His breath crystallized in tiny, erratic puffs in front of his face.
The trees stretching above his head had shed their leaves for the snowy months ahead, now bare, and almost skeletal. Beyond, the clouds reached across the tired November sky like long, pale fingers, searching for the hidden sun to no avail. The leaves that littered the ground had lost their autumn luster - it was a canvas of faded browns, and dirty yellows and oranges. Dead, decaying, frigid. There was nothing more lonely than a forest on the crux of winter.
He was far enough away from the academy that he could no longer pick up the thoughts and emotions of any students or staff, which should have been a relief, but instead, Roderick only felt more suffocated than he had for a long time. Out here, there was nothing to distract him from the relentless whispers that had been following him ever since he'd last visited his therapist - the nameless, faceless voices, mocking him at every turn. They were emboldened by the silence of his surroundings, like vultures to the leftover pickings of a lion's kill. They had erupted into fits of laughter now, cackling viciously that at what a dependent creature he had become. He'd just up and run away from everybody again, like the useless junkie he was. It was a comedy fit for a king.
The cold seeped into Roderick's legs and back as he crouched against a tree trunk, fastening a leather belt around the milky skin of his upper arm. His hand trembled violently as he tightened the buckle, and every time he breathed, his throat seemed to constrict, and close up. He really wasn't sure if it was out of desperation or fear. Perhaps both.
For a second, when his fingers finally closed around the syringe, every sound - the dry rattle of naked branches, the moan of the wind through the trees, the invasive, overlapping chatter - it was all swallowed by the beat of his own pulse. His heart hammered against his sternum like a caged animal, filling his ears with its erratic drumming.
This was wrong, this was wrong, this was wrong.
For just a wink, there was a tiny voice amidst the sea of condescending jibes, telling Roderick that he was making a mistake - Telling him he should throw the syringe into the lake a little further down the forest path and forget this poisonous venture. It was a frail, meek thought, but it was there, trying to squeeze its way through the tangle of his emotions and into the forefront of his mind..
.. But in a beat, it was suddenly snuffed out. The voices came pouring back in more forcefully than ever, pressing feverishly into every unoccupied corner of his mind until nothing was really his anymore. Their disdain - it felt like a physical, tangible weight bearing down on his head. This was so wrong. He was so weak.
'WhatWrong are you doinguseless nowWrong fuckhead?'
In his panicked daze, Roderick's eyes flashed upwards into the bare canopy above him, and he could see a figure sitting between a nest of gnarled branches. Their face was twisted with disgust and pity as they glowered down at him from their perch. He could feel it, too, rolling off of them in sickening waves.
It was grandpa, he realized.
".. What a uselessHowPatheticpiece of shitWrong youPathetic are .."
".. shamefulStupid fuckingWaste of talentjunkie .."
And then it was Jesse, his childhood friend of sixteen years.
And then it was his sister.
She looked sad. Sad and angry.
".. Mum and dadFailure are soJust do it alreadydisappointed in you .."
The syringe sank into his forearm.
At first, there was nothing - just the icy pinch of the needle under his skin.
A spluttering exhale escaped him -- he hadn't even realized he'd been holding his breath. Roderick pulled his knees close to his chest to stabilize himself, not trusting his own body to stay upright. Violent bouts of shaking racked him every couple of seconds, turning his legs and arms to jelly, and vaguely, he could feel a stinging wetness running down his cheeks. He let the syringe roll carelessly out of his hand an onto the dirt somewhere next to him, empty.
A tiny bead of blood formed where the needle had pierced him. It swelled until it began to trail down the curve of arm, carving a dark pathway against the paleness of his skin. He opted to try and focus on it instead of the eyes in the trees, the voices. It wasn't a very good distraction, but at least he had something to look at that wasn't shadows or disappointed faces.
There was an odd warmth building beneath the puncture point, now. Ever so slowly, the warmth began to trickle outwards, running along the length of his forearm and down to his fingers. He didn't know if that was a good or bad thing.
The Winter didn't have any idea what an opioid did to a person - not really. Outside of cautionary tales of overdose his eighth grade Phys. Ed teacher had regaled, or whispers among friends of 'euphoria' and 'like you're floating', Roderick had went in virtually blind. His dealer, even - an associate of the General Store owner's son - had been vague about it. 'You could be in a fifteen-foot ditch and you'd still feel like you're on cloud nine, man,' was all he'd been given. He'd felt very much like he was in a fifteen foot ditch, lately.
There was a tingling gradually blossoming out from the centre of his chest, radiating softly across his abdomen like the tide. It was gentle - deceptively so, Roderick thought. Hadn't his Phys. Ed teacher said something about cardiac arrest? Chest pains, numbness, fingers turning blue? Death? Should he be worried? He held his hands up, prodded his rib-cage for any signs, checked his pulse, but found nothing but warmth. It didn't feel painful, or dangerous, but it wasn't exciting, either. It wasn't a sudden rush of energy, like his friends had gossiped. He didn't feel like he could fly, or conquer the world, and he wasn't seeing any manner of bizarre hallucination.. It just felt...
.. Nice. It felt nice.
Suddenly, those high-school horror stories lost their merit. The voices japed and hollered their typical demeaning insults, but he scarcely felt their sting. All Roderick could focus on was the warmth blooming across his body. The longer he sat there, tentatively poking himself, the less the voices seemed to matter. His worries melted into a mellow curiosity, and the jolts of fear that had been plaguing him only moments ago faded away, leaving behind only weak shivers.
It was like nothing had happened at all, but at the same time, all of his troubles were dissipating away, and he was barely registering any of it.
He was feeling good. Better.
The eerie darkness of the forest wasn't eerie anymore, it was a comforting cloak.
Instead of a giant, pale eye, the moon was a beautiful silver disk.
The trees weren't scraggly skeletons anymore, they were soft, golden-brown ribbons, shielding him from the worst of the wind.
The ground wasn't hard and cold and rough, it was cool, and relaxing.
The Winter barely remembered what he'd been so worked up about.
Everything was nice.
Roderick felt nice.
