I sat at my computer, staring lifelessly at the dim glow of the screen. Devoid of enthusiasm, I slammed my thumb repeatedly on the space bar, firing digital missiles at digital aliens. My fingers were shaky and my brain was whirring like a motor that's slowly dying. I hadn't slept in three days. I felt like my veins were pulled taut inside my body. The high had long faded, but I was still unable to turn my body off. I was left to wallow in dim consciousness, fried and unsatisfied.

I hit the high score mark, as I had been playing for hours, but I lost interest. I couldn't focus on anything. I felt itchy. I was thinking about meth again.

I abandoned my computer game and went into the bathroom. I opened the medicine cabinet and perused the array of orange prescription bottles. Dad had muscle relaxers for his back. Kate took klonopin for her anxiety. Ashley took three or four different anti-depressants, I wasn't even really sure.

It was all a fucking joke, really. They tell you drugs are bad, all the time, but in the end it seems like everyone's medicated. All Ashley ever did was cry a lot after Craig cheated on her, and then poof, her therapist put her on pills. What about me? Didn't I deserve something to make the pain go away, too?

I decided there was nothing wrong with self-medication.

I twisted open the child-proof lids and took one of each. I carried them back to my bedroom and spilled them onto my school binder: assorted pastel orbs, like Easter eggs, pink and yellow and blue. I used a paperweight to crush them all into a fine powder, and the colors became one shimmering pile of stardust. I cut the pile into lines and snorted all of them.

"I'm going to hang out with Emma," I announced to Dad and Kate as I scurried out the door, rubbing my soft, raw nostrils.

I went to Amy's, where I always went, where we always went to get high. Spinner and Emma were already there, laughing and smiling at each other. I gave Amy some money to buy into whatever she had. I got all of my drugs through Amy. Getting fucked up made me feel tough, sure, but I didn't have the balls to talk to a real drug dealer. I wasn't that desperate. I wasn't that desperate yet, anyway.

We did about half a dozen lines of ice and smoked a ton of pot. I hadn't really thought about how all the drugs I'd taken would mix together. It was about halfway through the second blunt that I started to lose feeling in my feet.

Waves of energy moved into my body, over and over, like the ocean. Everyone's voices started to vibrate and roar, like feedback from a warbled speaker. Streaks of blue lights raced along the ceiling. I was spinning though I was sitting still. Mind and body pulled further and further apart.

"Fucking harder to get cigarettes than heroin. What the fuck is that about?" said Sticky, drawing my attention back to reality for a moment.

The rest of us laughed. He could have said anything and we probably still would have laughed. All things were good, so long as they kept in motion. Ice was perpetual momentum. Once you got used to it, once your blood was accustomed to feeling like sleek silver bullets, it was hard to come down. Sober, the world felt like it was underwater. I often felt like I couldn't breathe unless I was high.

I started scratching my arms. Something wasn't right. I felt prickles up and down my skin. Needles. Icicles. Teeth. I felt like my body was a candy wrapper, crumpled up and about to be thrown away. I watched, from above, like I was floating over myself; watched my body shrivel up.

"I feel like I'm standing outside of my body," I said softly, terrified.

Everyone else in the room faded away. I was nowhere. I was nothing. Everything in the room turned to a mural of melting colors. The walls were oozing like paint. Like bright yellow paint.

"They're going to get you," said Rick's voice.

"What?" I cried. I heard my voice echo into an endless tunnel of color. "What's going to get me?"

I could hear Rick's soft, raspy hiss. Ghost-like, ominous. "The bugs," he answered.

With a harsh slap I was inside of my body again; reality flashed in front of my eyes all at once. Amy and Sticky were staring at me.

"You alright, dude?" asked Amy. "You were just rolling around on the carpet and shit, screaming."

Cold sweat coated my face. And that's when I saw them. The bugs. Rick was right. They were everywhere, inside of me, eating me alive. Dozens of tiny insects scurried under my skin.

"Holy shit!" I screamed, tearing at my arms with my fingernails. I could feel their prickly legs brushing against my veins and nerve endings. Burrowing into my body. I'd never been so scared in my life. I staggered to the kitchen and found a knife. "Fucking bastards."

Tediously, furiously, urgently, I started stabbing at the little fuckers with the knife. I had to get them out. I could hear Amy's muted squeals as she tried to wrench the knife from my hands. Her interference only made me feel more afraid and erratic. Had Amy put the bugs there? Had she put them in the meth? Was this all a sick game? Why was she trying to stop me from cutting them out of me? Thoughts and paranoia raced through my head as terror-stricken sweat dripped down my face.

"They're eating me!" I screamed, slashing the knife towards Amy to get her off of me. Sticky ran into the kitchen and the two of them, together, tried to stop me from stabbing Amy or slicing open my arms to let out the flesh-eating bugs. Bright red blood began to splatter across the floor.