Number 6 is three years old when he wakes the house screaming about ants.
Four blinks up at him from the floor, eyes big and wide and dark. (Why is he on the floor, did he move there? Why did he leave the warm nest of blankets he and Six been cuddling in to sleep on the cold, hard wood, he didn't tell Six they were playing camping -)
(Except no, Four has one hand pressed to the back of his head and blankets tangled round his feet, and Six's arms stretch out in front of him even with another scream trapped in his throat and he must have pushed him, he pushed Four out of bed when he screamed because the ants are here, the ants the ants the ants are back -)
Four pushes the blankets off his legs, stumbling to his feet. He scrambles back onto the bed and peers over the edge at the floor. Looking for the ants.
No, no, no no no no -
One and Two burst in through the door, shoving each other's shoulders to try to get through first. "I can smash ants!" One shouts, waving the lamp that sits beside his bed, with its broad, flat base. The long cord dangles behind him. He continues babbling about saving Six from the ants by smashing every single one with his lamp.
Two cuts him off. He's got his arms full of tiny rubber bouncy balls, the kind you can throw hard and they'll careen off the walls and floor and bounce forever, and if they hit you they hurt. They're good for practicing Two's power, and according to Two, they're also perfect for killing ants because they're hard and small and they'll bounce and smash lots of them on the way.
Six presses his hands over his ears. The ants are still here, they're here, burrowing and biting and crawling, they're here and One's lamp and Two's bouncy balls can't save him. Four shuffles close and tries to wrap his arms around Six's shoulders, but it only pulls them closer in -
"Boys."
Father in the doorway, voice cold and quick and cutting. One word slices through their fun and their squabbling all at once. One and Two deflate. They're balloons with a tear in the side, no big bang, no wild wheeling around the room, an instant slump. "Stop this foolishness and return to your rooms at once. Four, what have I told you about spending the night outside your designated sleeping quarters?"
Four's breaths rasp loud. He hates the dark, hates the voices he hears there and the cold fingers that reach out to touch and run straight through him. He's whispered his fears into Six's shoulder while his tears burn a hot, wet circle into his shirt. But it's never any use to argue with Father. No point in apologizing, either. By the time you have to say sorry, it's already too late. You should have known not to make a mistake in the first place.
The ants dance faster as Four leaves, dragging his feet until Father snaps Number 4! with the kind of sharp voice that threatens the hall closet and a chair in front of the door. Six can't breathe. The ants squirm and his skin stretches and he's going to snap, it's going to tear him apart and they don't understand, nobody understands. They kept looking for the ants under the bed or in the cracks of the floor but it's wrong, all wrong.
The bed dips down as Father sits beside him. "The ants aren't in the room, are they," he says, almost kindly. Six snaps his head up. For a second the air slides into his lungs without slicing. "Where are they, Six?"
Six shudders. "Inside." It comes out a whisper. If he says it too loud the ants might hear him. Might eat him up from within.
Father rests a hand on his shoulder, firm and heavy. "Inside where, my boy?"
He's shaking now, bone-deep, shoulders juddering back and forth in an unnatural rhythm that makes his muscles ache. "Inside me."
"Well, that's no good, is it?" Father says. His mouth does something strange that makes Six want to jerk away, that scares him almost as much as the ants. A second later he recognizes the alien curve of Father's lips as a smile. "We'd better let them out before they hurt you. Concentrate, Six. They want out. Focus on the one spot, drive all your energy there, then release."
Focus. The last thing Six wants to do is focus on the ants, but if letting them out will make it stop then he'll do it. And then One can smash them with his lamp and Two can hit them with his bouncy balls and Seven can cry at both of them for killing bugs until they stop and she'll make Three and Five and maybe even Four help her run after them with cups and slips of paper and carry them all outside and glare at everyone else until they promise not to be so mean again.
It sounds nice. It sounds normal. And so Six closes his eyes and clenches his fists and he listens for the path the ants are walking inside him.
Once he finds it, it's not hard to give them a little nudge. The path inside him is narrow, and Six imagines pushing at the sides, the gate of a dam sliding open so the water can pour through. Then the ants rush forward, tumbling over each other, flooding to his stomach along the paths all through his body toward a single point. The pressure builds and it hurts, a bubbling burning bursting feeling, and he can't keep them in and so he finds the door in the middle of his body and throws it wide.
It's not ants. It was never ants.
(But he knew that, didn't he. He always knew. Now he hears the voices hissing come play with us, won't you join our game, let us out little one, let us OUT)
Six screams and screams and screams until something shoves him hard into the wall and the world goes black.
Six wakes up later in the dark, the dim orange glow of his bedside lamp casting faint, jagged shadows on the ceiling. His stomach gives a scary, empty heave at the bitter smell hanging in the air that means his dinner now likes in a stinking pile on the floor somewhere. His mouth tastes sour. There's a strange, sharp taste to the ragged inside of his cheek when he touches it with his tongue.
His fingers shake as he presses them to his middle, looking for the bandages, the gaping, bloody hole. He felt himself rip open, felt the long, rubbery arms tear out of him even after he squeezed his eyes shut. Heard the horrible, wet snapping sound as bone and flesh and muscle gave way. But his hands touch smooth, unbroken skin, and it must have been a dream (it wasn't a dream) and now the sobs shake Six until he bends in half.
"Stop blubbering, Number 6."
Six gasps. Tries to pull the tears back, swipes a hand across his eyes, his mouth, makes a mess of his sleeve when he runs it over his nose and smears snot along his cheek. Father, sitting in a chair at the end of the bed, makes a face. That face, pinched around the nose with his mouth pressed thin, makes Six pull his knees to his chest. "I'm scared."
"That's what training is for," Father says, brisk. He doesn't clap his hands together on 'training' but his voice makes it sound like he did. He doesn't look Six in the eye. Doesn't look at him at all. Instead he stares at a spot behind Six's head. "You are a conduit for incredible power, my boy. We must work to control it."
Most of the words make no sense to Six, but he like it when Father didn't shout at him, and he understands 'control'. Six doesn't want to try again on purpose, but he doesn't want the monsters coming out without him, either. He hated the rubbery arms and the feel of his body snapping open, hated the boundless rage he felt pouring through him from somewhere else. But with Father helping him, maybe he can keep it from eating him alive.