L.I.F.E. (Living In Fear of Everything)

Section 2

                Raging, burning fire. Heat embroiled upon my skin, scorched into the earth of my presence. Hell itself knew not of such a scalding intensity. It was everywhere, around me, part of me. It was me. I was the fire, desperate to consume anything unfortunate enough to cross my path, ever eager to devour; a form of metaphysical bloodhound. Just point and shoot, and watch carnage fly. Everything was powerless when I was fire. I was the unwavering fury, the burnt bridge to cross. Burnt. Like ashes after the emblazoned kindling is nothing more than an afterthought. Nothing more than soot to be swept away by the breeze, carted away to some mystical land that doesn't exist; unless in the mind.

Hospital rooms are cold, in case you didn't know. I woke up, strapped down in a gurney in some room that may have doubled as a meat locker. Which pretty much is a hospital; sacks of meat freezing in cells. Only I had plans. I had a life to get back to, rather than go full vegetable. The nurse came in to check on me, and ran out of the door screaming when she noticed me awake. Strange, I knew I wasn't exactly a looker, but damn lady. Way to trash my feelings. Her piercing shriek left me with a slamming headache; it felt like the whole side of my head was gone. Before I could come up with any more analogies, a doctor strutted in, high and mighty, clipboard in hand. He looked me over, flipped though some pages and wrote some notes before he ever spoke.

"Carrey Bowen, you are a lucky man, you know that?" He pushed his glasses down on his nose as he spoke down at me.

"I've been known to get a little lucky before, if you catch my drift," I winked as best as I could towards him. He completely ignored my look.

"We ran some bloodwork tests on you when you were brought in, and I must say. You ought to be damned grateful the sheer amounts of Ozone in your system didn't kill you off. Add onto that there were trace amounts of Fluke in you, and you tried to off yourself with a bullet. There must be someone up above that wants you alive."

"I tried to shoot myself? What the fuck? When was this? How long have I been in here? How do you know precisely what drugs I used? They aren't medicinal." The questions just flooded out of me.

"You didn't try, you did. Popped a shell right into your skull, damn near ended you. Some buddy of yours brought you in, all tears and sob story. As for your Ozone and Fluke usage, I knew what they were immediately. I might be a doctor, but I also study recreational drugs in my spare time. I know quite a bit about both of what you took, and how dangerous they are alone, let alone combined." He glanced back down at me, rubbed his eyes. Turning to the nurse, he asked her to fetch me some water. I asked for something to numb my headache.

"Can't do that," he turned and spoke out the door, "Too many drugs already in your system. Besides, the pain should be a good reminder not to toy with things you don't know about."

"Hey! Get back in here!" I shouted at him, the rage immediately surging back up. I'll be damned if some high strung doctor was going to tell me what to do, insulting me. "Come back and open your fucking mouth again! You don't know you're fucking with! Damn it! Let me out!" I struggled against the bindings, wrestling every way to get free. The nurse tried soothing me with words, until I shouted her away from me as well. The pain grew ever more present in my head, the left side of my brain building in pressure, climbing to extremities of definite pain. The rage grew stronger with the pain's intensity, until I began to falter. My mental strength was waning, and as the darkness closed in on me, I was still screaming bloody murder. If only I wasn't such a bad shot.