“Yeah, yeah, we get it. I’m summoned. Yippy doo. What do you want, man? I was kind of in the middle of something,” a sound like multiple deep voices overlapping with softly whispered feminine echoes sounds out into the room right before a swirling darkness fills the space. I blink open my eyes and wait for them to materialize. Slowly a tall, dark figure starts to take shape in the swirling black until I can make out the fine details of a flowing dark cloak lined with pitch-black symbols contrasted in a gentle glow. Small blue orbs float in the air around them, flickering in and out of the shadows.
A shudder runs down my spine as I look up to greet the face of death, again.
Chapter two
Hot Hallucinations
Trissa
I’m so fucked up right now. It’s weird. My skin feels like it’s crawling and too tight over my bones, but at the same time I feel so light. Like if I wasn’t holding on for dear life to the seat of the car I’m lying on, I’d float away. I wish I could float. Then I wouldn’t have to be in a car right now. My stomach lurches and I clutch the seat below me tighter. I can feel my body trying to betray me, can feel the familiar heavy pressure closing in on me, telling my heart to start racing. I take a deep breath and try to concentrate on the dust dancing in the light coming through the window. Maybe if I can dissociate my head will be quiet long enough for me to forget everything.
“Triss?” Kyle, my… situationship, meets my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Can you pay attention for like five minutes, babe? We’re almost there and I don’t want you to forget the money”.
I nod my head and groan when it swims with dizziness. I probably shouldn’t have had the gummies on top of the Klonopin. That was dumb. My eyes zero in on a fleck of dustthat catches the light just right and I watch as it floats around in the air. I wish I was dust. Like my parents. Oh gods. Pain lances through my chest at the same time a giggle bursts free from my lips.
Kyle lets out a noise of disgust and mumbles something under his breath. I don’t bother trying to pay him any attention this time. Even if I cared to know what he said, I wouldn’t be able to hear him mumbling over the musical stylings of Nickelback. Annoyance flares briefly knowing that he’s connected to Bluetooth on my phone and has probably messed up my algorithm again… but also because why the fuck is this song so catchy? Ugh.
I really need to break up with him. It’s just that he’s so… persistent. I know he’s using me, I’m not that naïve, despite what my friend Gabbi thinks… and she has a lot to say on the matter. I groan and twist my head slightly, trying to unstick my face from the leather of the seat. Damn. I lost track of my dust. Anyway, I’m using him too. He’s one of my only links left to the outside world andbefore. I could probably find someone better, but that just seems like so much effort.
I’m pulled from my dotted lines of thought when Kyle tells the car to text Gabbi that we’re pulling up to the house. Oh, thank gods. It’s almost over. I’m almost home. I’m too fucked up to feel the overwhelming fully bodied panic that normally manifests with my anxiety, but a little tingle of it still licks at me as I feel the car turn under me. I’ve never lived in a real house without them. I gulp down on the nausea that surges up my throat and try not to throw up in Kyle’s car. He’dlooovethat. I’m twenty-four and I’ve never lived alone. Since the accident, everything has been managed by lawyers from ‘the estate’, right down to which boarding schools I attended.
“Triss—the money?”
Right. I’m paying him to ‘help me move’ which is really just driving me from campus to the house, because the moving company the estate contracted was doing all of the actual work. I purse my lips and feel a spark of irritation at the thought of paying the guy I sometimes sleep with one hundred bucks to drive me twenty miles to the outskirts of town. I know he uses me like an ATM, but still. I sigh and close my eyes, willing the words to come out without being chased by the vomit that I’ve been fighting against for the past half hour.
“It’s in my purse. I just have to find m-”
“It’s up here—don’t worry babe, I’ll get it real quick”.
I don’t bother to reply, and he doesn’t bother to make any more conversation as he pulls the car to a stop and rifles around in my purse for his prize.
“Got it! Alright babe, let’s go. I gotta jet pretty quick after this. Remember I promised the guys I’d meet them at Josh’s for the game?” Kyle doesn’t wait for me to respond as he slams the door shut and walks around the car.
Damn Gabbs, you’re looking like a snack in that little get up. You trying to audition for one of those sexy real estate shows?
Oh lovely, he’s flirting with my best friend right in front of me. My best friend who hates him. I groan at the verbal lashing I know Gabbi is going to give me for this later.
How is she? Did everything go okay?
Oh she’s fucked up.Kyle laughs and I hear the car door open near my head. “C’mon Triss, nap time is over. Gotta get that juicy ass up”.
I curl my tongue against the roof of my mouth and groan. Kyle sighs dramatically and reaches into the car to lift me out. Well, he tries to, but he’s not as strong as he’d like to think he is and I’m not exactly light.
He hoists me up and I close my eyes as he manhandles me out of the car. I can feel his meaty hands trying to keeptheir purchase on the haphazard bridal carry he’s attempting, one arm around my shoulders pulling on my hair (ouch!) and the other in between my legs practically grabbing my crotch. Thankfully it’s over almost as quickly as it began as he sets me down. Before I can even so much as look up at my new home I feel myself pitching forward from my utter lack of any kind of equilibrium. I whine pathetically, confident that my face is going to kiss the driveway just as Kyle reaches out to steady me.
“Fucking hell, Triss.”
I mumble a less than half-hearted apology as Gabbi rushes over to my other side and helps keep me on my feet and steady. I lean into her, despite Kyle pulling us forward. I want to look at the house, but it’s taking all of my very slippery concentration and willpower to stay on my feet and not vomit on theirs.
In this moment I’m so thankful to the universe that the house is fully furnished. I found it kind of creepy and really weird when the people from the estate first told me this place still had most of its original furniture, but now I’m just thankful that I won’t have to sit on the floor until the movers bring over my things, not that I really have much furniture. Everywhere I’ve ever lived has been furnished by someone else.
“Triss, c’mon baby. Let’s go, huh? I don’t have all day.” Kyle pulls on me a little harder and I grunt in response. I bet he wouldn’t be in such a rush if he hadn’t already pilfered through my purse.
“Take it easy on her Kyle, you know this is her first time out in almost a year.” I can feel the concern in Gabbi’s voice and it causes a pang of guilt to race through me. Gabbi and I went to private school together almost our entire lives and she was my room-mate through college. There’s no one alive that I’m closer to, she’s my best friend. Although I have no idea why she’d want me as a best friend. I’m just the orphan loser who won’t go anywhere I can’t walk to. You’d think in a city that wouldn’treally hinder a person’s social life as much as it actually does. I’ve been called a gamut of insults for as long as I can remember (some of my personal favorites being Bubble Girl and Stoop Girl) but Gabbi has always tried to pretend I’m normal and I love her for it.
“Let’s put her on the couch, she’s heavy as shit,” Kyle says.
I’d probably normally call him out for being an ass, especially in front of Gabbi, but right now all I can think is how right he is. I do feel heavy as shit. Every little movement feels like wading through molasses in winter. Speaking of winter, it’s far chillier in here than I thought it would be…oof. Kyle dumped me on a couch. Well, most of the way on a couch, he forgot one of my legs. I command the wayward leg to join the rest of me on this divinely comfortable burnt orange sofa, but it’s no use. Oh well. I let myself sink into the cloud of velvety luxury and moan in contentment. This is a magic couch, I think, because the swimming in my head has finally slowed down and my stomach isn’t planning a revolution. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still halfway to La La Land but at least now I don’t feel like I’m dying.
