Gold Fever (m×m) ✔

XVI: Down, down, down

《 ELIAN PHOENIX 》

Too often already I've told myself that no matter how bad it is, it can't possibly get any worse. That hey, it's okay you drove your ex's car through your parents' wall, because this is your rock bottom and the only way is up. Then you get written off your parents' will, but surely that's got to be your ultimate rock bottom.

Only to realize that, of course, there's the ultimate of the ultimate rock bottom, where you cause the end of the world and start a pandemic. Next thing you know, your friends start leaving and the ones that are still there stop talking to you and you're running out of your mood-stabilizers, and your magic is making you ill.

No matter how bad things are, they can always get worse. If someone tells you otherwise, they're either selling some mindfulness bullshit or just plain out lying. From my experience, when things get bad, the real shit is only about to hit the fan.

After that, maybe, your bad luck has run out and your life begins to show its brighter side again.

I imagined having a 30 feet long fish tapeworm in your gut was about as pleasant an experience as my current state was. Drinking a bottle of tequila while smoking a pack of cigarettes in a matter of an hour could have come close as well. I'm talking about an extreme, otherworldly state of unpleasantness. The kind that would be eight hundred on a 1-10 scale.

It was like my magic was fighting against me, like it didn't want to exist in my body any more than I wanted it to. But I couldn't just stop trying to make sense of it, could I? Not with Najwa giving me silent treatment and Rain wordlessly cursing my existence, not with Birdy being gone.

In a way, the whole shit hitting the fan episode was a relief. There was all this tension just waiting for the right moment to explode, and sometimes things need to be blown into pieces in order to be put back together. The pieces either fit together or they don't, but at least it's all out in the open. Often the explosion ends up being less bad than you dreaded, and, well, sometimes it's much worse. 

By the time we made it back to Pisgah, I had gotten lost of count with the days. It had taken us at least twice longer to get back than it had been the other way around, as none of us could conjure any more determination to keep our pace steady. With my 30 feet long fish tapeworm and an alcohol slash nicotine poisoning, I really didn't mind our pace slowing to a crawl.

I still don't know if there's some sort of a battery for magic and if I were running out of it, or if I had just lost my connection with it. Either way, I hadn't felt even a sparkle of electricity for almost a day now. Not that I was too eager to keep digging, though, as the efforts were rewarded with a sledgehammer headache. You know, the sort you'd get after being hit in our head with a sledgehammer.

The minute Rain deemed a spot fit for a camp, I slumped on my ass, not caring if my jeans got muddy. And sure, we were all bone-tired, but I just didn't think I had it in me to participate this time. No one complained or told me to get up and do my part, so they couldn't have been too broken up about it. Or that's what I thought, but it's not like it was the first time I was wrong about something.

While Rio and Najwa built the tent, Rain fixed us bowls of good old porridge. After living with rice and lentils and beans for days, the thought of porridge made my mouth water.

Or maybe it was just that anything else but rocks and groundhogs would have made me drool. Hunger is funny that way. Although, I might add that we have been eating better these past days and that even though our diet hasn't been the best balanced, not once have we gone to bed with a rumbling stomach. 

"Here." It was the first thing Najwa said to me after the hotel, and next thing I knew, she dumped a bowl of porridge on my face. It was warm but luckily not scalding, as it slid down my chin and dripped onto my lap. "Go ahead, eat and sit on your ass, while the rest of us do everything for you."