The Fourth Horseman

In the Beginning

I was raised in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains in what used to be considered a small town. Most friends you made in school growing up were undoubtedly familiar to your parents who had memories with their parents in one way or another.  

Growing up I felt just as normal as any other. Never really needing for anything. Not aware of the chaos around me. Simply because the chaos was all I knew. Chaos was an old friend and one I had grown accustomed to. 

Small towns would often fall victim to epidemics of all sorts. Mainly because everyone knows everyone else. So when crack cocaine hit the streets it was all the rage. It became the epidemic but oddly a welcomed one. My parents and and my friends parents would often  sneak away to drown whatever pain they were feeling.  Searching for a few moments or hours floating in some state of euphoria only to plummet and start this cycle all over again. 

It was of no concern to me.  Life still goes on and waits for no one. I still continued on and made memories with friends.... made memories with boyfriends and lovers. Experienced life to its fullest, knowing very well the only consistent thing in life is change. Trying to embrace change and understand my distaste for anything that became stagnant became a way of life for me.

I was running, searching for that high like my parents before me had. The difference was I wasn't looking for a reprieve lasting only a few hours. I was searching for something more. Something with meaning and feeling. Some steady rhythm my heart would beat in tune to. Something that was hard to find, impossible even. Something called love.

In this small town there were a handful of jobs for women to do to make a living wage. One was the medical field, so I managed my way through high school and college and got a job in the ER of the local hospital. Working long, inconvenient hours to help the sorry bastards who befell some sort of treachery. Lots of overdoses.  I would retreat to my home on a small plot of land on the outskirts of town at the end of my shift to sleep for a while then wake up and do it all over again. 

I was in the same cycle of living most Americans suffer through on a day to day basis. Unfulfilling job, long hours, short nights.... never enough sleep. I did enjoy a smooth drink of whiskey in my downtime. It helped to dull the pain of being tired and alone. It would quiet the hunger for something more.

 I was ready for something to happen in my life. Some shooting star to come close enough to catch and ride off into the great unknown. If I could only have seen what was coming my way I may have been more prepared, more cautious about the choices I would need to make. A bit more wary of walking straight into darkness.  Instead I carried on, ignorant to the treacherous path destiny had set before me. I would catch no shooting star. Fate had other plans for me.

My name is Nicole, and this is my story.