I own nothing. The Almighty Larson owns it all.

This is stupid, Collins thought. This has got to be the stupidest thing I've ever laid my eyes on. Grading papers on aMonday afternoon. Just as bad as grading papers on a Monday morning, but what's beside the point? Whether he was grading papers in the morning or the afternoon, they all still sucked. Well, not all of them. Ah. Another excellent paper from Jackie Holmes. The only time he actually smiled at work was when he was grading a paper of Jackie's. He frowned again as soon as he put her paper down.

As his right hand was preparing to mark all over the paper and leave little comments as well, it started to tremble and the pen dropped to the floor and rolled to the door.

"What the hell?" Collins said to himself, starting to tremble all over.

"Hey, I thought teachers didn't swear," said the voice of a person entering the room, carrying Collins' pen.

"Jackie, I'm not a teacher. I'm a professor. I do believe there's a difference," Collins said, taking the pen from Jackie with a still trembling hand.

"You okay professor?" Jackie asked.

"Yeah. I'm . . . I'm fine. Never better." Honestly, he couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. Suddenly, his mind went back to last night. Back to The Man. The needle in his arm. The feeling it brought to him. The fact that he wanted to feel that feeling again. Needed to feel it again.

"What's wrong professor?" Collins looked up at Jackie, a look of worry on her face.

"Nothing's wrong. I just need to . . . God. I need air." He quickly got up from his desk, practically ran outside, and started walking. Before he knew it, he was at Central Park sitting on a bench. As he sat with his arms folded and his eyes closed, someone sat beside him.

"Hey there," the person said, catching him off-guard. His eyes snapped open and he saw the absolute last person he wanted to see: The Man.

"YOU!" Collins yelled, standing up and grabbing The Man by his shirt collar as he did. "What the hell did you do to me!?"

"Relax," The Man told him. "And let go of my shirt. You're gonna stretch out the collar." Collins slowly let go of The Man.

"Now, tell me what you did!" he demanded.

"I didn't do anything to you."

"Whatever you gave me did somethin' weird to me!"

"But didn't it make you feel good?"

"Well . . . yeah, but that's beside the point!"

"Okay, okay. What exactly is goin' on?"

"One minute I'm fine. The next I'm shakin' and shit! What's that about!? I demand answers right now, or so help me God I'll-" Collins stopped himself in mid-sentence as The Man held a stash right in front of his face. Wherever he moved it, Collins' eyes would follow.

"You want it?" The Man asked. Collins nodded. "You really want it?" Collins nodded again. "You sure?"

"YES! GIVE IT TO ME!" Collins yelled, grabbing for the stash. He soon realized what he was doing and stopped. "What's wrong with me?" The Man laughed.

"There's nothin' wrong with you," he said. "You just want more." He held the stash right in Collins' reach. "I can give you more. That is, if you're willin' to pay."

Before even thinking of thinking, Collins felt himself blurt out, "How much?"

"For you, 10 bucks."

"That's all?"

"Hey, it's a generous discount. We got a deal?" The Man held his hand out. Collins dug in his pocket, found a 10 dollar bill, and shook The Man's hand, leaving the money in it and finding the stash in his.

"Deal," he said. The Man smiled and pocketed his newfound profit.

"Great," he replied. "See ya later." He then walked away to do more business with other customers. Collins stared at his newly purchased stash.

Okay Collins, he thought. You're okay. You just need to do it one more time. Just one more. Then, you're off it for good.

Once again sitting in his room with his door locked staring at his needle, Collins kept trying to assure himself that he wasn't going to do this again. Not after seeing what doing this once could to you. He just couldn't help himself. He cleared his mind and, for the second time, felt the carefree feeling he'd been thinking about all day. Feeling like the king of the world, he declared that he loved this feeling. And he was particularly picky with the things he loved. After coming down from the high, he realized he wasn't going to just quit. He couldn't.

He finally realized what was happening.

I can still quit. It was only once before, his mind told him as he left the loft to look around the city for The Man. But once was all it took. He, Thomas B. Collins, was addicted.

Short and probably has mistakes, I know, but still review. Please? I know people are reading this, but I don't know if those people like it. So, if I don't get any reviews, I'm gonna conclude that this is hated and it'll vanish.