We just ram through the building, find Maya, and we kill her. Simple as that."
I was unfocused for most of the meeting for some reason. Maybe I'm just too tired. The conversation about just going all in made me want to speak up. "We can't go in like that. We could hurt or kill innocent people, which we said we wouldn't do. I don't want to lose anyone that I could have protected. It makes sense if I just go do this, completely alone. None of you will get hurt, I can use my powers, and I can face Maya alone."
"Are you sure about that? What if you get hurt and you are surrounded? You matter to us. You don't have to worry about us. You have done so much, and we might as well just repay you. You need a break, I can tell."
I think I might be getting a headache. "No, this is what I should do. I am your leader, and I need to protect you. I will be fine, trust me. Maya will attack you to make sure that you are weak. She could use you against another. Her manipulation with people is too powerful, and you can't get caught up with it. Besides, I can take her on with my powers, and once that is done, we are saved."
"I guess if you want to do it, then go ahead."
"Are you going to be getting any practice so you can fight her better? How long will you take to get ready?"
"I have decided that I will go tomorrow in the afternoon. I probably won't be available though for most of the day. I'll be busy doing things, you know."
"Wha?"
"Don't you need a little bit more time to get ready? Are you sure that you are prepared?"
"Yes, I am sure." I tell them, and after that, we finalize the plan, and I dismiss them.
I may look like someone who might know what they are doing, or they are strong, but I'm neither of those. After the meeting was done that night, I went back to my apartment, and I just cried silently in the corner until I was worn out.
I wasn't ready to be a leader like this. Back then, I felt the light responsibility of holding up my soccer team, but now, I have the entire responsibility over the city, and over Maya's death. Now, everyone is looking up to me to deliver the final blow. I could have just made it so a bunch of people stealthed into Maya's tower, but I didn't want them to get hurt because of me. They are my responsibility. I was the one to start all of this, and I will be the one to also end it.
I wasn't ready to die yet either. Light Ezra said that I would have to sacrifice myself to save everyone else. Call me selfish, but I want to be there too. I want to experience everything once more that I did in the past. I want to eat my mom's pancakes, smell the fresh air as I go outside, walk to school, have fun in classes, and have those small parties that I used to plan out. How I have come such a long way to this spiral of stress.
I went to bed eventually that night. I woke up, and it was already past noon. I didn't really feel like getting up either for another hour. I had to though, because people wouldn't stop texting me about this surprise I had to see. I put on my clothes, and freshly washed coat. I walked out of my apartment, and I saw the surprise that they were wanting me to see so much.
"Welcome, new mayor!" The crowd said to me as I walked into the street.
"Oh, guys!" I said, acting surprised. Mostly though, I just felt kind of confused, maybe even worried. I didn't know how to be a mayor, and I didn't want to be a mayor! I didn't know anything about handling a city, passing or denying laws, giving official presentations, and I can't even vote yet.
"Since you have done so much for us, proving your bravery, kindness, and determination, we just wanted to pay you back. So we made you mayor of Xeinil!"
"Wow, thanks everyone, but is this really official? Like am I really the new mayor?"
"Of course, silly! We made the vote early in the morning, and tallied them up. You smashed all of the competition, with owning ninety-one percent of the vote!"
"That's great!" I lied.
We had another, more spaced out, party, that went on throughout the afternoon. Everyone wanted to take pictures, ask me questions, autograph things, that celebrity stuff. I didn't really feel like I was even there though, like I was detached from the world. This all just felt different, wrong even.
I decided that enough was enough, and I told a couple of people that I was going to get the job done. That spread quickly, so quickly that I couldn't even leave without a bunch of people telling me goodbye, and to be careful. I was able to get out before everyone knew about it though, and I was on my own, alone.
I went invisible to make sure no one would follow me, and so I could get to Central Park easier. The park has been abandoned and everyone knows to stay away from it. It's the only spot that Maya has control over anymore. I am able to walk up to the guards that protect the front door. You could say that I should find a back door, and here is one, but there's already a guard there, we looked.
I waited until their shift changed, and I squeezed through the door as four guards went inside, and four came out. I was one of the few who were able to go inside the building at all. I think only about a hundred people have ever gone inside this building. It was very red, with multiple shades spread out across the place. It wasn't all red though, some things were black, like the ceiling, some furniture. I could see that a lot of stuff here was velvet, the carpet included. There were some golden items around the living room too. It was very open and seemed very comfortable for such a scary castle.
There was a grand staircase in the middle though, and I went up that. There were guards all around, even on the stairs, that I had to get by. Now, there were three different halls that I could go down, filled with guards, and rooms.
To be completely honest, I was terrified. One wrong move, I could bump into a guard, and be killed without finishing my job. I couldn't turn back now, I was already too far in. Everyone was counting on me killing Maya, and ending her reign once and for all. This is what my destiny truly was.
YOU ARE READING
Supernatural Book 4: Ezra's Story
ParanormalEzra is a young teen who enjoys his life at Xeinil, the biggest and most developed city after a nuclear bomb had brought the planet to grinding halt. He is the best player on his soccer team, has many friends, and has a bright future ahead of him, o...
