I open my eyes and outstretch my hand in front of my face while lying on my bed. There's a pool of sweat beneath me, my entire body feels drained and fatigued. The small amount of light that escapes the drapes of my window is still dark. It looks like the sun hasn't risen yet or is on the verge of rising.
I take a good long look at my room and remember its just the same as I'd left it all those years ago.
I know why I was crying when I saw my mom for the first time waking up a few months ago, why joking with her and dad and Thea made me feel so happy. Just being here at home, makes me feel so much warmth.
The memories come in gradually and begin surging with greater intensity. It feels like I'm about to explode from all the information coming at once.
I know why when I spend time with Austin, I felt so sad and so happy. All these feelings are twisted up inside me. Everything is coming undone now. I remember. My past life, my dream when I first came back to this time. Why I felt so out of touch with reality? Even why I wanted that light on my first day.
I died.
I really died and was reincarnated. By that, thing. Or it's more like I was reverted to a time where I'm capable of changing the future.
"This was all in its plan, huh? Me finding purpose, making friends, changing my path..."
"So that I have something to fight for? I remember dying with nothing. Absolutely nothing."
Not a single friend to call on, no family members to turn to in my time of need. The only thing I had in my day-to-day life was the drugs. They're the only reason I'd get out of bed, securing more was the only purpose I felt I had. Finding more, finding a way to get money so I can get high and forget.
I was an addict.
I remember dying now. I remember everything.
I was 20 years old. Far into the future from my current self. I remember every thought and fear that I held in my heart as I died.
I'd thrown away my life, for a life of solitude and addiction. Maybe it wasn't so much "Throwing away" as it was "succumbing to".
My thoughts at that time...
"I feel as though I'm no longer living."
Both figuratively and literally, the latter will have to be further elaborated on as this initial monolog ends. That's all I can do right now anyway, isn't it funny? To be monologuing away.
20 years old, without a single fucking thing to show for it. No friends, no achievements. I've pushed away every single person who ever loved me.
My body is no longer, or maybe it never was, a sanctuary to which I've upheld a higher standard. If anything, it's dilapidated and in a constant state of disrepair.
"I'm not sure where I went wrong. Maybe it started in high school, maybe it was before then. Maybe it was dad's inability to love anyone, maybe it was mom's stresses that carried onto me. Or maybe it was that fucker... I don't remember his name now. Eli. Getting me further and further into drugs."
"He was jealous of me for dating that one girl and got me into coke and heroine as a way to make me weaker, so I was dependent on him. Until he got what he needed and discarded me like that..."
"He knew my weaknesses, he said we'd sell drugs. I grew up poor, so having money was something I always wanted. If I just had enough, I could make my own life somehow..."
Or maybe it was me.
It's sobering to acknowledge your own shortcomings and hold yourself accountable for them.
Maybe I wasn't the smartest, kindest, or even friendliest person. But I was a person. I just wish I were a good one.
A functioning person, with purpose. My only purpose was to find more drugs to inject into my collapsing veins.
Just a moment ago, I was trying to administer heroin to my foot. My arms and legs have been destroyed over the years. Finding an injection site on those limbs of mine would be impossible. The puncture site I chose was the only one I really had before I started on my neck.
Not that it matters. I don't really feel anything right now. It's as though time was here one moment, then we parted ways. It's funny, all I ever wanted was to feel nothing. Now I've got my wish.
My memories are all fuzzy, I was prodding and poking to find a vein in my foot, to deliver the heroine into my system. Maybe I did too much.
"But it wasn't much more than I'm used to."
Maybe it was that thing? Fentanyl, was it? The potency is supposed to be much higher than other drugs. I guess it doesn't matter now. There's nothing I can do.
It feels like I'm hovering above my body. Watching the people that I was with attempt to resuscitate me. But they're all high, they can barely move. Maybe they're not doing that, maybe they haven't even noticed I'm dying. This is all just a hallucination anyway. Maybe it's my brain's last-ditch effort to find a way to survive this situation by hallucinating me hovering above my surroundings.
I don't think I will survive, though.
Lying on this dirty, blood and sweat-filled mattress. I'm able to recollect my wasted life. I don't feel the nerves pushing me to find more drugs. No feelings of discomfort from the sickness of not using, no fear or negative feelings.
I read that dying rushes a feeling of euphoria through you, along with the drugs I injected earlier they must be doing wonders on my system.
The euphoric sense that comes with dying isn't a defense mechanism meant to keep you alive. It's to give you acceptance of death. Your body is the only thing you really have, your entire life. All the scars on it are a reminder of your past together.
It's a way to be kind to you in your last moments.
I don't feel the unpleasant feelings that I was running from anymore. Or if I do, they're buried deep, deep down.
I can't sense things like temperature or smell. The dampness and mold-reeking smell from the building I'm in disappear completely. Like it never existed at all. No burning in my nostrils as I inhale my last breaths in this abandoned building in the cold of winter.
I remember the first time I tried to quit this sort of life, this addiction. I sweat all throughout the night and every single bone in my body ached. I hallucinated all the awful things I've done, and it manifested in all the people I've wronged.
Parents, friends, teachers.
Anyone who I could take advantage of in the moment, I would.
Everything was far too real for me. I couldn't accept what I'd become until I was too far gone.
I'd tell people I just needed help to get back on my feet, and I'd destroy their confidence in me. Stealing from them, taking, and taking without ever giving back. And when their naivety eventually disappeared, so did I.
Burning bridges everywhere I roamed.
I know I was a stain on society. When I first became homeless, I remember being too prideful to ask strangers for money. But that pride was broken down the more I used, the dependency and stranglehold drugs had on me had broken down my dignity and pride.
My own human ego became a thing of the past. I know all the stigmas coalesced and amalgamated on me. I was the embodiment of filth in society's eyes. People stared or wouldn't acknowledge me as a person. A simple hello from a stranger would make my day.
And that was fine. As long as one or two people were willing to give up their hard-earned income for a lost cause like me, I could get high again and forget their looks of disgust.
The resignation of addiction was me succumbing to my own emotional landscape, or lack of. If only I'd built something better, friends or family. If I'd listened to my mom as I was slipping down the slope of addiction. When she cried clutching onto my sweater begging me to just stay home. Maybe I'd be someone else.
I'm sorry Mom. If I could come home now, I'd never leave. Not like that.
You did your best, but I didn't. It wasn't your fault.
I know that every life has an expiration date, but I always clung to the hope that my mind wouldn't end so suddenly. That I was living to someday feel those good feelings again. The permeance of which I clung to like a child, omnipresent in my life. I'd often have daydreams and delusions of being a kid again.
That it would all stop any day, and that I'd wake up and won't need to use anymore.
I always thought I should quit soon. Now it's no longer an option.
Here I am. Expiring.
Everyone dies.
This lifestyle isn't suited for anyone. I've watched lots of people die, friends, strangers.
Austin...
All of us were walking towards an abyss, hoping for salvation. Using became a daily ritual of escape, it didn't matter if it was all temporary.
Once upon a time, I felt as though trauma and sadness plagued me, and I could never stop feeling so sad.
But now it's gone. Everything is.
If I pulled through that night and stopped using for good, could I have gotten help and been different?
If I'd taken help from all those who wanted to see me do better, could things have been different?
If I stayed and taken your advice, would I have been someone else, Miss Simmons?
If I listened when you said you were worried about us, instead of pushing down your feelings and forcing you to continue to use, would you still be alive, Austin? If heaven or hell's real, I'll be meeting you real soon buddy.
If I'd stayed home, would you still love me, Mom?
I know you spend your nights worrying about me, and I know Dad doesn't comfort you. When the only thing you wanted was to see me happy again.
I wish I could just come home. I wish I could hold my niece that Thea raised and be a better uncle and brother.
I've had such a negative impact on everyone around me, and it feels like I could never recover and earn back their faith in me even if I had a lifetime to do it.
Every friend, lover, and family member is becoming meaningless now. There's nothing I can do.
This is all just the monologue of a dead man.
I never thought about what would happen when you die, I always hoped I wouldn't feel anything.
In a way that's true, things like temperature, time, and the feeling of touch in my body are gone.
I can hear a faint screaming in the distance, maybe the people I was with are trying to revive me. We all did drugs together. I don't think any of us were carrying Naloxone, or if they even knew how to administer it to someone.
In all honesty, I don't even know them. They aren't my friends, I'm sure they'll forget about me in a few days, and watching me die won't change their way of life.
It didn't change mine.
This was all a hallucination anyway, my mind attempting to rationalize things. I'm not actually floating.
There probably isn't an afterlife either, right?
I know I'm not coming back from this one, and I don't have the fight to pull myself out of the darkness anyway...
Sinking and being pulled towards the blackness of death. I'm in the transitional stage, on the fringe of life and death. There's a sudden break in the silence, through the ether of the void ahead of me.
"Or do you?"
What?
What was that sound?
"I can give you that life. As with all things, it comes with a price.
I don't know what this voice is, it's not mine. Sheepishly, I ask:
"What price?"
The voice says: "We can discuss that in the future."
"You feel like you've been dealt a bad hand, correct? This is my understanding."
"Remember those feelings. Remember the self-loathing you have right now and forget everything else."
"I'll give your memories back, in time."
"The only thing you must do is accept, and you'll be returned to a place where you can change your fate.
Of course, I'd say yes. I'm on the verge of death, my consciousness fading.
Whatever this thing is, it feels like a real conman. Seducing me with the idea of surviving when I'm so close to death.
"You don't have much time left. Say the words "I accept your condition." And I will grant you that chance."
But why would you do this?
"Because I'm a nice person, really, I am."
"Make your choice."
They're right, I know they're right. I'm dying, I don't have time to decide.
"I accept your conditions."
A chilling silence ensues. Was I too late?
"Good, I'll see you soon, Daniel..."
And that was that. I woke up in my room, in my mom's house. At the age of 16.