An hour must have gone by.
An hour of nothing but listening to the terrifying noises just beyond his door.
Yells, laughter, growls. Crashing, smashing, slashing, tearing, breaking.
Wilbur and Eden weren't secure in their rooms like the others. No, this was just yet another one of their sick procedures.
Test two of them against one another, assure they're still up to standard.
Eden, being one of the most talented yet thoughtless switches and Wilbur, only having survived one real test in the Maze.
But their voices, they were wrong.
It was theirs, no doubts about it. But the more Xander listened to them both, the more uncomfortably out of place it seemed coming out of either of them.
Their inflexions, their tone, even just the words they used and how they used them. Little, minor things.
So this was what a switch sounded like, he thought.
Everyone had changed, he had heard them all cry out, even Bliss.
Everyone except for him.
The frequencies, they hurt. They hurt him badly enough that his ears bled as he had been trapped on the ground, trying to calm himself out of a severe panic attack.
His mother's words echoed in his ears, barely audible through the vicious tone.
It's alright, Xandy, she would soothe, his old beloved nickname, while often embarrassing, had always brought along an overwhelming sense of calm. Nobody is going to hurt you. I'm right here. I'll be right here until you're okay.
But that wasn't true anymore.
This time, he was alone.
For the first time, he was really alone.
Eden's psychotic laughter filled the building, echoing and bouncing along every wall. Her switch was enjoying the situation far too much. Though so was Wilbur, from the sounds of it.
Joyfully chuckling along and taunting her as further crashes indicated the damage.
One big smash was enough for Xander to realise the glass table was gone.
The time dragged on and on. The frequencies hadn't lasted long, only ten minutes or so. But clearly once a switch had happened, it stayed around for quite a while. Grasping onto their control for as long as they could.
By the end, Xander was sat on his bed, against the wall. With his knees tight against his chest, staring nervously at the door with some unrelenting fear that one of those beasts would come crashing through at any moment.
And then...
Silence.
Everything fell dead.
His chest tightened, anxiety gripping down on him once again.
What if something had happened? What if one of them had died?
Before further perturbed questions could rack his mind, the thick metal slates covering all entrances slowly slid back into their little pockets as the voice from the cameras spoke once again.
"Good job you two, that will do for today. Please, keep away from the damage. Our team will be there shortly to handle repairs."
Emi stepped out into the hallway, walking past Xander's room with a frightened expression. Once she caught sight of him, his entire body shaking in the corner of the room, she ran inside.
"Are you okay?! Nothing happened, right? You didn't get hurt?"
"N-no..."
He could barely speak.
Emi's petrified screams during the frequencies first moments filled his mind the moment he laid eyes on her. It meant she had changed too, become that other, unhinged, scary being.
