The Game

The turbulent maze of the game is addicting, twining you in it's tantalizing arms before taking you into a universe that you were never meant to experience.

The Game

At first it’s like a game of hide-and-go-seek. It’s fun. It’s simple. You follow it through an amiable maze, lost in a sense of pure contentment as you encompass one another in a shroud of mutual enhancement.  

The trial of this maze, however, starts out as a one-time thing; it always starts out as a one-time thing. Nobody ever thinks they’ll do it forever. Nobody ever believes that this game of hide-and-go-seek could take a deadly turn for the worse, disappearing behind a corner and switching places with the deadly gamble of Russian roulette.

No, it’s simply fun. It’s not a need. It’s not a craving. It’s not an unavoidable necessity that would drive you to do unthinkable acts of horror.

It’s fun.

The first step of the game starts off with a snort or a puff; it’s nothing intimidating, nothing to be afraid of. You’re offered it cordially like it’s an honor. So, you take it like one.

The veterans around you inject needles in their arms, inhaling sharply as they plunge the taunting liquid through their veins. You are offered to join them in their quest, but you deny. Needles are for the people who need it. Needles are for the people who have let it manifest into a dark chasm of deadly craving. Needles are for the people who have let the fun get out of control.  

But you won’t let it escape your grasp. It’s a game of hide-and-go-seek, and this is your game. You’ll always be one step ahead of it, watching with a knowing eye and ready to stop at any moment if the game isn’t fun anymore.

You’re better than those other screw ups; you’re special.

Special as you may be, though, you still find yourself reluctantly scared; this is the stuff your mother warned you about. This is the stuff the schools hid from you. This is the stuff that could get you in a lot of trouble.

 But along with the fear comes the invigorating sensation of rebellion, and before you know it you’ve already done it, and there’s no going back. You are ripped from the driver’s seat of your life and forced to watch as the game takes the steering wheel.  

Then, out of the nowhere, the initial fear you had is gone. Suddenly you’re encapsulated in the warming blanket of peace. Entirely encompassed by pure serenity, you disown the warnings of your mother and you forget the cautions of your school. This isn’t like the other drugs; this one is simply pleasant.

It doesn’t hurt you. It doesn’t knock you out. It doesn’t make you psychotic.

It simply makes you content.

Everything is pleasantly beautiful. You can’t even describe the feeling; it’s nothing like you thought it’d be. The sun is bright, alighting the dark room you’re confined in with its tantalizing rays of affection. The feeling surrounding you is blissful, rushing through your veins, prickling across your skin, tingling throughout your brain, flooding into your eyes, ringing through your ears, fuming at your fingertips, steaming in your nose, and filling your soul with a calming sense of peace and ease.

How could something this good ever be thought to be bad?

The people you sit there with, however silent they may be, are suddenly your friends. You can’t help the potent feelings of affection overtaking you as you are catapulted into a land of ecstasy, and you simply lay your head back, smiling slightly as sensations of happiness sweep over your skin.

This wave of bliss washing over you is tantalizing, so you decide to follow it. You chase the feeling of ecstasy in a delighted pursuit, begging the warming sensation of serenity to continue its course through your veins, allowing yourself to stay anchored in the dream you have been immersed in.

This game you have decided to play doesn’t even feel like a game to you. It feels like being reunited with the innocence of childhood, eradicating any worry, fear, or doubt you may have had and replacing it with a euphoric splendor that charges through your being in an empowering surge.

For hours you sit there playing the game. For hours you are encapsulated in its warm embrace. For hours you let it drive your life, and you watch as it finds a way to ease your mind and stimulate your senses. Eventually, however, you allow the game to end as you are overtaken by the demanding essence of sleep. 

 

The next morning you awaken to the sweet afterglow of the night before, a faint sense of peace drifting over your mind as you get ready and leave, wondering how this game could be considered deadly when it left you feeling so good.

There was no aftereffect. There was no hangover. There was no feeling of regret, nausea, illness or defeat. You simply felt empowered.

So, you decided to play the game again.

 

Pretty soon the game became a weekly diversion. The land of your dreams was sitting right beside you every second you resided in reality, reminding you of the glory of the high, and begging you to play just one more time. 

Before you know it, someone is offering you a needle, and you look at it tentatively, remembering the time when you had vowed never to inject. You remember claiming that the people who inject are in need; they don’t play the game, they are owned by the game. As you begin to shake your head, however, they tell you that it’s no big deal.

It’s the same as snorting it, it just makes it happen faster.

How could you argue with that logic?

 

The first time you do it you puke. Cradling the toilet like it’s the only solid thing in your life anymore, you find yourself wondering why you ever did it in the first place. This game of hide-and-go-seek has taken its first turn for the worse, and you decide it’s not fun anymore.

But it’s not that easy.

You try again a day later in hopes of making it to the serenity again. They tell you it’ll work this time. It’ll feel good this time. You won’t get sick this time.

And you don’t.

Your veins throb with the elixir as it rushes throughout your body, and it hits you like a wall, eradicating any worries, fears, or doubts that you may have had and replacing them with the blissful sensation of absolute tranquility.

You revisit that state of warm relaxation that you have become so fond of, lapsing into a dream where nothing accompanies you but the mellow essence of felicity. The high has become a comfort blanket, and before too long you find yourself unwilling to let go.

 

It doesn’t take long before the visits become a regular thing, and the game turns more into a chore. You’re no longer amiably playing peek-a-boo with a feeling of ecstasy, but rather playing tag with a feeling of dread.

The high isn’t a high anymore, it’s become a state of normalcy. The throbbing through your veins now comes as a relieving salvation rather than a glorifying transcendence.  You start to hate it. You hate the game, you hate the high, you hate the nightmare that has become reality, and you begin to hate yourself.

The shroud of warmth, peace, and serenity is no longer yours, refusing to come and visit as it had done so many times before. Instead it evades you with a snide smirk, watching as you suffer, stabbing that needle into your skin again and again and again.

It becomes monotonous. It becomes a schedule. Stab. Live. Exist. Pain... Stab. Live. Exist.

A miserable agony reverberates through every part of your being. The skin that used to prickle with excitement now squirms with discomfort. The eyes that used to be flooded with euphoric colors of contentment were now flooded with the painstakingly horrifying images of reality. The soul that the used to fly free to the land of dreams was now imprisoned in the land consequences, staring longingly through the bars at the carefree life everyone else was living.

The drug has become a necessity. What was once the recreational essence of relief has morphed into the very elixir of life.

It is an obligation that cannot be overlooked.

The needle is your punishment, and every time you force it into your vein and are brought back into the state of normality, you are overcome with a feeling of relief and guilt, filling you with a concoction of confusion that brings back the anxiety that you so long to be rid of.

Reality has transformed into a nightmare, and what you had once called a dream is now an unsatisfying state of normalcy. The simple life you had once lived before partaking in the game seems so far behind you that you can’t even remember what it was like. Life now revolves around a needle, and everything you do is haunted by the terrifying whispers of death in your ear, reminding you that you can’t avoid the game for too much longer.

Hide-and-go-seek is for children, and you’re not a child anymore. You have seen the other side, and you’ll never be able to just play hide-and-go-seek ever again.

The game has morphed itself into the dangerous gamble of Russian roulette. Every time you stab that needle in your arm you are sitting there with a gun to your head, your body shaking and your head spinning as you force that grueling liquid to course through your resenting veins, waiting for the pounding of your heart to signal its arrival at your core. So far the barrel has seemed entirely empty, but it won’t take long for you to arrive at the bullet.

The bullet is small, black, daunting, and fearsome. It sits there waiting for you, and at first you are terrified of it.  

You fear the time that the trigger is pulled and isn’t accompanied by the hollow sound of an empty barrel. You are terrified for the booming sound of death to come shooting through your head, ripping you from the only life you have ever known and catapulting you into the cascading spiral of the unknown.

But pretty soon death seems better than the agonizing revolving spiral that you are trapped in. Soon enough that bullet becomes a desired token, symbolizing a release into salvation that only death seemed capable of delivering.

What was once your biggest fear becomes your greatest desire.

Pretty soon you can’t take it anymore. The hatred you feel for the game and everything it consists of is so deep that it’s tearing you apart from inside. Your tolerance has grown too high. The price has become too steep. The game is pulling ahead, and you are cowering in the background, watching as it swiftly overtakes your life and drives away with it, threatening to crash it and leave it to burn.

The pain becomes more reoccurring. The agony becomes more miserable. The nightmare becomes more real, and the life that you had been running from starts catching up to you, seizing you in its cold, tenacious claws and refusing to let you return to the land of dreams.

You have seen the other side. You have seen a side of the universe that you were never meant to experience.

The game has become your punishment.

 

Pretty soon you have people telling you that you need help. You have a problem. You’re sick. You look like hell.

What do they know? They don’t understand. It’s not a choice anymore. The game has won. The game owns you. You’d do anything to get a pinch. All you need is a pinch.

Now you use it just to survive. You inject just to exist. You let it destroy your body in one last futile attempt to reach that high.

You no longer know what’s going on around you. You no longer care what’s going on around you. Watching your life float by as though you’re watching a movie, your conscious thoughts revolve solely around the game, and, even though it’s not fun anymore, you can’t walk away.

It’s too late for that.

 

You become desperate. You no longer have the money to afford the normalcy. The demands of the high have become too steep, and it sits complacently on the tip of a mountain that your increasingly weak body can no longer climb.

Your parents realize the extremity of your condition when you come groveling to them for money. Unconcerned about your appearance and blinded to your issue by your tormenting needs, you lurk around town like nothing more than a ghost, striking fear in the hearts of those that loved you and pity in those that didn’t.

Finally, they put you away.

 

You know what they’re doing, but you don’t care. They don’t understand. None of them understand. You can’t help it; you need it.

 

The rooms are small, the people are cold, and the air is frigid. Everything hurts. It all hurts. Nothing can make you comfortable. Nothing can help you but the high. You need the high.

Lost in a world of darkness and encompassed in a shroud of torture, you find yourself wandering helplessly through a hallway of agony and misery that seems to have no exit. Your body begins crumbling minute by minute, and for the first time you begin feeling the cold fingers of death start clawing at your skin.

You puke. You shiver. You convulse. You scream. You shout. You wail. You claw. You rip. You tear. You pound. You punch. You kick. You squirm. You writhe. You swear. You curse. You struggle.

You cry.

You cry like you have never cried before, and between your sobs you beg the Devil to come and claim you as his own. You don’t care where you go anymore. Whether you go to the land of dreams or the very Hell beneath your feet is irrelevant, you just want to be anywhere but the present.

A pathetic junkie like you doesn’t deserve to go to heaven. Surrounded by your sins and filled with your wrongdoings, you come to the realization that God doesn’t care about you anymore. And why should he? He tried to warn you. He sent you signs. He made it obvious that the game was one only played by losers.

You didn’t listen.

You were special.

You were going to beat the game.

A torturous cold encompasses your body as you cradle the toilet, puking up whatever your body had left to emit. Trapped in that cold room with nothing to warm your frozen soul, you scream into the emptiness, trying to conjure some sort of company to ease your pain.

The barrel isn’t empty anymore. You can see the bullet. It’s staring you right in the eye. Death smiles as his finger brushes the trigger, and in his gaze you can see the faint glint of satisfaction as he watches you squirm in terror.

 

Months later you will thank them for helping you eradicate the façade of a nightmare that the drug had draped over reality. You will thank them for putting up with your harsh words as you slashed at them and pounded on the walls. You will thank them for grabbing the gun from Death, throwing it in the trash and wrapping you up in a blanket to warm your icy body.

You will thank them for ending the game.

Your reality that had been, however, will never again be the reality that is. The game will always be there, watching you from a distance, trying to entice you with its dangerous possibilities. The faint disappointment in your parents’ eyes will never truly fade, no matter how much they deny it. You had hurt them in a way that they will never truly be able to forgive, and every action you perform will be carefully watched, their gazes filled with a distant worry that will forever plague the back of their minds.

There are nights you refuse to succumb to the refuge of sleep. There are nights you do nothing more than cry, running your fingers gingerly over your scarred arms as your salty tears soak them with your regret.

You cry because you lost the game.

You cry because your reality is no longer normal or a dream. You reality has become tainted, filled with pitiful stares and weary glances. Society looks at you different, unable to eradicate the image of a pitiful addict, cowering in the corner, trying in vain to beat the game that has never once seen a winner.

Hide-and-go-seek is meant to be fun, Russian roulette is meant to be exhilarating, and games are meant to ease the mind.

What is heroin meant to do?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

Please let me know what you think of the piece in it's entirety.

Reviews

[barleygirl]

You've told this story very slowly & painstakingly . . . filled with details & imagery . . . all very well done & realistic & true (from what I've seen of the journey in others). Even tho I feel your description is more than adequate in its present form, I did notice that one major viewpoint could be missing (as this journey is for many) . . . your account here is purely physical . . . I'd also like to see the pre-existing emotional state of the user, becuz most are trying to blot out some persistent psychic torture from long before the drug ever appeared on the radar of life. Getting off the drug is more than just going thru withdrawals . . . most users have to re-learn how to process their pain, which can takes many more months than merely getting off the drug. Still, as a purely-physical journey, you've described it vividly.

Sometimes your descriptions are told in a pile-up of long complex sentences full of adjectives & adverbs which lend added drama . . . but for me, sometimes a pile-up of simple guttural utterances can be more reflective of the state of mind of the user . . . here's an example, in the most effective sentence in your entire write: "It becomes monotonous. It becomes a schedule. Stab. Live. Exist. Pain... Stab. Live. Exist."

Just some ideas to consider for your next story. This one is fine just the way it is.

[Megan]

Thank you. I never really thought about adding that aspect, but it's a very good idea! I'll look into it!

[richieb]

I think your writing on this subject is real, honest and accurate. I worked in alcohol and drug re-hab as a young man. Your story covers all the bases. You know your subject matter well. Your writing is strong and polished. Your story flows well and has a gradual climb and natural descent.
I hope your writing is read by young adults and school children. It has value and would be a great teaching tool. Well done young lady.
Blessings.
Richie

[JayG]

According to your bio you pride yourself on your storytelling ability. And I’m sure you’re worthy of that pride. But the thing you’re not taking into account is that storytelling is a performance art. And nearly 100% of the emotional content of the story you’re telling comes via nonverbal means.

Take a simple statement, like, “Sam, you truly are a b*****d.” How did you read it? As deadly insult? As high praise? It’s used in both ways. It could also be the result of a DNA test. The words themselves carry none of the necessary emotion, but without that a reader can only guess at the meaning.

But were we together you would know, even blindfolded, by my tone. Were you lip-
reading it, you could tell by my expression, gestures, and body language. But how much of any of that makes it to the page? None. And while you might use a tag, and append, “Sam said with a snarl,” it doesn’t help because it places you in the position where the reader may take it wrong, and then have to rethink, which in a submission may result in a rejection—will result in one if it happens within the first few pages.

Look at how a reader will view the first few lines, given that the reader doesn’t yet know who we are, where we are, and what’s going on. Look at the questions raised and ask yourself if you want the reader to be asking them.

• At first it’s like a game of hide-and-go-seek.
1. It’s “like?” In what way? My picture is of darkness and hiding, filled with laughter. So you mean a fun game? A chase game? No need of complex strategy?
2. Why am I being given information instead of having the story begin with action?

Why are you telling them this BEFORE they you the things that give context? Why confuse then clarify when you can make it clear and have THEM say, “Ahh, it’s like hide and seek.” Unless your reader feels that they are a participant in either the action or in interactive conversation with the author, they are passively listening to an external observer talking ABOUT the story. And that’s dispassionate, and no more exciting than any other report.

• The trial of this maze, however, starts out as a one-time thing;

This is data, an info-dump. It’s someone we know nothing about talking about something we’ve been given no reason to want to know about. But is your reader looking to be informed or entertained?

When you read fiction, are you looking for an overview and generalities, or are you hoping to feel as if you’re living the story, moment by moment? If it’s a romance do you want to know that the protagonist has fallen in love or do you want to be made to fall in love?

Bottom line: you cannot tell a verbal story on the page because the medium does not support either sound or picture. And, readers are seeking to be entertained by being given an emotional experience, not an informative one.

You need to open your story with story, not history. When storytelling, you’re alone on stage and need to explain everything. And certainly, you can’t present a conversation between three people with you taking all the roles. Nor can you tell a story that takes three hours to complete. So you use overview and synopsis. You perform, to add the missing emotion.

But on the page you have a stable of actors just waiting to perform for you. You can’t tell the reader how you read a given line, but you can tell the reader how a character does. So they can seem real, while you are only a voice whose only emotion is what’s suggested by the punctuation.

So start your story with story. Drop a body through the ceiling. Set the place on fire. Make something go wrong. Give your protagonist to reason to struggle and show what they’re made of. Make the reader CARE.

And forget using first person in an attempt to make it seem immediate. The narrator cannot be onstage with the players because they live at different times and in different places. And that is true be the narrator you, or you wearing a wig and makeup, pretending to be the character at a later time.

Here’s the deal: You needs a new set of storytelling skills, tailored to the strengths of the medium. It’s a set they never mention as existing during our school years, but it’s one that is necessary. And we can’t learn it by reading fiction because we see the product, polished, and with the tool marks removed. And as they say, “Art conceals art.” What we need is the process, because everything is different on the page. A scene is not the same as one on the stage or screen, so far as goal or the elements that make it up. Nothing in our training told us how to use tags, how to present a strong character viewpoint, or such things as why scenes end in disaster for the protagonist.

In short, to write like a pro you need a pro’s knowledge and tricks. And in the end, that’s my point. There’s an entire body of craft designed to make use of the strengths of the printed word medium and avoid the weaknesses. And it’s not all that hard to learn. What is hard is convincing your current writing skills to stop trying to take over and make it read like a chronicle or a report. But perfecting your skills is part of learning any profession.

A very good introduction to the profession is Debra Dixon’s, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict, available from any online bookseller, or in hard copy from Deb’s site.

Your local library system’s fiction writing section is a great resource. Look for Deb’s name or Jack Bickham’s. An even better book, though it tends to be dry at times because he goes into great depth, is Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer.

Any of them will have you smacking your forehead and saying, “Why didn’t I see that for myself,” several times in every chapter.

And for an overview of the issues, you might want to dig around in the writing articles in my blog. Most of them were written for one of my publisher’s monthly newsletter, and are aimed at the newer writer.

Certainly, this wasn’t something you were hoping to hear. But I thought you would want to know. And when you think about it, can we really say we’re serious about writing if we don’t spend time, and money, on acquiring our professional education?

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/

[alanwgraham]

I think it is a very very well told account of the remorseless spiral into addiction. It sounds authentic but i have no way of knowing. One part did ring a bell though - from time to time I can get manic and my poem 'Manicarus' describes exactly how it feels (as long as I don't get too high!)
I think your writing is excellent.
Thanks for sharing this.
Alan

[A. Amos]

What a fine writing and love your angle on such a serious issue. I was hook to your story from the very first word. I can't wait to buy your books...you're one of the best writers I have read here. I have lost great friends to Heroin...The world need writers like you to educate them...keep it up my friend!

[MelissaAndres]

Wow! Very powerful, Megan! I, personally, have never taken drugs but I did drink some back in the day. You have a powerful message here and one that I hope many can read and take seriously. I don't know how you would go about it but I think this would be wonderful posted at a drug rehab center or a program of some sorts. People who struggle with this could really, really benefit. You have done a wonderful job!

[Coyote Poetry]

A very entertaining story to read. I liked the thoughts and the game.
"Hide-and-go-seek is meant to be fun, Russian roulette is meant to be exhilarating, and games are meant to ease the mind.
What is heroin meant to do?"
Hide and seek gain more value in your story. I liked the above lines. I liked the story that ends with a question. Thank you Megan for sharing the entertaining story.
Coyote

[Mr_Goth]

Its reality at its dark finest and by finest its ok to look at when the lights are off. A brutal piece that could only be told by someone or knew someone who had played the game. One i watched many of my friends go through and wouldn't want to see that go through again. Its good, its sad, its scary, and I hope you didn't play this game and you detailed it beautifully.....

chuck