A scream stopped him. A loud, piercing scream that made him bring his hands up in a futile attempt to block the sound as he stumbled to a halt. The sound did not diminish; it seemed to be coming from all around him. He pivoted wildly, trying to identify the source, certain he would see Simon standing in a corner, but the scream was one of the voices in his head. Below the scream was the rumble of a thousand more voices growing in volume. He felt like a man standing downriver after a large dam had burst; he could hear it coming and would be swept away.
The voices flooded through him, washing over him. He thought that he might have fallen then, but he was being closed off from his senses so he was not sure. The world around him began to blur and blend together. The voices were all a
