A Shot of Reality [Harry Styles]

XXIX. Phantom

A/N: SO SORRY FOR THE LACK IN CONSISTENT UPDATES AND ITALICS/BOLD IN THIS CHAPTER. I've been unusually socially busy and my computer is being a huge asshat right now so please just try to imagine the quote(s) and thoughts as italics for me. Love you all immensely x

"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside of us and sometimes; they win."

-Stephen King

New York City, New York

Mariott Marquis Hotel

August 20th, 2012

11:57 A.M

"Unlike you, Harry isn't fine whatsoever."

The first pill is swallowed. Its particularly small, and blue; but its all she could find while frantically rummaging through Harry's assortment of medicines.

It's not enough, she decides. This time, she takes two of them.

"You cheated me! Just like your mother..."

She half gasps and gags at the feeling of two pills sliding down her throat at once, but it her reaction isn't one of pain nor pleasure. It was relief, like she was glad all the glances around her shoulders and nightmares would be forever over with only eight, simple more pills to spare.

"She must get around then; just like she did June 26th."

Saliva was now smeared all over her cracked, alabaster lips while dripping down her neck like a rabid animal. She could feel her tongue painfully swell and rip as it's blood now mixed in the river of saliva pooling on her body.

Even with that as God's last resort for some sort of "wake-up call," she took three more.

"The dirty way for a dirty whore..."

With her vision bleary-eyed, her blue eyes clouded with both tears and the pill's side effects as she tried to focus on the torn label plastered onto the orange pill bottle. With her breath laboring greater and faster, she read it:

SIDE EFFECTS OF OVERDOSAGE

TROUBLE BREATHING, SWOLLEN TONGUE, POOR VISION AND EXCESS OF SALIVA. PLEASE CONTACT DOCTOR IMMEDIATELY IF EXPERIENCED.

With it's bold lettering and promising fate, she mentally repeated the last line:

POTENTIAL TO BE FATAL.

Her slobbering lips twitched at the sound of that. Fatality? It was such a common yet obscure subject. Everyone hears about death every single day and yet when someone drops dead, everyone is so-said "shocked" and "saddened." But why should fatality always result in sadness? Sometimes its necessary, even if it's not natural. To Sydney, it was absolutely necessary.

When someone with a life crippling disease is in such indescribable physical pain that their family and loved ones are given the choice to either A.) keep them alive until they slip away from the earth on their own or B.) pull the plug themselves, for its regarded as a normal circumstance for the situation.

So why, why oh why; is it unheard of in the case of emotional pain? What if someone was in such a dire, gut wrenching mental state that they just wanted someone to pull the plug on them and call it a day? But since no one does, the person is forced either wither away and be remembered as a sad lump or do it themselves. So when they die, its no longer shocking or sad. Its considered a "shame" and to some, a mortal sin.

As Sydney fumbled with the last little, blue pill, she thought of all of this. But without any other thought or hesitation, she slammed her palm against her quivering mouth and let the final pill drop to the threshold of her throat.