My friend, Demise

Chapter 36

The people sitting around me are distorted in voice and appearance, my arms shaking so badly that I fear they'll fall off. I'm terrified beyond shitting myself. I can't even move.

"Are you doing okay over there?" Caine asked me, his voice resembling that of a thirty year old nicotine addict.

"Mhm." I muttered helplessly, staring at the floor as intensely as I could to keep my focus on something other than the bodies around me. "Just a little scared, that's all."

"You're shaking."

"I'm too scared to look up from the floor." I felt tears slip down my cheeks, my nails bleeding as I continued to claw at the concrete. "You all look really scary right now."

"How long has it been since you've been on those drugs?"

"Seven days, 14 hours, and twelve minutes since my last come down."

"Symptoms usually start after six or seven days."

"What's in these damn boxes?" I crawled toward the boxes, the chain pulling on my ankle once I got too far from the wall. Since I couldn't feel it too much, I let it dig into my skin as I sorted through the boxes for something sharp. "Why are they all full of useless shit?!"

"Calm down."

"Do you have any idea what I'm seeing right now? Don't tell me to calm down." I dug through a box full of blankets and managed to find an old photo of my mom. I crawled back to my spot and held the edge of the paper to my wrist, attempting to cut through my skin with it. I ended up sawing at my skin for over an hour until I finally started bleeding.

"Are we not going to stop him?" Azriel asked.

"It's just paper. He'll get a few minor cuts, that's it."

"It's not like there's anything sharper I could use! Oh wait yeah-" I ripped one of my earrings out and held the charm against my thumb, aiming the part that was normally inside my ear toward my arm. I stabbed the metal into myself, flinching when I finally felt it. "Agh- ow!"

"Idiot. Your ear is bleeding."

"How can I stab this into my vein?"

"You can't. It's not sharp enough and even if it was, you're not a doctor. You'll miss the vein. If you want to die so bad then focus on trying to get out of here."

I looked Caine in the eyes, his face finally going back to normal before a dark figure appeared behind him and stared at me. "Everything looks so scary...if you were me then you'd want to die too."

The room began to fill with those dark figures, every single one of them staring at me with white eyes. I can't even see my friends anymore. There's too many of them. I reached up and pressed my fingers against the edges of my eye, attempting to pull it out.

"Grab his hands!" Both Caine and Azriel ran over to me, holding my hands away from my eyes. I leaned forward and then slammed my head back against the wall. Caine placed his hand between my head and the wall but I didn't stop, leaving him with broken fingers. He still didn't move his hand though. "You need to get his dad down here. We can't leave him like this, it'll only get worse the longer he's without that shit."

"What are we supposed to do? Ask his dad for drugs?!"

"Yes, exactly! Now get his attention!"

I don't know how long they yelled before my dad actually came down into the room and shoved them both away from me. He bound my wrists together behind my back and laid my head down on a blanket from that box. "Calm down, Demise."

"You have a knife!" I grabbed him by the front of his shirt. "Give it here!"

"I'm not giving it to you."

"Then buy me drugs. I'll pay you."

"With what? You don't have any money with you."

"I do." Caine pulled out his wallet and handed it to my father. "Just buy it. I don't want to watch him like this."

"I'll take him with me and help him." He unchained me and pulled me to my feet. "He'll be back, you two don't do anything stupid?"

He pulled me out of the room and back up to the house.

"Dad...everything looks scary."

"I know. I'll fix it."

He led me into my room and unscrewed one of the electrical outlets. "If you don't have any here, I'll reach out to your dealer."

"Can I bring something back form my room?"

"What is it that you want to bring?"

"A pillow. For Amanda."

"That's fine. I'll get her body out of there once I've finished digging a hole for it."

"...thank you."

"Here, give me your arm. This will help." I did as he asked, holding out my arm and watching him shove a syringe needle into it. My body relaxed a bit as he injected the drug into my body. "Hopefully this is enough to calm the symptoms for a bit." He pulled the needle out and shoved it in his pocket. "Use it only when you need it. I'll give it to Caine so he can make sure you don't use the needle to hurt yourself. He'll keep track of how often you use it and make sure you don't freak out like that again."

"Thanks."

"Come on." He led me back to the basement and chained my ankle again, tossing the syringe to Caine. "I'll bring food later. Make sure he doesn't hurt himself with that."

"Sure."

Caine held the syringe in his hand, staring at my dad for a moment. "Don't even think about it. I'm stronger than you are."

"Yeah, okay." He placed it in his pocket and sat down. "Will he be okay?"

"Yeah."