7 Days Of Death

one : one

Harrison grabs the metal handle to his door and twists it open, walking inside his room. His hands shake as he releases the handle and kicks it, slamming the door shut. The rush of wind behind him, as he faces away from the door, makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand. The bang of the door echoes throughout the empty house, and the loose hinges rattle at the harsh impact.

He turns around, his posture stiff. His head burns, engulfed in a fire in his head. He holds his face with his palms, trying to remove pressure. He rests his head on the door as his migraine worsens, a piercing shrill inside his head. He steps back and punches the door with his already split knuckle, angry at himself. More blood oozes out of the wound. He rubs his knuckles with his fingers and smears the blood, as he looks up at the red imprint plastered onto the door and dripping down onto the white carpet.

He turns around, sunlight hitting his eyes. Immediately, he raises his hand to cover them, flinching away from the light. He stumbles over to his window and looks out. His body rests on the window, exhausted. His fingers play with the peeling, off-white paint of the window sill.

He stares out in awe. The sun is moving towards the west, no clouds to be seen in the blue sky. He looks down into the road, watching the occasional car driving past and wondering if they can see him. He closes his eyes and sighs. A simple moment of silence.

He moves away, and shuts his blinds, the room filling with a familiar darkness. He drops his rucksack from his shoulder and it lands straight onto the floor. He exhales, as he sits on the edge of his bed. His elbows are on his knees and his palms rub over his face, tracing, almost scratching, the contours of his face. His face is a burnt red and hands are a ghostly white, excluding the scarlet trail running down his hand and dripping onto the floor. His legs bounce up and down uncontrollably, as he tries to maintain steady breathing. His heart pulses, as his mind screams at him to do something.

And so he does. He stands, a pain in his chest, unsure what to do next. He paces back and forth across the floor. Harrison is in the bathroom when he sees them.

An orange transparent pill bottle, with a tattered yellow warning label falling off. He can still faintly read who the bottle belongs to: Harrison Wood.

But that's not who he is anymore.

His eyes skim over it quickly, and immediately pushes the bottle open. Two blue pills fall out into his palm, and Harrison takes no hesitation in swallowing both, trying to remove the pain that lurks deeper than his migraine.

His mouth is dry. He turns the faucet so cold water comes flowing out, and cups some water in his bloody hands and pushes it towards his face. Some water lands in his mouth, and the rest spills on his face. He keeps doing this, gasping in between the water. He pulls up the top of his t-shirt to wipe of the water from his face, getting blood on his shirt. He sighs, and tries to wipe it off, before giving up and drying his hands on his jeans. With blood smeared all over him, he puts the bottle of pills into his pocket and returns to his room, locking the door unconsciously.

His breathing has slowed. He sits at the edge of his bed and smiles, dried blood falling from his bloody lip. He no longer feels real, a euphoric feeling blanketing him. He taps his leg with his fore-finger, and hears the rattle of the bottle, causing him to pull it out of his pocket. His mind flashes, of dark thoughts and feelings previously repressed, causing him to tear off the warning label and take a black pen from his desk. He pulls of the lid with his teeth, and spits it away on the floor.

On the back of the label, he writes a simple sentence. A sentence that seems to define his 18 years of so-called existence.

Warning: here lies a toxic person. -H

He lies the note on his desk. He grabs a used cup from his bed-side table and walks into the bathroom to fill it with water, before sitting cross-legged on his bed. Both the water and the pills spread out in front of him. He closes his eyes, and pours some more pills into his palm, and shakes them in his hand. He opens his eyes, staring at the addicting blue. Before he can think twice, he pours the pills into his mouth and swallows them with the water.

Minutes past, of the constant consuming of pills. His whole body begins to ache, so he lays back on his bed and closes his eyes. And then, it's dark. Too dark. A colour shrouding him, as he lays completely unconscious.