A Desperate Bid

How the hell did this happen to me?

What a foolish question. I know what's happened. But my denial forces me to blame everyone else. As I lay here, bouncing between the boundaries of mortality and the cold embrace, I can only recall how I got here. Keep my mind working with some hope of clinging to life.

I remember how it started. I went of my own free will. Armed and ready as I have always entered these situations—a struggling warrior anticipating combat. Tense, anxious; trying to decrypt the unknown so not to be taken by surprise. All the eyes.... All those orbs focused on me, as if I were the enemy, as if I were the only one there. It started slowly. One, maybe two at a time. Simple. No heart behind their efforts so my usual tactics fended them off without strain. Confidence spurred within me. I may in fact survive this night; unscathed and unscarred.

I mixed in, made my presence known but not dominating. I was still on my heels, though. I knew the only moment I would feel truly safe was when those heels carried me out of here. But how long would that be? An hour? Maybe more? Not until I was able to accomplish what I came here for: To come face to face with their master. The one they worshiped and followed like mindless sheep. This was his domain and if I was ever to earn a place amongst his ranks, I had to fight. I had to claw my way up from the bottom without ever losing my grasp on what I believed in.

But as I wandered, as I dodged another weak onslaught, I began to ponder why. Why I even sought to be considered worthy by these creatures. I was above them. A hero amongst many. I had virtue; I had a future. Not a future wrenched with battling such idling monsters but one that would shine light upon the world. A life used to create, not destroy. A life used to lead, not rule.

Was I willing to gamble such here and now? As wrong as I knew this was, it had to be done. Something was dragging me further and further in. The call of the siren as you might say. The lulling song too elegant to be ignored by any man. So I ventured forth, still unscarred. I knew this enemy, however, and I knew that in an instant I could go from proud to crumbled.

I focused on failure now and and losing my clarity. My feet pushed me further but my mind had caused my palms to sweat and turn my knees to glass, seemingly unable to hold the weight of my now heavy heart. I stopped, tried to catch my breath and gather my parading thoughts. But it was too much. There were too many and they all swarmed about me now. I fought. I think I fought. I scrounged up whatever I could throw at them, trying to guard any angle they came at me. But they were demons. Demons with the sole intent to devour me, to pull me into their pit of misery and macabre reality. Unfeeling monsters desperate to cast anyone else into suffering in some futile attempt to cure their loneliness and abject despondence. And it was working. They were clawing at me, pulling me in every direction imaginable even though my body wouldn't give. Shadowed, distant eyes hungrily starring at me, luring me into the darkness I'd begged to escape my whole life.

I reached..... reached out for anything that I could grip and pull myself out with. But it didn't work. Their lulls were a vice on my mind. All my training, all my studying and conditioning seemed nothing now as I felt my very life slipping out of my control.

Then it stopped. And those demons scurried into the murky fog they came from. I was alone again. Scratched, and shaken but still myself, with one person in my line of sight.

The Master.

He saw me, then smiled. So I moved. Without thinking my feet brought me closer and closer to him, shortening the gap between us, until I was before him, acknowledging him as if he were actually to be worshiped. He shook my hand. A grip that almost sent me kneeling from a man who was no bigger than I. In my weakened state, however, he could have done a lot worse. But he was going to toy with my mind before he ever did damage to my body.

"I'm glad you came Thomas." I remember him saying, and recall shock that he knew who I was. "I wasn't sure if you were going to show."

"I wasn't left with much choice. It was either this or a very dismal life for a very long time."

He nodded, and smiled in agreement. "Now.... this offer is only going to come once." His hand dragged over the air, demonstrating the set up he had laid out. The table before me, the only thing that separated the two of us. The table that would lead to my downfall. "Join me."

Lying here now I can't remember what happened afterwards. Did I fight him? I remember a fight. I remember a strong burn in my nose. It had hit me and my sinus's erupted. I remember my head flinging back and the sense wracked out of my head. It was all so flooded. I had lost touch with reality. Again and again, I felt that stinging in my nose, the stars in my head. And all the while the Master seemed pleased. A joyous laugh from he and his followers.

But I remember reeling. Can still see the darkness that washed over my eyes and soon my thoughts. The abrupt slam as my body hit the floor, the blood trickling from my nose, and the watering of my eyes. The fading voices as my tunneling vision closed. The murmured, almost remorseful cries of those around me. "Jesus Christ" and "What have we done?" the only focal point before I tumbled into the abyss.

Then again I felt hands. Tugging me this way and that, picking me up and setting me down. Hands that pulled and tore at my clothing, ripping them apart. Then voices. But these were no voices of demons, but angels. Calm, strong tones whispering to me, telling me everything was going to be fine. That it was over now and I didn't have to worry. Those words so soft, stroking the very part of me that had grown tense, easing my pain. Only I was still too dizzy, too rattled to understand all of it.

And, as I lay here, thinking of it all it makes sense. I have yet to deal with the later repercussions of it, but that time will come. No one can punish me. For I have long since done so to myself. Now that all the damage I've taken has washed clear of my head, and my thoughts are finally my own again, I hold regret.

Regret for going there in the first place. Regret for not making the right decisions from start to finish. I should have held—remained strong like my parents had taught me. I should have been prepared. But I wasn't. No one knows the battles I, we, face on a day-to-day basis. No one comprehends the struggle we must endure. And more times than not, regret doesn't surface until after we've tampered with darkness.

As much as I wish to blame those who did this to me, in all truth I did it to myself. I chose to go to that party. I chose to cast away morality for a chance at being popular. For trying those things I saw as forbidden.

And now as I lay here in the ICU, recovering from a cocaine overdose, awaiting my parents disapproving arrival, and fearing a possible jail sentence. My mind wanders back to my "friends". All those faces I know from school, those of the "beautiful people"—all so ugly now. Morbid, twisted souls drowning out their simple existence in chemically rendered stimulants. Those demons that sought to drag me into their world, as they had so many times before. I was strong enough to fight them off before, but all it takes is one time. One time of losing your senses, and losing your head. One time of having the pressure of popularity out weigh the belief in a bright future.

I could have died. I almost did. It was a close call and I've had so many before. But close calls are merely the touch of death, before she decides to embrace you.

It's unfortunate that my desperate bid at fitting in led to this. There are some mistakes you shouldn't have to make before knowing better.