Anya couldn 't remember when she fell to her knees, when she lost all sense of herself.

Anya gasped exactly once before her body shut down completely, and everything around her was gone. Her physical senses had shut her out, and Anya fell away from the light, away from the horrible sensations of nausea and breathlessness, away from the multitude of voices asking her if she was all right, does she need any help, do they need to get a teacher -

No.

Something dark crawled out of her heart, a formless entity of smoke and ash and pure terror, and it swirled around her. The air crackled with static electricity.

All the faces from her nightmares flashed in her mind, their eyes all looking at her in pure fear as they realised what she was.

There was no command given, only instinct in its rawest form: the instinct of survival and self-preservation. It was a command of the utmost authority, the ultimate self-defence in a defenceless state.