The Addict

Somberness should have known something was wrong when she felt her foot fly through the brick wall, but between the raider swinging the chainsaw, the ghoul beseeching his god while they were attacked, and her blood singing out for more chems, Somberness didn't give two shits if a little dust and mortar got in the way of some peace and quiet.

The raider howled and swung the chainsaw around again, the roar and stink of gasoline making Somberness' head swell.

"Enough!" She screamed at the both of them.

"Ghost of the pines, save us from this attack on our physical bodies! Smite down the one who seeks to destroy us-!"

"WHAAAAAGGH!" And the savage swung for the Brother's head.

Almost instinctually Somberness seized the raider's shoulder and threw him down in the mud. The maddened raider threw himself in a tantrum on the ground, grappling for her leg. Somberness saw a little humor in it all. The ridiculousness of it.

"No!" She told the man missing most of his teeth as he sought to bite her leg. His bright red gums gnashed at her ankle as both hands tried to keep it weighted to the ground. "No! Stop it!"

The ghoul had stopped praying and was now attempting to pull the jungle-crazed man back by his feet without being kicked.

"I said stop!" And Somberness lifted her foot and brought it down on the savage's head. It exploded like a sun-swelled grape, blood and brains in a spray pattern up her boot, a long arc of blood reaching out the sides of his head-mush where his ears had been. The chainsaw stopped it's roaring, and the legs gave a few death spasms before they lay twitching on the ground.

This was the worst thing she'd done since she left. She felt no guilt, no panic, not yet-, Somberness was still coming to grips with the fact that she had just committed murder and crushed someone's skull under her foot. This was the worst thing she'd ever done since the Long Time Ago. Maybe even worse than what happened in the Long Time Ago.

The ghoul stared, shocked, but not afraid. He had no eyebrows, but perhaps they would have reached his scalp. Somberness stared at the brain that stained her shitty shoes made out of old plastic bags and sail, then turned and threw up.

"I, I didn't mean to," she coughed.

That's not possible, she thought dully, looking at the green bile on the dirt beside the bloody pulp of a head.

Her knees became weak. Her tailbone smacked the ground so hard she tasted blood in her mouth- she'd bit her cheek, but it didn't help. Somberness groaned. She felt hands on her shoulders, an astonished voice, unafraid and unabashed at her violence, and she felt the black crawling up in her brain. She supposed later she could have fought it, but it was too much like peace, and so she let it wash over her and take her back into the dream.

Somberness awoke in the Church of Moss' medic camp. She recognized the filthy canvas walls from her last visits there, recovering from too much jet or psycho.

But this wasn't like a jet or psycho comedown. This was way more than that. More than physically exhausted, she felt like her favorite dog died. Worse. Like her favorite dog died and she knew that she'd never love another dog again. Like she'd eaten her favorite dog, even when she knew she'd never love again. "Ah, Gods above."

"Oh good, you're awake," The voice came from a ghoul, sitting cross-legged on the opposite mattress.

His voice sent spikes of sorrow through her, and Somberness started to cry.

"I'm sorry, did I startle you?" His voice, like all the Brothers, had genuine concern in it.

"No…" Somberness blubbered. "I… I… Your voice, makes me sad?" she sniffed, "And I don't know why?"

"You're recovering from a near-fatal dose of a chem. I suspect it's one of the side-effects."

"Gods Above!" Somberness cried, her heart breaking at his words, "What did I take?"

"We don't know yet," the ghoul admitted, and folded his hands over his chest. Somberness recognized him.

"You're, hic, you're the Follower's liaison right? Hic, from the Drowned City?" Her mind was struggling to fight through the sadness and exhaustion. But she knew this. Something was different this time.

She was all-too familiar with the Brother's med camp and their rehab programs. She's sat in this very tent before, purging herself, swearing to herself it would be the last time she'd ever put another chem in her blood or pill in her mouth. But liaisons don't bother with addicts like her. Gary or Steven was supposed to be here, helping her throw up. Not this guy. This guy was important. They didn't spend time on wastes of smooth flesh like her.

Her mind was running in the dark, trying to feel its way to light, when the ghoul nodded.

"I'm not usually in the rehabilitation tents, if that's what you're asking. But I'm told you're a regular here," Somberness felt a wave of uselessness and guilt that crashed into her core, something that hadn't happened at the mention of her past failures in a long time. She'd always thought she'd was inured to it. "Your name is Somberness, right?"

"You can call me Bernie," She moaned, and hiccupped again. "Why am I so sad?"

"I'm Coleson," he said. "I'm investigating a chem that's caused a string of overdoses. It usually follows the pattern you displayed to Brother Gregory. Super-strength, lightning fast reflexes, a super-chem basically…"

"Sadness?"

"Ah, no, actually," Coleson scratched his head, "Sadness is new," There was an awkward pause as he decided whether or not to continue, "No one has ever actually survived the drug. So that's something to add to the book."

"No one has survived taking it? But you said…"

"There are eye-witness reports of people exhibiting the abilities this drug supposedly bestows… But they die afterwards. Supposedly their hearts give out."

"Supposedly?"

"Maybe they're dying of a broken heart?" Coleson smiled wanly. "I'll let you get some rest. But I have more questions for you when you're not so… Depressed."

At that he stood to leave, but at the sudden prospect of sitting in the tent alone Bernie cried out. Coleson started.

"Please don't go," She begged, for the first time in years, "Please." The idea of an empty tent terrified her, hit her heart in a way it never had. The loneliness of it. Why had she never considered the emptiness of being without a person? Her soul could escape her body and no one would go looking for it. No one would care. "Please, I just, I just can't be alone."

"Of course," Brother Coleson said, matter-of-fact, "So you shouldn't be."

He walked back to the mattress on the floor and sat down beside her, and took the hand she tentatively offered. He sat cross-legged as if he were just another Brother, waiting for the addict to be released from the fit, or a parent waiting for the child to feel safe to sleep again.

Bernie brought her legs up and kept her back straight, the hand the only appendage allowed to leave the invisible fence she built around her body. A perfect triangle, she thought. Something geometrically indestructible. The sadness was threatening to wash over her again, so she retreated, deep inside herself, to the Long Time Ago. She scrambled through her memories searching for her favorite distraction, and delved deeper into them as she retreated from the enormity of feeling that threatened to crush her.

2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31…

No, it wasn't doing the job. She had to go deeper, she could feel her heart still breaking.

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, 6765, 10946, 17711, 28657, 46368, 75025, 121393…