This is a living hell. Lucas believed in the small part of his mind still capable of thought after years of substance abuse. Living hell because he’d fed the flames of desire for so long with his destroyed body and decaying soul. Long ago a well-meaning, but foolish friend had brought him to the gates of his own personal Hades, and he’d made the choice to enter. With that first plunge of the syringe, he’d signed a deal with the devil and willingly given away his freedom. His existence since then had been nothing but doing whatever it took to support his habit, with no boundaries. Until the day he saw her.
He’d been curled up in a ball on the floor, covered in the filth of the house he’d been squatting in, and heard a sound. A knock at the door. He couldn’t tell if the noise was real or if it was just another of his hallucinations, but a second knock confirmed it’s realness. He rose from the floor and made his way slowly to the door, but made no move to answer it. Instead, he peeked out the living room window and saw her. She was tall for a woman and far more beautiful than any of the women -or excuses for women- that he’d seen lately, especially the prostitutes he paid to have sex with him. He continued to stare at her through the window, until she headed down the unkempt walkway, gracing him with a view of her generous backside, and got back into her car.
- - -
That was weird. Victoria thought to herself as she started her car and drove away. She’d expected someone to answer the door, but then again, squatters were almost always too stoned out of their minds to form a coherent statement. Better that no one answered, she thought to herself, although she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had been watching her. She brushed the thought aside, desperately trying to forget the dismal look of her prime real estate, and turned on the radio to cheer her up.
As she continued on her commute home, she felt a chill creep through her and turned on her seat warmer. After a few minutes, she began to feel drowsy and without her noticing, her eyelids tried to close. She fought to keep her eyes open and on the road, but eventually her fatigue got the better of her and her eyes slid shut. She heard a faint crash on the edge of her consciousness, but ignored it and let unconsciousness take hold of her.
All around her she could hear noises like sirens blaring and the sound of metal being bent out of shape. There were no distinct ends or beginnings to each sound, they simply blended together into a hollow-sounding harmony, but when Victoria opened her eyes, things were completely different. Her eyes opened slowly and when they did, all of her senses were greeted by an explosion of stimuli.
All around her was complete chaos, the sound of sirens and the shouting of emergency service workers exploding in her ears, the pain shooting through every part of her, and the overwhelming stench of blood that made her feel sick to her stomach. She tried to comprehend what was happening, and as she was wheeled into the ambulance on a stretcher the full picture of what she’d done came into focus; she’d hit a woman pushing a stroller. The mangled bodies of the mother and her daughter were more than she could take and Victoria slipped back into unconsciousness.
- - -
When Lucas opened his eyes and looked around at the glaring white walls of the hospital, he was immediately confused. The last thing he remembered was being at home taking a hit, and now he was here. A wave of panic hit him. If anyone bothered to look into who he was and happened to find out what he’d done, he’d be in serious trouble. Shit. He thought to himself. I gotta get outta here. He cast a weary glance down to his forearm and saw the IV that he’d known would be there from his countless other visits to the emergency room. The last thing the government wanted was to have anyone on anything that was outside their control. Fuck ‘em. Lucas thought to himself and reached for his IV, but before he could pull it out someone was wheeled in on a stretcher beside him and nurses swarmed the area. As he listened to the commotion, he started to feel the chills that told him he needed a hit. He didn’t know how long it had been since his last, or even what had happened since, but he rolled over onto his side and waited for the chills and the nurses to go away.
