Loud noise. Bright lights. Icy air. Stale booze.
Something isn't right.
A phone call. An unfamiliar voice. A tall order. A rubber mask.
Is this me? Is this you?
Open doors. White suits. Thick accents. Cold steel.
I don't think I'm meant to be here.
Screaming. Rage. Gunshots. Blood.
Oh god, so much blood.
Breathing was hard. His entire body hurt, and he felt hot all over. He stumbled a few step further into the alleyway before falling to his hands and knees, exhausted. Numb fingers struggled to pry off whatever it was that was keeping him from breathing properly. His head pounded, his nostrils were plagued by a terrible, rotting smell.
I feel nauseous.
The cold night air stung his face like a thousand needless, but was a much welcome change to the suffocating heat. The relief, however, was short lived, as he looked down to the offending object to see a very familiar looking owl, staring back at him.
I need to throw up.
He rushed over to a nearby dumpster, heaving and convulsing as the slimy substance forced its way up his throat, through his mouth and nostrils, before dripping into the dumpster, where it pooled at the bottom, mixing with the rest of the putrid contents.
He wiped the remains off of his face with his sleeve, turning around and slumping against the dumpster before slowly sliding down, until he was practically laying on the ground.
He knew he had to get up. He was still in danger, he still had to escape. But he was so tired, and just letting himself go would have been so easy. All he had to do was close his eyes…
No. Stop. I need you here now.
He forced himself back up, sluggishly dragging his feet towards the other end of the alleyway, struggling to maintain his grip on reality. Up ahead, the Miami night lights stung his eyes, threatening to blind him as he got closer to the exit…
Except there weren't any. He looked up to see a few lampposts, shining with a dim glow, along with a malfunctioning billboard for a 24/7 dinner. A few unfortunate bystanders gave him some wary looks, but their attention didn't linger for long – he wasn't the first drugged up hobo they had seen wandering the streets of Miami.
A part of his memory he couldn't be bothered to place told him he was in one of downtown's less pleasant areas. He couldn't remember where he had parked, and he was about an hour's walk away from home. That was farther than he would've liked, but at this point, he would've willingly traveled the length of the earth if it meant he could go to bed.
He began walking, but he didn't get very far before something caught his attention.
Riiiiing. Riiiiing. Riiiiing.
His head turned towards the source of the noise: A filthy-looking public payphone on the other end of the street. He looked around, but found no one who could be interested in answering the call besides himself.
Ignore it. Move on, pleaded the more rational voice inside his head. But that was soon drowned out by the incessant ringing of the phone, which seemed to endlessly echo in his head, eternally reverberating and amplifying with each iteration, overwhelming all semblance of logical thought or rationality. Without realizing it, he found himself standing right in front of the payphone, hand reaching towards the receiver.
He swallowed hard. A great feeling of dread overcame him, every single fiber of his being begging him to not pick up the phone. But he felt like a mere spectator, watching the show through a TV screen with no control over the main character's actions. He was trapped, stuck on a rail, doomed to live out the scenario someone else had created for him.
He picked up the phone.
"Hi," spoke a voice at the other end of the line – a female, sounding exceedingly happy. "I just got back, and I wanted to personally thank you for your 'cleaning job'. This place looks spotless."
She sounded friendly. Welcoming. Warm even. And every word she said felt like a punch to his guts. He tried to reply, but found himself at a loss for words, unable to formulate even the most basic of sentences.
"Trust me, we're not ones to disregard enthusiasm. For your hard work, you will be heftily rewarded."
Any reply he tried to utter felt like it fell apart and got stuck in his throat. He felt trapped, claustrophobic. He couldn't breathe.
"Needless to say, we will be contacting you again."
The phone slipped from his hands. He fell to his knees. He started struggling for air, desperate to breathe. He was suffocating.
"Thank you for your cooperation," came the voice, just loud enough that he could hear it from the receiver that swung back and forth in front of him, before the line finally went silent. He collapsed to the ground, air rushing back into his lungs.
And for a while, he just laid there, lacking the strength of will to move. He wished it would just all end. He wished he could stop it all. He wished to die.
But he couldn't. He would get home, and do it all over again the next time. And the time after that. And he would keep going until he was stopped, or simply couldn't go on.
He was an addict, and the hotline was his drug.
((A/N: Posted to my tumblr a bit under a year ago. I haven't been updating this profile a lot, so I figured I may as well put it here.
I've been working a lot recently. I got myself a position as writing staff at a relatively well-known website, and I'm looking for an actual job as a writer too. That, while simultaneously going through college means I'm usually too busy to write fanfiction nowdays.
I'll try to get back on it, tho.))