WARNING: DEPICTION OF DRUG ABUSE.
NOTE: This work is in no way attempting to normalize, romanticize, or advertise the use of drugs. Serena is not perfect. Serena is not to be admired or followed. Serena has other options.
If you ever feel yourself going down a similar path, or already are—please seek help. There are kind people out there who have gone through the same journey willing to help, and have made it their life's mission to do so. People care deeply, simply just off the basis of your struggle. Please contact your local Recovery Centre, Mental Health and Addiction Services, etc. Even just talking to a stranger might help.
As you are reading her descent into addiction, please remind yourself of the following:
1) Substance use never solves the root problem—at most, they mask it temporarily, if at all.
2) They can trap you in a cycle of dependence by artificially creating a false sense of relief.
3) Over time, it increases anxiety and depression, considerably harming mental health.
4) To add, they damage the brain's natural ability to regulate thoughts and emotions—sometimes permanently.
5) AS THEY DISTORT JUDGMENT, IT CAN LEAD TO IMPULSIVE AND DANGEROUS DECISIONS.
6) They affect the nervous system, heart, lungs, liver, etc.—ruining physical health. This can also be permanent.
7) Due to a wide array of factors—systemic, mental, physical, economic—addiction can make life even harder than before.
8) Socially, physically, emotionally, economically—they are not only expensive, but unsustainable. They often lead people into debt, and in turn illegal activities. This further fuels the cycle.
9) Due to the above, they rupture and weaken social connections with loved ones.
10) Last but not least, there are always healthier alternatives. If you cannot afford or access therapy and do not currently have a support system, you can try: expressing your creativity, exercising at your own pace to reclaim your body, and/or focus on self-growth.
———
The memory of the club's validation was a fly that buzzed around the quiet of her apartment. It whispered that the answer wasn't in numbing herself to the world, but in becoming a different person within it. The club had shown her the door. And beyond it, she knew, were worlds that made vodka and weed feel like child's play.
The rave was in a derelict warehouse. A whole new universe—dark as the cosmos, the flashing lights enthusiastic auroras. The music was a colossal engine turning over, a bassline that punched up through the concrete floor, through the soles of her feet, and into her nervous system.
There was no letting anymore. Only taking.
Serena stood at the edge of the human mass, a pill dissolving into chemical warmth in her stomach. The first wave was pure heat. A flush spread from her core out to her fingertips, a liquid warmth that made the cheap fabric of her crop top feel like a caress. The frantic, bird-like panic that usually lived in her chest was silenced, smothered under a warm, heavy blanket.
She was alive. It was a lie, of course, but her body believed it. The fatigue that had been her baseline for a decade vaporized. In its place was a glorious, terrible power. She felt brilliant, invincible, finally able to outrun the thing that had always been chasing her.
Then, the world began to melt at the edges. The strobing lights were no longer flashes, but physical slicks of paint smearing across her vision. They caught the arc of a spray of beer, freezing it into a thousand glittering diamonds. They illuminated the sheen of a bare, muscular back, oiled and perfect, before plunging it back into darkness—the after-image burning on her retinas. In the strobe's snap, she saw a girl's head thrown back, mouth a wide dark O of ecstasy, a necklace of brass swinging like a pendulum of light. She was moving sharper now, pulled into the current. Bodies pressed against her on all sides, a hot, damp architecture of flesh and muscle. There were no individual faces, only a collective orgasm. A shoulder brushed against hers, slick with sweat; it felt like a greeting. The crush of the crowd was an embrace, holding her upright, moving her as one.
The music built, a relentless, metallic coil tightening around the room. Synths sawed through the air, wires of sound pulled equally for all. She felt the tension in her jaw, in her clenched fists. The pressure built in her skull, a beautiful—unbearable—ache. And then—the drop. It was a seismic release. The floor seemed to fall away. The crowd roared, a single animal sound that vibrated through her teeth. Her own voice was part of it, unfiltered scream torn. She wasn't dancing; she was being played upon, her body an instrument for the music.
A man with beaded twists materialized in the swirling smoke before her. He had dark eyes and skin that reflected the strobing fractals, with a smile of white points. He didn't speak, only giggled. After a reciprocal smile, his hands, large and warm, found Serena's hips, thumbs pressing into the soft flesh there. The touch was an electric current, grounding to the rhythm. She let her head fall back, her spine arching, a doll posed by the beat.
Laughing, he turned Serena, her back against his chest, chin resting on her shoulder. The scent—warm, playful vanilla, and pure heat—filled her lungs. They moved as one creature. His hands slid from her hips to her stomach, pulling her tighter. Serena could feel the hard line of his belt buckle, the push of his thighs against the backs of her own. It wasn't about desire, not in any complex way. It was about friction and heat, a biological response to the primal thrum shaking the building. Her skin was hypersensitive; the brush of his jeans against her bare arm felt like a brand.
Around them, the hedonism was a spectacle. A couple against a pillar, locked in a kiss that was more battle than affection. A shirtless man, pouring beer from a bottle over his upturned face, mouth open to catch the stream. The taste in the air shifted—the cloying sweetness of spilled energy drinks, the salty tang of a hundred different skins.
Time became a loop of the same perfect moment: the build, the crush, the release. The synthetic scream of the music, the four-four kick a hammer on an anvil, forging her into something new, something simple. A thing of nerve endings and rhythm. As the sky outside lightened from black to a bruised grey, the engine of the music began to slow, the beats stretching, becoming ambient and watery. The spell broke gradually. Bodies untangled. The crowd thinned, leaving behind a landscape of discarded cups and the dazed.
Serena stood alone, the cool air hitting her sweat-soaked clothes, raising goosebumps. The warmth in her veins was receding, leaving a hollow metallic taste in its wake. The man was gone, a phantom of the night. Her fingers, clumsy and cold, dug into the pocket of her pants. They bypassed the familiar weed tin and closed around the small, plastic bag. Two more chalky white pills.
She only registered the hollow feeling, and the certain promise in the bag that could fill it. The high was leaving now, but its footprint was a map. And she was already learning the way back.