Mercy

You open your eyes and look around. The whiteness of the ceiling, walls, floor and sheets hurt you, and you close them tight for a few moments before you try again. Your mind only now registers the beeping coming from beside you, and that coupled with an IV stand beside the bed makes it pretty obvious where you are.

Did I OD? you think, already knowing the answer. You know you should have abandoned those pills a long time ago, you didn't even know why you were taking them anymore. But you just couldn't seem to stop. It's like they were designed to addict.

'It's like'? They were obviously designed with that purpose. And you're a little puppet who was designed to get addicted to everything that crossed your path. Ever since you were a kid, and wouldn't lay off the sugar. And your Atari, which you would play from the moment you got home from school until it was time for bed again. Your parents saw no problem in this, the TV raised you for them, so they were probably thankful for it.

As you grew up, the video game fever died down, but your need to obsess over something didn't. You traded the games and sugar for nightclubs and vodka. You'd go out every night, faithful fake ID in hands, and find a hole in the wall where you could drink and dance the night away. Dancing was slowly replaced by sex, but you always had a hard time finding someone to your taste, and when you did, it was only for the night, as you found it hard to believe your parents would approve of the people that were 'to your taste'.

But you wouldn't do drugs. You were smart enough to know they'd be the end of you if you tried anything even once. You were curious, sure, as all your friends were taking one thing or another and laughing at you and calling you straight edge, even if you were falling down drunk. Regardless, you kept strong.

When you found the pills for the first time, you promptly threw them away. But not before examining them first. The label had your name on it, and everything else had been scratched out. You hurled the bottle in the dumpster below your window, not finding the whole thing as weird as you should have. You had just woken up, and was still a little drunk from the night before. The next day, they were in your windowsill again, just as they had been before, and this time, you had a proper reaction.

"What in the actual fuck?" You became properly paranoid, searching your room for an intruder, but finding none.

You run to the TV room, where your mother is in her usual spot, watching soaps with a cigarette burning between yellow fingers.

"Mom? Did you put these in my room?""

"Put what? You're old enough to do your own laundry, Davey."

Which you did, yours, hers and your father's. You shake the bottle, making the pills rattle inside. "I'm talking about these."

"Huh? What are those? Give them here."

"No, I… I don't know what they are. My name's on them though. I'm throwing them away."

"Don't be stupid. At least try one. What if they're good?"

You sigh at your irresponsible mother and head to the bathroom. "Good? Do you think they're gonna make me shit golden bricks or something?"

As you flush them down the toilet, you still hear her muttering something about selling them.

When you wake up the next day to find them once again in the same place, you feel a mix of fear and annoyance. The bottle even seems to be exactly the same you threw in the toilet bin the day before, the same scratched out label.

You'll do an experiment. You take the bottle, close the window and the blinds, and you hide it in your secret spot, a hole behind your bed with an outlet cover over it.

In the morning, you open one eye, knowing you'll see them there again. Nightclubs and liquor and sex suddenly lie in the back of your mind, as this mysterious bottle of pills start to take up the front. You're staring at your new obsession.

You jump from the bed and search the hiding spot. Seeing it empty brings a chill down your spine. You take the one from the window and empty it on your dresser, arranging the pills in a line. There are ten of them, less than you expected. And they're plain and white, not a single detail to mark them in any way.

You sniff one, it smells like nothing. You lick it, and the temptation to try one licks you back. You nervously throw them back into the bottle. What good would that do?

So you decide to sleep clutching the bottle in your hands, but not before making sure your door and window are locked, and there is no one hiding in your room.

When you wake up, you're still holding the bottle, but it's open, and you're holding one of them between two fingers. You laugh out loud for a few seconds, throw the pill in the air and swallow it dry.

"There! Are you happy now?" you scream, prompting your father to yell back for you to shut the fuck up. You sit and wait. For a while, it seems like nothing will happen, but then you look at your hands and they are melting. You hold back another scream, letting out a desperate gasp instead.

You look in the mirror, and your face is melting off too, and your eyes are two black holes. This makes you realize you're having a hallucination, so you run to the bathroom to throw some cold water on your face. As you do so, you see bits of flesh and skin dripping on the sink, and try to force your brain to understand it's just water.

Looking in the mirror again, you see your face is now just a wax mask, red and featureless. You stick a finger down your throat and throw up in the toilet. The half-dissolved pill swims around, twitching like a worm.

You drink water straight from the faucet until your stomach starts to hurt, then you go back to your room, lie down and close your eyes.

You manage to hold off for ten days before you try another.