Myocardium

Part 7

With vacant eyes, I enter the blindingly bright-lit building, headache ensued. This goddamn addictive building, this absolute hellhole. This vortex that has left me with no other choice than to come back every night. 

"Morning, Silver," Jesse salutes me upon entering the locker room and pushes his glasses back up his nose as he looks up from his black, leather stripper boots. Most nights, he's performing on the pole. As he should be, he loves it as much as I believe one can possibly love eyes gawking at one's body from all around the room. 

My eyes glide across the room, examining my surroundings lazily. Crystal and Rose are both busy getting ready. My body is not willing to play along tonight, the fatigue I feel is weighing me down to a point where I'm tempted to lie down on the bench to take a nap. Or the floor, not that it would make much of a difference. 

There's only one thing that can help me. 

First, however, I prepare, clean and shower, before picking a plain outfit. Lately I find myself putting less and less effort into my fits and makeup, which I barely wear at all nowadays. It's out of pure spite that I'm starting to get lazy, I feel so much rage boiling in the deepest depths of my ribcage when I think about all the things I do and all the things I'm being forced to do every goddamn night. 

So why bother going such lengths to make an extra effort for all these fucking monsters when they'd use me just the same with a low-effort facade?

Quicker than anyone could stop me if they tried, I reached for the first-aid kit I hide my stash in, and find myself zoned out with the needle in my arm soon after. The effects hit me almost at an instant as I squeeze the liquid into my system. Nobody says anything. 

Stacy has just released the belt around her own arm and Rose has the remains of the line she has just snorted on the back of her phone, wiping them off on her bare skin before proceeding to brush the powder off herself while taking a deep, sharp breath in through her nose. 

Nobody cares. There is not a single soul who gives a shit about what we do in these changing rooms. Hell, we could probably murder someone in here and no one would care. All of us simply don't matter. It's almost as if we don't exist in the eyes of society altogether. 

I let out a relieved sigh and close my eyes, leaning my head against the cold wall behind me to let the toxin enter my bloodstream fully, while still having the syringe stuck in my arm as my expression gets calmer every second. This dose specifically hits a lot harder and faster than the ones I've had the nights before.

"Silver? Watch out, buddy."
My drowsy eyes dart to focus on the person standing close to me. Jesse's placed a gentle hand on my shoulder to shake me back into reality. My body flinches as I find myself back in my bleak reality after what seems like the blink of an eye but must have been a couple of minutes at the very least. When I finally process that he is, in fact, a real person, trying to address me, who is also a real person made of flesh and blood. It doesn't take long for me to realize why he would ever dare to pull me out of this nice, floaty feeling. 

When my eyes follow the empathetic gaze Jesse keeps on me, goosebumps spike from my neck all the way down my spine. I sit up straight in a slight panic the moment I spot the streaks of dark red blood making their way down my forearm. The needle is not stuck in my skin anymore. It is instead lying to the ground, leaving the hole in my vein free to bleed out under the pressure of the belt that is still tied tightly around my biceps. 

"Fuck!" 

My curse is spoken rather out of reflex than actual annoyance or frustration. My hands fumble to snap the belt off my arm, immediately relieving the pressure on my bloodstream and slowing down the flow ploughing furrows down my pale skin. A desperate sigh escapes my mouth, as I am now sitting here, with both hands covered in my own blood, looking like an absolute fool.