Only a Game (Olympus Drive Chronicles)

Chapter 5: I am definitely dying

Dean

I throw up blood and tissue as I stagger into the bathroom. It's dark outside. I only go out in the dark now. The sunlight burns my paper thin skin.

One drink.

One drink is all I need. One drink.

"Just one drink," I whisper, pressing my face against the wall.

"You do realize last time I gave you 'just one drink', the next thing you knew you were naked in a field with twenty other highly intoxicated people?"

"I never said I didn't have a problem," I say, slumping against the wall.

"It's getting worse," my mother says, quietly.

"Yeah," I whisper.

"I just---don't see how it can be a thing that you NEED to be intoxicated and surrounded by drunk high people at all times," she sighs, rubbing her forehead.

"And yet, here we are," I mutter.

"One glass of wine," she sighs.

"I thought you got rid of all of it!" I cry, happily, crawling after her.

"I did, mysteriously the grape juice is now wine," she says, going to the fridge.

I sigh.

"You understand I'm gonna lock you in your room with this—"

"Mom—"

"Do you want to hurt anyone? Is that what you want?" she pours the wine into a coffee cup. I can already smell it.

"No," I mumble. She's right. I can't keep---possessing people. Even if it means I'm dying.

"Here," she kneels down to help me stand, "Drink this, and try to eat something. Okay?"

"Okay," I say, taking the cup eagerly. I feel better just holding it. She leads me to my bedroom. The window is long since boarded shut.

"Get some rest," she puts a box of snack bars down on the bedside table, "We'll talk in the morning, okay?"

"Okay," I drink the wine, then curl up on the bed. The cup is, of course, full again. I snuggle up in the sheets, shivering with cold. Vines grow through the window and wrap around me. that's better. A little warmer. No idea why that's happening. But at least I'm warmer.

Oh fuck it.

I drink the cup dry again, three more times. Then, my belly full, I finally do fall asleep.