Ezra closed his eyes for a moment.
He inhaled. Then, channeled the Vis into his legs, arms, back—his entire body vibrated, like a drum on the verge of bursting.
'Now or never.' With an explosive motion, he arched his body backward.
CRACK.
The chair snapped from the impact against the cell's moldy wall. The fragile wood groaned, one leg splintering under the weight of the brute movement. Across the room, the noise echoed like a bomb.
"What the fuck was that?!" one of the guards at the door shouted.
The man with the rifle, who had been leaning in a dark corner of the room, jolted upright, his sleep-reddened eyes barely masking his panic.
Ezra didn't stop. Still bound at the wrists, he jumped, flexed his legs, and swung them under his arms, now his hands were in front of him, a much less vulnerable position.
Hurried footsteps stormed up the stairs, five men, overlapping voices, weapons drawn.
"Wake up, idiot!" one shouted at the rifleman.
"Some moron locked the stairwell door, fuck!" another yelled.
"Kick it in!"
The man with the rifle caught his breath and barked, "Quiet!"
BANG.
A sharp gunshot. The bullet whizzed, ricocheting off the wall inches from Ezra's face. Fragments of stone and dust exploded into the air.
Ezra froze. His vision blurred. The sound muffled. His body trembled, as if instinct and reason were colliding.
"You idiot, don't kill him!" yelled one of the guards who'd been at the door, now sprinting toward Ezra, nearly slipping on the fluids covering the floor.
Ezra heard nothing else. Just the ringing in his ears. A memory, another place, another weapon pointed at him.
'Not here. Not now.'
"Ezra?" Mazzareth's voice rang out, clear and direct, inside his mind.
BANG.
Another shot, this time into the ground, right in front of Ezra. Shards of stone struck his face. They didn't cut, but burned like needles.
"Don't worry, just warning shots!" the rifleman shouted, stepping back with barely hidden nerves.
Two guards were closing in, hands outstretched like claws, ready to grab him.
Ezra was still paralyzed. The world spun.
"EZRA, MOVE!" The frustrated demon roared inside his head like thunder.
The voice ripped through the mental fog surrounding him. Ezra lunged sideways, ducking. The guards' rough fingers brushed his hair, just missing. He felt the air whip behind him, accompanied by the metallic scrape of boots skidding across the floor.
A third guard appeared ahead, blocking the corridor. Ezra didn't hesitate. He spun his body, stomped hard on the side wall like a cornered beast, and launched a heel kick straight into the man's temple.
THUD.
The guard collapsed like a sack of bones, the knife he held clinking as it hit the floor.
Ezra caught it midair and ran. But not in the best direction.
BOOM.
The metal door exploded off its hinges with a thunderous blast, hurled like a missile.
Ezra had only a split second.
He dove to the ground, sliding beneath the doorway like lightning. The heavy structure whooshed over his head and crashed behind him with a harsh, metallic thud.
He sprang to his feet, and immediately had to leap to the side. A metal baton swiped through the space his ribs had occupied just a second earlier.
"Where are you going, darling?" The voice was forcedly sweet. Karmen.
He approached slowly, spinning the baton in hand.
Behind him stood cyclops tense, wide-eyed, and two more armed thugs closing in, tightening the trap.
"Shit…" Mazzareth! Got any brilliant ideas?!
"Yes: run." Mazzareth's sarcastic tone couldn't mask the urgency.
Ezra inhaled sharply, chest heaving.
He turned. The rusted stairs to the left shook, vibrating under the weight of the men climbing. One of them slipped, yelling as he clung to the railing.
CLANG! The whole structure groaned, unstable.
"GO, GO, HE'S GETTING AWAY! GET HIM, DAMMIT!" one thug bellowed, machete in hand, veins bulging in his neck.
Ezra didn't wait for the end of the sentence.
He ran.
But where to?
The room was large, but not large enough to hold fourteen men without becoming a hunting ground. Bare concrete walls, metal bars, rusted crates, and narrow corridors.
One by one, the guards he had left behind, including the one he'd kicked, were regrouping, tightening the circle.
He was surrounded.
No exit.
And then...
"Wait... Fourteen?" Ezra muttered, panting.
Something was off.
"Ezra, to the side. NOW!" Mazzareth shouted.
Ezra rolled instinctively, A fist cut through the air where his jaw had been a second earlier.
SHUNK.
A knife embedded itself in the guard's arm. The man screamed, stumbling, but Ezra didn't look back, he was already up, muscles burning with Vis.
A gunshot!
BANG!
Dust burst from the wall ahead, the rifleman had regained his aim.
Ezra lunged sideways, skidded across the floor, and slid between two metal crates, raising the trembling blade in his hand.
Two more guards vaulted the crates. Ezra twisted his body, slashed one in the knee, and kicked the second in the stomach. The impact sent the man tumbling backward, knocking over another charging behind him.
"Ezra, if you don't get out now, you never will," Mazzareth shouted, his voice distorted by the chaos.
Ezra understood what he meant. His Vis-heightened senses warned him. Behind them, cyclops had stopped. Eyes closed. Hands joined. Focusing.
<"Codex..."> he murmured.
Ezra felt his stomach twist. A violet aura rose around the man. There was no time to wait. He turned toward the only possible escape: a barred window high on the opposite wall.
The rifleman stepped into his path, trying to block him with the butt of the weapon. Ezra raised his forearm to block it, grunting from the impact, and drove a knee into the man's gut.
The rifle dropped. He then grabbed the man by the shoulder and used him as leverage to launch himself toward the window.
But he didn't make it. "Where do you think you're going?"
Karmen yanked him back by the hair. Ezra screamed in pain, losing his balance, the pull nearly tore his scalp open.
"Fucking long hair…" he snarled. Without missing a beat, Ezra raised the knife, now glowing faintly, and slashed through his own hair.
A clean cut. Karmen stumbled back, still clutching the strands.
Ezra hit the ground, rolled, sprang to his feet, and bolted toward the window, ignoring the chaos erupting behind him. And jumped.
For a brief moment, the world seemed frozen, the wind whistled past his ears, the chill of freedom kissed his skin.
But there was one small thing Ezra hadn't accounted for.The height.
"What do I do now, Mazzareth?!" he shouted mid-fall, the wind shoving the words back down his throat.
"Oh! Right, you don't have wings," Mazzareth replied, as if recalling a minor oversight.
Ezra's stomach dropped even faster than he did."Are you serious?!"
The world spun. The ground raced up to meet him. Too fast. No ropes. No nets. No crates, rooftops, awnings, or miracles. Just concrete. And the certainty of death.
The view was merciless: the building stood isolated, surrounded only by empty yards, rusted tracks, and shadows.
Ezra clenched his teeth, body taut, bracing for the inevitable impact,
And then, reality tore open.CRACK.A thin, glowing vertical slash appeared in the air below him, as if the world itself were a curtain being pulled apart by an invisible hand.
Ezra fell into it.
No time to scream, think, or breathe.The void swallowed him whole.The light, the sounds, the world, everything vanished.