Unraveled

Wasting Away

I sat numbly on the cold, wet ground as Maison panted beside me. He stopped every so often and I heard him let out a whoosh of air. He kept yelling at me to help him, but I didn't understand why he needed my help. There was a man kneeling next to him. The man looked familiar, but I didn't know where I knew him from. No one I knew had birds on their head.

Gillian was asleep. I didn't know why Maison was pushing down on her chest the way that he was. It couldn't have been comfortable for her. I wanted to move to help her, but the birds around the man's head were fascinating.

I could faintly hear sirens. Maison crouched in front of me, saying something, before he pulled me to my feet. I looked back for the man, but he was gone. The birds were trailing behind us.

I looked ahead. The buildings around us were morphing, almost melting. I tripped over something, a snake maybe, but Maison kept pulling me along.

It wasn't right that we had just left Gillian back there by herself. She was asleep. The cops were going to find her and arrest her because we left her while she was sleeping. Why had we done that? Why had I let Maison do that? Malaki was going to be fucking pissed.

I tried to turn around and go back, but Maison tightened his grip on me and pulled me forward. Where we were going, I didn't know. I kept fighting against him to get back to Gillian. My mouth wouldn't form the words, but I knew that was where we needed to go. What kind of friends just left their friend behind? I couldn't leave her behind. I needed to get back to her. If Maison would just let me go, I could get back there in time to save her.

"Goddammit, Shawn!" Maison hissed as he shoved me down behind a row of bushes in front of a fence.

"Ow!" I said loudly as a rock thrust into my ass cheek. Apparently, it was too loud. Maison clamped his hand over my mouth.

I gave him a dirty look. He was looking around the corner of the bushes as he slowly took his hand off my mouth. I looked closely at the bush, trying to work out what bush was still alive when it was winter.

"What the fuck, Shawn?" Maison asked as he sat back against the fence.

I looked over at him. "What?"

He shook his head, wrapping his arms around his legs and closing his eyes. It was starting to snow now. "Malaki isn't going to put up with this shit."

I looked away, wiggling to try to get situated. I knew that I should have felt cold, but I didn't. I didn't feel anything. I hadn't felt anything for a couple of months now. At least not since I'd started taking the crank.

"And?" I asked finally.

Maison looked back over at me. "And you should give a fuck. You're playing with fire by using the big three, Shawn. You're going to end up like Gillian before long."

I stared at him. Like Gillian? She was just asleep. What was the big deal about that? Sleep was good. Sleep was healthy. Why was he so worked up over her being asleep? I was more pissed that we had left her behind. We shouldn't have done that. We should have taken her with us even if she would be pissed that we'd woken her up.

"I don't understand," I told him.

He sighed, looking away from me. "Yeah, I didn't figure you would."

x.x.x

Maison moved above me and I knew that I should have been enjoying the moment, but I didn't feel anything. My eyes were staring at the ceiling. There were snakes crawling on it. How they stayed up there and didn't fall off, I had no idea.