The End of the Tunnel

Chapter 6

-Acting It Out-

"Sometimes pain is the gateway to an open eye."

"Daniel, do you have any of these pills here at school?" Lancer asked softly, so as not to upset said character.

The boy blanched and opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing. It was all the answer Lancer needed to know the truth.

"Where are they at?" he continued.

"I-I don't have any!" he cried, clearly shaken by the question.

"Can you go get them for me? I'm not confiscating them, don't worry. I would just...like to see the effects it has on you." In other words, the estimated amount of MDMA he took per use.

His breathing grew heavy and irregular. "Mr. Lancer, please, I don't want to do this; you can't see me like that, j-just ask Jazz, she'll know, she can tell you everything, just don't make me-"

"Danny..." Lancer warned.

The boy shook with an emotion he couldn't quite make out. It was familiar, but he just couldn't place his finger on what it was. Not that it mattered, of course, but from now on he would be documenting his student's behavior to see whether he had better days or worse days and if it was in fact from the drug itself or his mother, or even both (which would undoubtedly cause a severe and prolonged period of depression). The documentation would start with seeing Daniel take whatever dosage he normally took, which probably (hopefully) wasn't much. It shouldn't be considering he had never seen Daniel act out of line.

"S-Sir..." His voice cracked with the unspoken pleas to leave him be and drop the subject altogether.

"No, Danny. Now," he replied with a grounded, strong voice.

It was a tone he very rarely used on his students. The freshman knew immediately to obey and reluctantly led his teacher out the door and into the hallways, where the atmosphere only grew more weighted by the second. Lancer knew well that the boy probably thought he wanted to see it, that he wanted to laugh and blackmail him. In truth, he would hate seeing anyone go through something like acting on drug use, their will and reasoning diminished. Daniel was such a kindhearted young man; he was the last person the teacher would ever want to see on drugs (let alone how he acted on them).

However, it was imperative that he be able to identify signs of any remnants in the boy's system, any behaviors that might indicate he was still acting more on the MDMA than on his own conscience. This way he could try to help him realize that what he was doing wasn't normal. Perhaps then he would begin to think twice about using the drug again, and hopefully stop.

The pair reached Daniel's locker and as the boy began unlocking the combination, he explained that he never did this during school hours and the only reason he even brought any of it to school was because it gave him comfort for reasons unknown. If that wasn't a dependence, Lancer didn't know what was.

The locker clicked and Daniel opened the door. He pulled out his backpack and rummaged through it, soon pulling out a small plastic bag with four round tablets of assorted colors. Each one had a peace sign imprinted on it.

Daniel looked down at them and said, "I don't really have to take one of these...right?"

Lancer shook his head in response. "You do."

Sighing in defeat, the boy opened the bag and fished out all of the four pills.

"Are you sure?" he asked in a small voice.

The teacher nodded, not wanting to watch his student swallow such a substance that was considered unsafe for human consumption.

He produced a short whine of discomfort before deciding it best to simply do it and get it over with. He popped all four pills in his mouth and swallowed, probably using his saliva to wash it down.

"Jazz says you shouldn't touch me after I take these. She usually gives me a pillow instead," he mumbled.

"Is your sister the only one that knows about this?" Lancer asked.

The boy nodded. "She said she wouldn't tell anyone."

"Why should no one touch you?"

He shrugged. "I don't know; she won't tell me."

"I'm curious as to how long it takes for the effects to, as you kids say it, 'kick in'," the teacher said, almost asking his student.

But when Daniel didn't answer he had to assume the boy had never bothered to time it, and therefore didn't know. The time itself didn't worry him; it was the severity of the effects. He honestly couldn't bring himself to ask about the dosage. It would be tough enough just to watch him...

Lancer ushered the boy back into his classroom. It was still dark and unfortunately, their eyes had readjusted to the bright light of the halls. Aside from the computer screen and the slips of light coming through the blinds, there wasn't much to see.

He turned the lights on and had Daniel sit down at the chair still at his desk. It hadn't been moved since the freshman had passed out. It wouldn't move for the next several minutes. Having been taken orally, the drug would take more time to be absorbed into the body.

While he was waiting (both patiently because he didn't want to see this, and impatiently because he wanted to get it over with), Lancer eyed Daniel thoroughly. The boy reminded him so much of a stick figure... It was both sickening and heartbreaking. Honestly, he looked so frail the teacher was scared that a simple high five would break his arm. When out of sight, the image seemed silly and absurd...because it was. But when seen, Daniel's appearance would put into mind a dark thought. Death seemed to be eminent for the boy.

Not unexpectedly, the freshman was, just as his teacher, waiting for the drug to take over. He kept looking around (clearly nervous) and fiddling with his thumbs.

Just watching him brought a few new questions to mind, but it would have to wait until... How long was it supposed to last? Two hours? Three? Hm. Well, no matter the case, it would have to wait until the drug wore off and Daniel had enough logic to tell him things such as why he had even started. Scratch that; why he had ever considered it. There was a slim possibility that it was an accidental addiction. The pills were obviously meant to look like children's candy; maybe he had mistaken it for candy and eaten some, thus beginning his addiction. It would've caused him to experience that energizing and refreshed feeling, something he wouldn't have had when his mother passed on. If that was the case then of course he would want to feel like that again.

And again, and again, and again. Somewhere along the way he had taken it too far and had unwittingly gained a dependence. There was no possible way that he didn't know his health was deteriorating; although he would probably pin the blame on anything but the drug. Only because of his addiction could that be seen as normal.

It took less time for the drug to take effect than originally thought. Daniel's pupils were already trying to swallow the rest of his eye. Lancer knew that eventually his eyes would look like deep pits of black nothingness. They would be empty, but his body would soon be crackling with energy.

"How are you feeling right now?" the teacher asked, try to keep all hints of concern out of his voice so it would sound more casual and comfortable.

The boy leaned his head to the side until it rested on his shoulder and smiled, looking at the wall opposite of the "tiny footsteps". He snickered.

"Daniel?"

He brought his head up and looked at his teacher; his pupils were still growing.

"You know you just guessed my name?"

His voice sounded so...well...to be put bluntly, normal. It wasn't at all like Lancer thought it would be: sluggish, probably slurred, and sounding completely off from its normal tone. Of course, this could just be the beginning. The effects weren't in full yet; they were just now hitting him. Later on might prove Lancer's expectations true.

"I already knew your name," Lancer said. "Now, how are you feeling?"

The freshman laughed a strange, squeaky laugh.

"Oh, I'm just... I'm... You know, I don't really know. Just feeling something I guess," he replied.

"Perhaps...euphoric?"

By now his pupils were huge and only the very edges of his irises could be seen. They weren't the normal baby blue eyes anymore; now they were dark pools outlined by a tiny thread of blue.

He snapped his fingers as if he was remembering a forgotten idea. "Yes! Euphoria! That is such a weird word. Seriously, say it with me. Eu-phor-i-a. Doesn't it sound like some kind of nebula? The 'Euphoria Nebula'. Like, you're picturing it as some image- No, wait. Um, movie? No... Video! Yeah, video; like you're picturing it as some kind of space video in your head with a techno song playing in the background? With maybe a little alien spaceship flying by?"

He flattened out a palm and used it as the demonstration of said imaginary spaceship, gliding his hand through the air with a speed that would make a bystander think he was trying to slice something.

A sort of slap was heard as the "spaceship" flung itself onto Daniel's other arm and rapidly forced its way downward.

It took Lancer by surprise and, remembering how the boy had specifically told him that he wasn't supposed to be touched (though he had never said anything about what the outcome would be if that were to happen) when he was in full effect of the drug, wondered if the slap was intentional or not. He might slap someone away if they tried to touch him (if MDMA messed him up that badly). It did get Lancer curious as to why his sister told him he wasn't to be touched, as well as why she usually gave him a pillow.

Daniel repeated the act, this time much more gently than before. There was no doubt that it had to do with that horrible drug, that "ecstasy" as it was most often referred to. It was only then that the teacher noticed slight and very frequent tremors in him. Naturally, his first thought was that the boy was having a mild tonic-clonic seizure. Almost on impulse, he stood forward. Needless to say he was beyond relieved when he saw the boy's leg bouncing uncontrollably (probably what the websites meant when they said "an energizing feeling").

Lancer immediately realized what a perfect opportunity this was to show his student what he looked like after he swallowed those pills. He remembered having confiscated a video camera (and a very high-quality one at that) from one of his students. It was a good while back, though, and Lancer wasn't sure whether he gave it back or not. Thankfully all confiscated items were kept in one drawer, so he didn't have to roam about his workspace looking for it. If he still had the camera, it would be in that particular drawer.

He opened a drawer on the lower left-hand side of his desk and moved a few objects around. The camera was almost instantly found and Lancer quickly pulled it out and turned it on, facing the lens toward Daniel. The boy was leaning back in his chair now with his feet pushing against the edge of the desk.

The teacher frowned but kept the camera focused on his student.

"Daniel, don't do that; you're going to fall!" he said.

As if to prove Lancer's point, the boy accidentally pushed the desk too hard and promptly fell backwards in his chair.

The teacher jumped up and ran around the side of his desk to aid the freshman. He almost forgot about the camera, but still held it to a point where the entire scene could be shown in full detail. He had to remember to stay calm about this (and during this). The sites had explained about psychotic episodes and how traumatic they could be for the person experiencing them. They also explained that MDMA induced psychotic episodes. Panicking while Daniel was possibly going through one right now might send the child into a severe delusion.

Lancer wanted to help Daniel up but stopped when his hand was halfway stretched toward the boy. He had been told to refrain from touching Daniel while he was "stoned" (another odd slang that these kids had thought up). Part of him wanted so badly to give into that temptation, that curiosity to find out what would happen and why it had become a rule made by not Daniel himself, but his sister Jazz.

It actually brought up another question: why would Jasmine, of all people, hide her younger brother's secret instead of getting help? It hardly seemed like her but... Well...it was a strong possibility that Daniel was having another episode. He seemed to have them a lot even when Lancer didn't know it. Or maybe Daniel just couldn't think straight at the time (the websites did say that one of the effects of MDMA was "psychological problems"). What if no one else knew? For all he knew, the boy could've been talking about something only in his head.

It wasn't a very doubtful idea. Now that Lancer knew about his student's drug problem, he knew that Daniel had been seeing and hearing things that weren't there. There was no mud on the floor, there were no flies (or whatever he had been swatting at) around his head, there was no dust (or whatever he had been blowing at) on his textbooks, and there certainly were no footsteps in the wall. But it was real to him; he genuinely believed something was crawling around in the wall. He had genuinely thought that he had tracked mud throughout the building (and had even apologized for it), that there were things flying around his head, that something was on his textbook. Daniel had been seeing and hearing it the whole time but had never let on.

"Are you okay?" Lancer asked softly, careful not to upset the boy.

He nodded. "Did you see that? The chair wanted to hug gravity. Can you believe it flipped me over just to do that? It could've just told me to get out; I would've gotten out. That's a mean chair."

He didn't seem to be hallucinating (not yet at least), just lacking the ability to think logically; but that was to be expected given the circumstances.

"You know I swore never to do this in school?" the boy continued. "Jazz says it can get pretty bad. She usually gives me a pillow after I take the pills. Then she'll lock me in my room until the ecstasy wears off. Does it really get that bad? How bad does it get? Scale of 1 to 10. Wait. Am I hallucinating right now?" He giggled. "That would be so awesome! Can you believe I'm talking to imaginary people? You're an imaginary person."

"No, I'm real-"

"No, you're imaginary," he stated. "I know you are. Hey! Cool! Is that a weird radio?" He pointed to the camera Lancer still held. "Can it play music? What stations does it pick up?" He gasped. "What if it was from outer space? Oh, oh! And it would've been sent in some kind of meteorite, right? You know how aliens are known for their rocks and such."

He rolled to his stomach and picked himself up (about time he got off the floor). Then, the same odd thing happened with his arm again as it swept quickly over his other arm.