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It was all going to be glorious, the voices in Adam’s head promised.
His moment had come. The power was his. The whole Earth was his, to rule over or remold as he wished. It was his, his, all of it, or if it wasn’t yet then it was about to be.
Everything that was wrong with the world… Adam could get rid of it. Everything that was right with it, he could make even better.
It was all going to be glorious.
And the only things standing in the way of his glory…
“Goodbye, Adam,” said Pepper and Brian and Wensley. And they turned, all three of them, and began to walk away.
Away from Adam. His friends, his best friends, his gang. The other Them were leaving. He’d offered to share the world with them, to let them share in the glory. He’d promised them each a piece of the Earth. It would have been so much fun.
And they were leaving.
“What do you mean,” he demanded, “‘goodbye’?”
Pepper whirled on him, glaring. “Stop following us.” She kept walking with the others.
“I’m not following you.” Adam floated after them. He could go wherever he wanted. Nobody could stop him. Everywhere was his. Everything was his. Everyone was his. He could make them be.
“We aren’t your friends anymore,” Pepper said defiantly. “We don’t like you.”
You have the power, the voices reminded him. They are yours. All is yours. Take them if you want them, or let them go.
But he didn’t want to let them go, and he didn’t want to take them either.
He’d tried that already. It hadn’t felt so glorious, when he’d taken their mouths away and made them follow him. Or afterwards, when they were screaming as he flew them through the air. It was supposed to be a game, but it hadn’t felt fun. It hadn’t felt like friendship at all.
He didn’t want them to be his. He wanted them to be his friends. It wasn’t the same thing.
They don’t matter, insisted the voices in his head. They are nothing. You don’t need them. You don’t care.
“I don’t care,” he said.
He could do whatever he wanted. He could crush the Earth and all its inhabitants beneath his heels. Surely, he could make it true that he didn’t care. Couldn’t he?
And then the other three were running… and no, no, no, Dog was going after them, running and running and not coming back even when Adam called his name.
They were taking Dog.
No. No. It couldn’t be. This wasn’t fair. Dog was Adam’s.
The Earth would be his, but his own Dog wasn’t?
The voices kept whispering, repeating their promises again and again, desperation rising along with Adam’s own. Let them go. You have the world. You have the power. You have the glory…
Except it still didn’t feel glorious. His gang and his dog were all abandoning him, and it didn’t feel glorious at all. It hurt.
You have…
Adam was launching himself after them.
“Give me back my dog!”
“He’s not your dog,” Pepper snapped. She looked terrified, but she didn’t back down. “He’s his own dog. And I don’t think he likes you anymore.”
Nobody liked Adam anymore. His own friends, his own dog, his own gang didn’t like him anymore. It wasn’t fair. Why didn’t anyone like him?
“You’re really scary,” Wensley answered the question he hadn’t asked, voice shaking. “And you aren’t our friend.”
“You aren’t anybody’s friend!” It was Brian now, the three of them standing together. Together, without Adam. “You’re going to burn all this away.”
You have the power.
“Why?”
The world is yours.
“Because some adults mucked things up?” Brian was almost shouting. “That’s a reason to fix it! Not destroy it!”
Dog whined.
Fix it, said a voice in Adam’s head that sounded different from the others. Thinner. Less impressive. Hardly a voice at all. Maybe this voice was just him. You can fix this.
His feet touched the ground.
The others were backing away.
“Come back,” said Adam, softly. Pleadingly. He didn’t want to destroy his gang. He had to fix this. “Please?”
They shook their heads.
You have the glory, the voices insisted. They weren’t very creative. It will all be yours, yours, yourssssssss…
It would all be his. Glory, power, everything he could possibly want.
Except for what he really wanted.
Don’t you want to rule the world? the voices urged.
Not like this, Adam snapped in his head, and the voices tried to argue back, and there were too many of them and only one of him, too much of them, he was going to split apart with it all, break apart and take the whole world with him, but he flung himself upwards and backwards and screamed, screamed, screamed until the screaming was louder than anything else, louder, louder, drowning the voices out. It was just like when he was little, like when he used to put his fingers in his ears and yell to drown out his parents saying it was time to go inside. Just like that. He couldn’t hear them, couldn’t hear them, he couldn’t…
Everything went white, and red, and black. Briefly, it was octarine.
Then it was nothing.
When Adam opened his eyes, the voices had gone silent. And his friends were still there.