Addict

Drag me to death like a lit cigarette

It was everything I could do to not vomit. My heart began to race and I could hear my own blood rushing through my ears. Blood... there was so much of it. Everywhere. It was as if it was a whole sea of red , whispering vile secrets to me as it slowly dripped off the coffee table. I saw each droplet in slow motion , that one solid drop of red hitting the ground and exploding into a dozen others. My feet were frozen to the ground and it felt as though I'd never move again. But then my head snapped into focus , my eyes primed towards the cold , lifeless bodies of my parents. I opened my mouth to scream but no sound came out. This was different to when my brother died. The blissful shock coated the icy pain with pure numbness. My knees slowly sunk to the ground , crashing into the Red Sea below me. I held myself back from touching the knife protruding out of my mother's stone cold chest , stopping to think about all the cop shows I had seen. They would need evidence.. I would have to speak to... I...
999. That was it. Robotically I snatched up the phone and dialled those three harsh , mocking numbers. After that everything was a blur of blue and red. For the second time in my life I was being dragged away from dead members of my family. Only this time I wasn't screaming. I wasn't crying. I wasn't biting innocent nurses. I barley made a sound. I just let my self be pulled away roughly by unknown hands. Kindly voices trying to speak to me , to reach through the blur of the noise and my own thoughts. But I never caught what they were saying. It was as if nothing going on around me was real , like I was just in some weird , extremely vivid dream and I simply could not wake up. I could hardly remember anything from that point onwards until, the red couch.

That goddamn red couch. For some reason , out of everything that happened, this was the thing that stuck in my memory. I had been forced into a small room that smelled musty was so bland that it simply had only two items in it. A wooden chair and the couch. They could've at least made it comfortable for the hundreds of traumatised people that must pass through here, but no. I'd chosen the couch over the chair since it looked more hospitable. I was wrong. It was as lumpy as the mash my mum used to make... the words "used to" piercing through my head like a needle at the time. It also had springs sticking out in multiple places and the fabric it was made from was as itchy as 100 Christmas jumpers stitched together , you know , the type that one distant family member makes , who you can never remember the name of, and it was prickling my bare legs and making me itch like crazy. I silently cursed myself for wearing those shorts which must have been at least two sizes too small for me.

I was contemplating all these things when a woman walked in , utterly disrupting my mental debate. She sat down on the chair across from me and tried in vain to make herself comfortable. Eventually she gave it up as a bad job and addressed me.
"Violet Woods?" She asked in the most irritating fake sympathetic voice of all time.
"Vee. It's just Vee." I spat out. She looked slightly taken aback at my tone , however she carried on none the less. "Well I know you have been through a very traumatic event , and we have looked into any family members that may be able to take care of you but unfortunately we have had no results so for now you will be going into care, but I assure you we will keep searching." She was patronising me. Instantly, my regret of being rude earlier disappeared. Who did she think I was? I'd been pretty much "taking care" of myself for the past few years. A million thoughts were racing through my head, most of them spiteful. But all that I muttered out was "fine". If this was my only option then so be it. All I had to do was make it through three years , then I'd be eighteen. I could leave this life behind after that. She continued to drone on about the "process" I would go through, but I decided to let my mind wonder at this point. Would they catch who did this to my parents? My mind was a flood of images , the blood , the knife , death. I tried to block them out but I couldn't. They just kept playing over and over again in my mind like a broken dvd on loop.

Suddenly I felt myself being ushered out of the room. There was a little girl around age ten being carted in crying her eyes out. Poor kid. A quick glance at the clock told me that I'd been in there for two hours. I didn't know where I was going now since I hadn't listened to a word , but I didn't care. My mouth stayed firmly clamped shut as I was forced into a car that smelt of old coffee and cigarettes. We stopped off at my house so they could pick up my belongings and a part of me wanted to race inside , prove to myself that it was all real, but I stayed put. Eventually we reached the care home. I was welcomed in sent to my new room to unpack , being extremely thankful that I didn't have to share with anyone. I couldn't say how long I stayed up there , simply gazing out of the window, my clothes strewn across the floor, yet to be put away. I didn't want to face any of them yet, I knew a lot of the other kids had been through similar things but I highly doubted that they would understand me. In fact , I didn't think anyone would ever truly understand me ever again.