Drew Starkey Imagines

Zombie

The night on Figure Eight felt wrong.

Too still. Too heavy. Like the air itself knew a storm was coming, and it didn't bother hiding.

You woke to the violent slam of the front door.
Not a normal slam.
Not a careless one.

A broken one.

You sat up instantly, heart racing. Rafe had been clean for weeks — longer than you'd ever dared hope — but the silence of the past few hours had been unsettling. The unanswered texts. The absence. The gnawing dread.

And now this.

You threw on whatever was closest and rushed downstairs, every step a silent prayer that you were wrong.

But when you reached the kitchen, the prayer died.

Rafe stood with both palms flat on the countertop, body trembling, shoulders tight enough to snap. His knuckles were split, blood dried in uneven patterns. He was breathing too fast, jaw clenched so hard the muscles twitched under his skin.

He didn't notice you.

He looked like he wasn't even in his own body — like he'd abandoned himself somewhere else.

"Rafe?" Your voice was soft, but the fear inside it was sharp.

He didn't turn.

You tried again, closer this time.
"Rafe, look at me."

Slowly — painfully — he lifted his head.

His eyes were empty.

Not angry.
Not wild.
Just... gone.

A ghost staring out of a familiar face.

And that was somehow worse than seeing him high.

When he finally spoke, his voice was shredded raw.

"I messed up."

It crushed you in one sentence.

You didn't ask what he took.
You already knew.

The tremors in his hands.
The dilated pupils.
The exhaustion.
The shame.

"Come here," you whispered gently.

He didn't move.

He just stared ahead, as if the ground beneath his feet wasn't stable enough for another step.

"I tried," he said, voice breaking. "I swear to God, I tried."

You swallowed hard. "I know you did."

"No, you don't." His voice cracked. "Because if you did, you'd know it wasn't enough. It's never enough. I can't outrun any of it. Not the memories. Not the anger. Not the shit people say about me. Not the shit I say about myself."

His chest shook with uneven breaths.

"I can't sleep. I can't eat. I can't turn my brain off. And tonight... I just wanted to breathe for one minute. One minute where I didn't feel like I'm suffocating."

A tear slipped down his cheek — fast, unrestrained.

"And look what I did instead."

His voice was barely a whisper now.

"I ruined it."

Then his legs gave out, and he slid down the cabinet to the floor, back pressed against it, hands in his hair. Not dramatic. Not loud.

Just defeated.

It was the worst version of him you'd ever seen.

Not angry.
Not violent.
Just... broken.