So, here's the thing about psycho. It's not the most glamorous chem, it's not even the most fun one. But it's the most powerful. Pyscho is like a heavy shot of adreneline slamming into every vein in your body at once, it floods like molten steel into every muscle you have and you can feel each one clench. You just get all this energy and you have to use it right now or you're going to explode. Sometimes it feels like exploding. It feels like red, like red hot anger pushing up under your skin and bleeding out. You just gotta hit things. I hit a lot of things, every day now. I never would have touched this kind of stuff back then, never. But I never had to hit things back then anyways. Thought I'd never have to, and now I'm here.
Taking it with me wasn't the plan to begin with. The Med-X and the gun and the sledgehammer, that was all I needed because this wasn't supposed to be an assault, it was a rescue mission. Somewhere between that first hit of Med-X and stepping onto the platform, flaky fingers had put it in my hands. He said I looked like I could use it, and he always knew what I needed.
Right when that elevator stopped the needle plunged down. One minute is white and clean, the voice echoes gently through my ears and every footstep is dull and soft. Next minute was like being doused in boiling water, and I'm sprinting down the corridor with my heart beating on my chest like the sledgehammer I clutched tightly in my hands.
The next minute was ice. I jumped into the room like I was diving into a frozen lake, scrambled for air and safety and there it was on the other side of that unbreakable glass, looking.
Very still.
We just stood, and we looked.
Words slipped out like a bubble, popped, and he wasn't hearing it. Water pouring from my face, pounding desperately on the glass. He starts leaking too, and I realize there's no air on the other side. I fucked up. It's all wrong, everything is wrong.
He's yelling at me, I'm doing the same. He wants his father but his mother is right here, finally, I know I took so long but I'm here now and there's hell to pay, I'm going to get my son and I'm going to kill the bastards that tried to stop me, that's what I've been doing this whole time, for months and I'll do it all again but not for nothing, not for this. Not for a son that doesn't know me, a son that is hardly mine now. A son that won't listen, he just isn't listening and I can explain it all so easily if he'd just stop yelling.
Finally a crack when the door opens, the yelling stops and I'm beating through the surface of the ice in seconds with a sledgehammer. In only one hit he goes down but I don't need to stop there, and I can't. Every ounce of my energy flows into the hits until the red in me is all on the floor.
It feels good. It feels like justice. I collapse in front of the terminal and for the first time in a while things are starting to feel right. It's the kind of moment you don't want to end, you're scared that it's really just a dream and you'll have to wake up.
I wish I never did.
I smashed the terminal when I was done with it, but that didn't make what I had done go away. I ran the whole way back to the exit but I couldn't get far enough, and when I closed my eyes that image wasn't going to just leave.
The thing about Med-X is, it's not the most powerful chem, and it's not the most exciting. But it feels the best. It's like hiding under warm covers, where nothing is going to touch you. If you time each hit just right, you never, ever, ever have to come out.
I won't.