The brick startled William. His first thought was of an inescapable attic, leaving him with a sticky, cold sweat that beaded from the pores of his skin. He felt around for an opening of any kind. The rough texture beneath his fingertips did not change, however. He found himself on his knees with his head leaning against the brick in defeat. He slid onto his bottom and sat there, quietly in the dark. He thought about his journey in sequence. All the running, the death, and the tenseness could be cut like warm butter. It all led to a dark room in a place that had no presence. He was undisputedly trapped, rotting away in an unknown hell. There was no one to talk to and no one to help him, just as it had always been. He was stuck within a furious fire without an ounce of water with which to extinguish it - the fire only expanding to a size incomprehensible. He was, for there was no one else to argue in opposition, nothing. A person without presence, merely existing in, essentially, nothing.

He stood back up with a deep unwillingness to go on but he continued his blind search for a way out. Preferably, one that did not include backtracking to where the broomsticks lay waiting. The walls were barren, save for the odd wooden structures here and there. Empty shelves and large columns covered in cobwebs, at least that's what his hands told him. Eventually, he had circled the small room and made it back to the wall that he had first run into. He reached high and low, looking for a crack or missing brick. His fingertips were losing their strength and beginning to feel raw. He sat down again and leaned his head back.

A silence filled the room with such potency that his own body's inner workings became audible. The room provided the same level of sight whether his eyes were opened or closed. Sometimes, it was hard to tell if they were open at all. He wanted so badly for it all to end; to just get out and run to the ends of the Earth. Perhaps Paris would be there, ready to give William a warm embrace again. Maybe the man who saved him would be there as well and they'd forget about the entire mess. His left hand was cold, resting below his waist and close to the wall. He paid no mind to it for a while, until he lifted it to massage his head. The coldness of it then became clear as day. He placed his warm hand in the same area his other one had been and waited. He couldn't believe what he was feeling. A cool draft, seeping in slightly from a slit between the brick wall.

He got down onto his stomach and pressed his ear to it, confirming what he thought may have been a sick delusion. He went for his hammer. He felt a rush of thankfulness towards the inanimate object, believing then that holding on to it may have been the greatest decision he had ever made. He didn't wish to be caught by the loudness of a swinging hammer and yet he knew there was no other choice before him. So, with little time to waste, he began to swing. Each swing was difficult as it came down onto the hard surface with a blunt crack. His body jerked back with each hit from the force of the blows and yet he never let up. The hammer was his savior. He'd hit the wall and then check with his fingers if any progress was being made. To his utter disbelief, there was.

A tool that was probably used in that lab room for unthinkable acts was now the very embodiment of William's soul. It was his very being, fighting against the imposing blockade of brick that held him back from life itself. William continued, ignoring as much as possible the pain that was pulsing through him. He began to grunt and heave and the beads of sweat collected in pools on his body. Each crack was met with another in quick succession until he heard the wall begin to fail. The filling between the bricks began to crack open and the small chunks were spilling onto the floor beneath him. The only thing in the room at that moment was William's boiling rage, which gave full power behind each swing. His grunts and heaves became growls and yells which escaped through the cracked wall before he even had a chance to react to their loudness.

"C'mon, you son of a bitch!"

The bricks were loosening quicker than he had anticipated. One fell after the other and the dim light from the other side began to peek through. Between hits, William moved aside the debris that clung to the wall and then kept on the pressure with his hammer. Finally, he stopped. He felt the hole he made was big enough for him to fit through. The dim beams of light filtered through the layer of dust and rubble at his feet. His body told him to fall and quit but he pushed through it with every ounce of willpower he could muster. He reached out of the hole and pried his body through, dropping onto the other side. He stood up and studied the room, feeling his gut tighten and wrench up like a noose.

"No... No."

To his left, he saw a television. It faced inward towards a couch, resting against the wall beside a hallway. He turned around while backing away from the hole he had created. The hole in the brick wall was there, nestled directly in the middle of a door frame and the door itself was swung wide open. He turned back around, looking into the kitchen on his right and back to the room on his left. He felt the weight of the heavens bearing down on him. His heartbeat felt irregular, and his mind was becoming like soup under the heavy realization of where he was. He began to walk down the hallway with complete blankness in his eyes. It was like someone had turned off his power switch and he was running on fumes. Like a zombie, he walked down the path he had known so well. The familiar smell of it was clear and yet welcomed no response from him. He made it to the room on the left, the room where it all began.

It felt then that it would also be where it all ended. He pushed open the large steel door, which gave off the same creak it always had. He looked at his bed and his desk. He looked at the waste bucket and the red, shaggy carpet. He walked inside, looking up at the small window above which towered over his small body, and began to laugh. The laughter was deep and crazed, which seemed at odds with such devastation. He bellowed, holding his gut and feeling the wetness of tears forming between his eyelids. After a while, staring into the sunlight beaming through the window, he let out uncontrollable coughs that interrupted his fit of laughter.

William may have looked broken in that room, yet he felt better than he had ever felt before. He escaped his room and went through the flames of hell and somehow made it back. He felt the sun's rays against his face and enjoyed it immensely. He took it in forcibly, like he was attempting to push out all else within him and replace it with the light. He felt the warmth and pit it against the coldness that he had felt not too long ago. He gave in to the will of his exhaustion and plopped down onto his bed. He felt the sheets beneath him and rubbed them with sincerity as if they were his loving pet. With each minute that passed, he expected Father to come in with his choice of words and painful punishment. He expected something to appear before him with deep, yellow eyes. He expected a ghoulish little girl to sternly request him to look at her. He expected the sounds of sticks clacking against the ground, accompanied by devilish breathing. He expected his life to conclude with vicious condemnation for his attempted extinguishing of the flames of that hell.

He did not, however, expect to feel beneath his hands the very thing that filled him with the hope of a better life in the first place. It was still as soft as the day it flew in. It had the same contours and edges that it had during its descent from the hills beyond. He brought it to his nose and took in the same sweet smell that it gave to him when he had first discovered it perched upon his leg. He had left it there intending to never lay eyes upon it again. Yet, there it was, resting in his hands in his deepest moment of helplessness. The maple leaf was there, where he had left it as if waiting for William's return.