Drunk Without Cause

Nine.

Humming to himself, Nessa danced around his bedroom. He was trying to ignore the universe, and everything that came along with it. Whenever he was feeling especially down about himself, he would pick a record out of his collection and play the music as loud as he could. His mom was often yelling at him for it, but he never listened.

Opening his eyes as the song came to an end, he found himself facing the foot of his bed. After a moment, he simply couldn't help himself from descending to the floor. That was where he placed an ear to the ground, and peered beneath the relatively new mattress.

A stuffed bear stared back, also fallen on its side. They stared at one another, and Nessa had to force himself to stand back up once the next song picked up. He shook off the heavy feeling in his chest, and went right back to dancing.

The metronome ticked evenly, just as it was meant to. It created a pulse for her to search for, a rhythm for her to try to match her own beating heart to. A way for her to completely shut down her brain, and all of the intrusive thoughts along with it.

That was, until she smelt something peculiar. Instantly feeling rather ticked off by this disturbance, Emi sniffed a few times. She didn't remove her hands from her knees, nor did she open her eyes. However, she still tried to place what she possibly could have been smelling. Her nose wrinkled just as a thought occurred to her.

Emi snapped her eyes open, gasping as her thought was confirmed. A paper from her desk had fallen right onto a candle, where it was now aflame. She jumped up, nearly knocking over several other candles in the process. Her room was a mess, just like she always had it, but most of her belongings had been pushed to one corner in order to make some room for her meditation. So much for relaxing.

Grabbing a water bottle from her vanity, Emi quickly emptied it on top of the spreading fire. The smoke flew up in puffs of dark grey and ominous clouds, where it reached her ceiling and billowed out through the cracks in her door. Emi cursed to herself, hoping that the smoke would dissipate before it could reach any smoke alarms.

After she almost burnt her room down a few years ago, her mother had forced her to put a smoke alarm in her room as well. However, it didn't take long for Emi to just remove the batteries and never speak a word of it again. Her mother never asked, so she never answered.

Crouching in front of the ash pile, Emi picked up a nearby hairbrush and poked at it. To her annoyance, the white carpet was singed an ugly shade of dark brown. Emi sighed to herself, sitting back down where she had been before the near house fire began. There were five candles in total, one for each point of the imaginary star. A pentagram wasn't necessary for meditation, but she liked the aesthetic of it.

Also, it helped her visual a barrier around herself. A way to contain all of her selfish ways. Though Emi had begun meditation as a joke to belittle her own mother, she actually found it to be a nice use of her time. Of course, Emi would rather be caught dead than admit that to anyone. Except maybe Keely, but that was only because Keely never looked at her different no matter what she said or did.