The Miracle Clinic

Chapter 61 - Club Azure (2)

On a morning before school, Cameron Dots wakes up in his bedroom. Wondering just what happened last night, he goes to put on a t-shirt but when he does, he notices how it feels like his clothes just aren't fitting as they usually do. As he exits his bedroom he decides to start making himself some breakfast as he puts some bread in the toaster.

As he does so, he sees his dad walk in wearing a robe and drinking coffee.

"Cameron? What are you doing up so early? And what's up with your pupils?" Mister Dots asks as he yawns.

"It's not early, I'm getting ready for school," Cameron says, "And what about my pupils?"

Cameron looks at a mirror and notices that both of his pupils are dilated. Though before he can really look more closely at them, his toast finishes so he goes and grabs some.

"It's 5:45 AM, usually you wake up at 6:30," Mister Dots says, "Well more like we wake you up at 6:30 but still."

"Oh, I guess I just felt like waking up early today," Cameron says as he eats his toast.

As he eats his food, Cameron begins to realize that there are many oddities going on today; first, his clothes didn't feel right on him, now he's waking up way earlier than usual, his pupils are dilated, and he's eating breakfast when he usually doesn't get hungry until noon.

But strangest of all, he has the urge to return to Club Azure.

As the day went by and Cameron went through school, he noticed many other strange new things about himself; his pupils finally returned to normal but now his teeth would clench without him realizing. His muscles would get tense out of nowhere. And the craving to go to Club Azure would get worse and worse as the day went on.

Eventually, when school did get out, he'd try to head to Club Azure only to see that it only opened up later that day. So he waits, and after a while, the sign lights up, and the doors finally open. As he walks down those steps into the nightclub, trying to make sure he doesn't look desperate when he finally gets there and sees his friends; Cal Hound, Marcy Murphy, & Li-Wei Zhang. All of his worries wash away as Cal buys him drinks and everything gets better.

Sure, his vision gets blurry afterward and he's sweating a whole lot more, but that's probably just due to how late he spends at Club Azure each night. Though what Cameron couldn't tell was that as he continued to enjoy himself he kept on sinking. Sinking into a trap that he'd mistakenly thought was a new chance for him.

One day as Cameron makes his way to the club he sees that the room that he & Cal are now in is a VIP room without a glass door, so they can't even look outside. When Cameron begins to talk, Cal sighs.

"Hey listen, hanging out with you is fun and all but...when are you going to pay up?" Cal asks.

"P-pay up? What do you mean?" Cameron asks as he drinks some water due to being so dehydrated.

To that Cal begins to laugh as he says, "Wait you thought all of those drinks were free?! You know how much money I spent on those."

"But the fake ID it-" Cameron says but Cal slams his fist onto the table.

"You owe me thousands," Cal hisses, "You know how hard it was to get Li-Wei to sell me those drugs."

It's at those words that Cameron stops as realization washes over him, "What drugs?"

Realizing he slipped up, Cal sighs, "Crap I wasn't supposed to tell you for a while. Oh well."

It's then that Cal pulls out a Ziploc bag that contains white powder as he explains, "We've been putting this stuff in all of your drinks. It's just a lil something to make you feel real good."