CONTENT WARNING:

This story contains depictions of substance abuse.

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I cower in fear in the corner of my room, clutching something close to my chest. Tears stream down my cheeks, my eyes a nasty shade of red. I stare at the demons who stand at the door to my room, looking down on me like I’m some sort of… some sort of creature, an ugly facsimile of the last pathetic insect they crushed underfoot. 

“Give it to us,” they both say in unison, their voices grating like stone grinding against stone. It rings through my ears, screeching and clawing at my brain, causing even more pain to shoot through my temples. I scream, squeezing the thing I’m holding with my right hand and using the other to cover my right ear, trying to contort my arm around the back of my head so my shoulder covered the other. 

“Get the fuck away from me!” I scream, trying to push myself further back into the corner, my feet sliding across the ground frantically. “You can’t take it away from me! I won’t let you!” 

I didn’t even know what I was holding. 

The only thing I did know was that they couldn’t have it. 

The two demons step into my room, and I scream even louder. One of them, the shorter, leaner one, takes a step back, and I realise that the screaming was keeping it at bay. 

So I scream louder. 

The other demon keeps moving forward, though, no matter how loud I screamed. I look around my room for something, anything, to get it to leave me alone. 

I spot a pair of curved nail scissors on my bedside table and lash out, knocking the lamp to the ground where the bulb shattered, glass flying everywhere. A shard catches my arm, blood flowing freely and dripping to the ground, but I can’t feel the pain. With my new weapon in hand, I wildly slash it before me, and the other demon raises its hands, staying where it is, halfway into my room. 

“Get away from me get away from me get away from me!” 

“We’re trying to help you, Sadie.” 

“No!” I shriek, practically hyperventilating as I push myself up the wall, unable to go back any further. “You’re trying to kill me! You want me to die!” 

Suddenly, the demon lunges forward, grabbing at the thing I’m holding. I slash the scissors in front of me and the demon hisses, a small spray of red splashing against the floor and the wall. It holds its arm, continuing to stare at me. I look down at the scissors, stained blood-red and dripping. 

Then it grabs me. 

I let out a blood-curdling screech, kicking my legs frantically and trying to escape its grip, but I can’t break free. It holds me in an iron vice with a single arm, using its free hand to wrench the thing from my hand. It tosses it backwards and the other demon retrieves it, holding it at arms’ length as if it’s some kind of toxin. 

“Give it back!” 

“Please, Sadie, stop making this harder for us!” 

“Give it back! Give it back! Please!” I wail and beg, kicking and screaming, but it’s no use. 

They’ve got it now. 

They’re going to get rid of it. I’m never going to see it again. 

They’re going to put me back into that place. That horrible prison that takes people like me and spits out an empty shell of a person with no hope, no joy, nothing. 

I don’t want to go back there. 

“I don’t want to go back there!” 

“It’s for your own good!” the demon roars, wrestling with me to drag me from my room and out into the hallway. “You’re killing yourself! When you’re older and off meth for good, you’ll thank us!” 

“I fucking hate you and will always hate you!” I scream through my sobbing, the tears soaking my sweat-stained clothing as it drags me to the car outside, shoving me in the back. 

“I know you don’t mean that,” my dad says solemnly, getting into the driver’s seat and starting the car. “Fuck, Sadie. It’s only been forty-two days since you got out. We really thought you’d gotten better.” 

My vision starts to swim as I hyperventilate, and the last thing I see out the window of the car is us leaving the driveway.