✅ A Dose of Humiliation

18. Solidarity

Author's Note: This chapter should have been posted yesterday. It was finished well before midnight; but for some reason my scheduling script decided to put it off until today. I don't know why. Hope you don't mind waiting an hour longer :-)

I woke up early; almost in the middle of the night. And the first thing to flood back into my mind were all the memories of what I'd agreed to the night before. To tell my parents when I found out what this punishment pill was doing, and to tell anyone they thought needed to know. I still had no idea what they had done to me, but Dad had assured me that it would be easier this way. That I'd be saving myself trouble in the long run.

Those thoughts didn't last long, because something more urgent was trying to get my attention. My mouth felt like a desert, my tongue swollen like a beached whale desperately seeking water. For a second I wondered if that was going to be a part of my punishment, but it didn't take long before I had second thoughts about that. No, this wasn't embarrassing and it didn't even inconvenience me. This was just the consequences of a dinner of nacho chips and a complete lack of anything to drink after I'd got home from school. I shouldn't have done that to myself, and I decided that it was a mistake I never wanted to make again.

Every instinct told me to run to the bathroom and get a glass of water. But I also knew that the more noise I made, the greater chance that Dad would be mad at me for getting up too early, or for whatever he could think of to pin on me. So I did my best to ignore my parched lips while I quickly put on my school uniform, made sure my bag contained everything I needed for the day, and ran downstairs. I grabbed an isotonic sports drink from the fridge and slipped it into my bag; with a mouth this dry, I would probably still be feeling it later. It wasn't really time for breakfast yet, and I thought I could get myself something while I was out. So now I grabbed a bottle of wild berry bircher frappe, twisted the cap off, and took a long swig as I went out of the door.

That left the question of where I should go now. School wouldn't even be open for a couple of hours, leaving me to realise that maybe this wasn't the best plan in the world. But I was out of the house now, my parents weren't around to bother me, and I would have a couple of early hours to do what I wanted. I glanced towards the horizon, and realised that the grey light visible over the houses in the east meant the sun wasn't actually up yet. I might be able to take some artistic photos of the sunrise, to contrast with my sunset ones. And this time there were a lot of emotions fighting for my attention, which I thought might mean that I was actually capable of art. It was what you were feeling that led to truly inspired work, wasn't it?

I headed down to the riverfront automatically. I only realised when I got there that the sunrise wouldn't be over the estuary; it was in completely the wrong direction. I would have been better in the old terraced parks on the hillside, where at least the city centre buildings and the grim monoliths of low-rent tower blocks wouldn't be in the way. But I was here now, and by the time I found somewhere better it would have been too late to get any decent pictures. Should I lurk around here anyway and see if I could get some sunrise pics over the city skyline? Or maybe a better contrast to my vibrant sunsets would be the sky gradually getting lighter over the bay, and the shadows on the water from the buildings around me.

I was still thinking about it, no closer to any kind of decision, when I heard a grunt of pain. I froze on the spot, trying to work out what I should do. There was a part of me deep down that screamed someone was hurting. I should rush to the scene and do everything I could to alleviate pain; use my mobile to call an ambulance; and make a report to the doctors or to the police if necessary to make sure there was a good record of whatever had happened. But there was another voice now, a demon on my shoulder telling me that I should keep walking and pretend I hadn't heard anything. Where had that come from? I had never let myself walk away from someone I could help; that was an important part of who I was. It was unthinkable to just walk away. That was how I'd met Nikki, when she found poison ivy by sitting on it. That was how I'd met Jodie when she turned around to whistle after some guy she liked and run straight into a signpost. It wasn't the rewards, though there were some occasionally. It wasn't even the feeling of pride I got each time I managed to help someone, although that really made me feel alive. I did it because that's what we do; we help people who need help.