The buzz in my head won’t stop. It’s a low hum, always there, like static from a broken TV, a distant sound from somewhere in the back of my skull. I walk into the room, she’s sitting on the couch, the one we bought at some thrift store that doesn’t even exist anymore. Or maybe it was never real. I don’t know. Nothing seems real anymore. Maybe it never was.

Her eyes flicker up at me, the same damn look. The one she gives when she knows I’m on edge. She hasn’t said a word since I came in, but I can feel the tension. It hangs between us like some heavy curtain we can’t pull back. The rain.

I shake my head, the whiskey bottle still sitting there, unopened. I don’t need it now, not when the white powder still burns in my nostrils. I can feel the buzz creeping in like a slow wave, the first taste of clarity that makes everything else blur. I don’t even know what the hell I’m doing here anymore. I should be somewhere else. Somewhere I can disappear, just for a moment, away from the madness that clings to my skin, the ghosts in my head.

She watches me, her lips barely parted, like she knows what I’m about to do. “Are you gonna talk to me today?” she asks, her voice soft, almost fragile, like a bird that could fly away at any second.

The walls are closing in. The lights flicker, shadows stretch across the floor, and everything is too damn loud. The city outside never stops, never shuts up. It’s all just noise. White noise. You can’t escape it. I can’t. I should’ve stayed away from her, but I never do.

I can’t remember when I first came to her, when I first felt the need to drown myself in her. But I do remember the first time she touched me. It was like electricity, like fire, like everything I ever was just exploded into a million pieces. And then it hurt. It always hurts.

“Do you love me?” she asks, looking up at me, that question hanging in the air like it always does. I should say something, I should tell her something that makes sense. But nothing in my life makes sense anymore. Not the missions, not the lies, not the blood-soaked shit I did for years. None of it adds up. So why should love?

“Love is a word people use when they don’t know how to shut the fuck up,” I mutter. She doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t even blink.

I hear her move, the sound of her feet on the floor like soft whispers. She’s coming towards me. It’s the same every time. I know what’s next. The pull of her body, the way she presses against me, the warmth of her skin in contrast to the cold that crawls under mine. But the cocaine still buzzes in my bloodstream, and all I can think about is the next hit. The next rush. It’s all I want. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.

I close my eyes, and there it is — another daydream, another flash.

I’m in a room full of bodies, blood dripping from the walls. The smell is rancid, thick, like something dying. I don’t know who these people are, but they look at me like I’m the one who’s supposed to make it stop.

The violence flashes before me. I don’t feel it. I just see it, like a film playing on a screen I can’t turn off. A gunshot, a body dropping, the scream of someone who thought they were safe but isn’t anymore. I always hear the scream in my head when I close my eyes. And it’s always the same. A scream I can’t place.

When I open them again, she’s still there. Still asking questions I can’t answer.

She’s holding a joint, the smoke swirling between us. “You’re not the same anymore,” she says, and there’s that look in her eyes. The one where she knows I’m breaking apart.

But it’s not her fault. It never was. I’ve been broken for years. Ever since they told me to kill, told me to disappear, told me to become someone else, someone who didn’t have to care. The drugs came later, after the missions stopped, after I was left to rot. When I realized I was just a shadow walking in a world of ghosts, too scared to step out of the dark.

“Are we just doing this?” I ask, my voice hoarse, cracked like glass. She looks at me, but she doesn’t say anything. I don’t expect her to. She’s been waiting for me to fix myself, but I’m past that. We’re both past fixing. The moment we met, I could tell.

A gun. I see it in my hand, the cool metal smooth against my palm. Another flash, another daydream of bodies, blood, and screams.

I shake it off, trying to focus, trying to stay in the moment. But the moment is always slipping away. Her hand is on my chest now, but it doesn’t feel right. Everything feels wrong. The apartment feels like it’s closing in on me, the walls pressing against me with every breath I take.

“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” I say, more to myself than to her. But she hears it. I can feel her tense up, like she’s about to say something, maybe something that makes sense. Maybe something that fixes us.

But I can’t fix us. I can’t fix anything. The only thing I know how to do is make the world go away for a little while. Just a little while. One more line. One more hit. One more breath of this sweet, poison air that keeps me floating above it all.

I take the coke from the table, pull out the small baggie, and pour a line on the edge of a book. It’s the only thing that helps me breathe. The only thing that stops the buzzing in my skull.

She watches me, but I don’t look at her. Not now. I can’t.

I bend down, and the world comes alive again, the edges sharper, clearer. I’m not sure if I’m coming back from this. I don’t know if I want to.

The door slams open.

And in my head, the gun goes off. Bang.

The gunshot rings out in my head like a bell, clear and sharp in the aftermath. But it wasn’t the sound of a shot that echoed. It was the sound of something breaking, something irreparable. It’s like I’ve crossed a line that can never be uncrossed, and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to feel relief or dread.

I watch her face as the smoke starts to curl lazily from the barrel of the gun in my hand, the dim light making her expression look like it’s fading, a half-forgotten memory I’ve spent my whole life running from. The echo is still in my ears, but she doesn’t flinch. Not at all. She’s calm, like she’s known this moment was coming all along. She always knows.

For a split second, I think I might be imagining it. Maybe I didn’t even pull the trigger. Maybe I’m still drunk, still high, too far gone to make sense of anything, but I hear the weight of the silence that follows. The world’s stopped. The room’s still spinning, but everything else’s frozen. It’s like time didn’t even exist anymore. Everything before this moment feels like a distant memory, a dream. A fantasy that I somehow made real.

“Good shot,” she says, her voice an odd mixture of admiration and something else. Something darker. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

My stomach churns. The air around us feels heavy, thick with whatever happens next. Her words sink in, but I can’t tell if they’re supposed to reassure me or just twist the knife deeper.

“I didn’t think I had it in me either,” I mutter. My grip tightens on the gun, but I don’t lower it. It feels like it’s fused with my hand, part of me, like it always has been. I don’t know if I should be relieved, scared, or both. Every instinct in me says to drop the gun, get the hell out, run, but I stay planted. She won’t let me move. She never lets me move.

She steps closer, her steps soft but deliberate, the same slow, measured pace she’s always had. Her eyes glint with something strange — something wild. She’s playing with me, but I can’t tell if she’s toying with my head or testing me. Maybe both.

"You know," she says, almost conversationally, "Most people can't go back once they've pulled that trigger. Not even for a second."

I blink at her. "Most people?" I repeat. "I’m not most people."

She doesn’t respond immediately. Instead, she looks down at the floor, almost like she’s thinking. The air between us feels dense with the weight of the moment, but also with the tension of something that I can’t quite grasp. Something about her has changed. I can feel it in the way she stands, in the way she watches me now. It’s like she’s waiting for me to collapse, to break in front of her, but I don’t. I won’t.

The gun’s still in my hand, the only thing that feels real right now. It's strange, almost comforting, as if I’m holding onto the only thing that hasn’t shattered into a thousand pieces around me.

“You’ve always wanted to," she continues, her voice lower now, like she’s trying to keep a secret, "You just needed the right excuse."

That hits me harder than I expect. I think back to everything we’ve done, the things I’ve never told her, the things I thought I had buried under layers of alcohol, cocaine, and whatever other distractions I’ve thrown my way. I feel it stirring, something cold and sharp like a blade that’s been lodged in the pit of my stomach for longer than I can remember. I’ve tried to forget it, but it always comes back.

“Maybe,” I say, my voice rough, unsure. “Maybe I’ve just been waiting for the right time.”

She takes a step forward, and the floor creaks under her weight. I don’t move.

Her eyes meet mine, and for a second, I see something I didn’t expect — maybe I even want to believe it. There’s a flicker of something real, a kind of understanding between us, like two broken things recognizing each other in the wreckage.

"How does it feel?" she asks, her gaze fixed on me, her lips just barely curling up at the corners. "To have control, to make something happen, to feel like you’re in charge of your own fate?"

I open my mouth to speak, but the words get caught in my throat. What am I supposed to say? That it feels good? That this is the rush I’ve been chasing for years? The clarity? The power?

But it isn’t power. It’s something else. Something darker. Something I don’t want to name because once it has a name, I’ll have to face it. I don’t want to face it.

I look down at the gun in my hand. The barrel’s still warm. I feel a strange pulse from it, like it’s alive, like it’s pulsing with some kind of energy I can’t comprehend.

"You’re just a kid, you know," she murmurs, as if reading my mind. "A kid who never grew up. Playing with toys, pretending you’re someone else. And when you pull the trigger, you get what you want for a second. But it’s never enough, is it?"

I squeeze my eyes shut. I hate how she always gets inside my head. I hate that she’s right. I hate that I’ve been chasing something that will never come. I was never meant to feel in control. I was never meant to be anything but a weapon. But that’s not a truth I want to hear.

"No," I manage to choke out. "It’s never enough."

The room feels suffocating now. The white noise is coming back. The hum in my ears. The dizziness. I’ve been spinning out of control for so long that I’m not sure where the line between the buzz and reality even is anymore. The world blurs into something indistinct — faces, memories, sounds.

Her voice pulls me back. It’s soft, almost too soft. "We’ve both known, for a long time, that this is the end. Haven’t we?"

The end. I can feel it, too. Like a door opening in front of me, or maybe closing behind me. I don’t know which.

“Yeah,” I say, my voice distant. "I guess we have."

The gun lowers slowly. I don’t think I’m even aware of doing it. I can feel the sweat on the back of my neck. I take a deep breath, and for a moment, the world feels like it could collapse under the weight of that single, sharp exhale.

“Good,” she says, her voice quiet now, almost tender, though I know it’s not meant to be. “Now let’s see what happens next.”

The room feels colder, emptier somehow, even though she’s still standing there. Her presence doesn’t make it better. Nothing can. The heavy silence drips between us, sticky and thick, like tar. The gun, still in my hand, seems to weigh more with each passing second. My fingers ache as I hold it, as though it’s not just a weapon, but a part of me that’s been cut loose and is now pulling at me, trying to drag me back to who I used to be.

I don’t want to go back. I don’t.

“You can’t just walk away from it,” she says, breaking the silence, but her voice is flat now, like she’s given up trying to provoke a reaction out of me. "That’s not how this works."

I nod, almost instinctively. She’s right. That’s the fucking problem. Once you’ve crossed that line, there’s no going back. Every little thing becomes an echo of it. An aftershock that rattles your bones, shakes your core. You think you can escape it, but you can’t. That gunshot? It’s not just a sound. It’s a declaration. A promise to yourself that you’ll never be the same. And I can’t decide if that terrifies me or thrills me. Maybe both.

“I never said I was gonna walk away,” I mutter, my voice gravelly. I let the gun fall from my hand onto the couch. The sound of it landing feels like a sigh.

She’s still watching me, her eyes calculating, waiting for something I can’t quite place. I know she doesn’t trust me. Not entirely. But she’s always been like this — pushing me, testing me, seeing just how far she can go before I break. And every time I think I’ve reached my limit, she pushes me harder, further, deeper.

I look at her, but I can’t read her expression. She’s wearing the same thing she always wears when she knows I’m in one of my moods — a loose, faded t-shirt, no bra, just the way she likes it. It’s like she’s always prepared for whatever I’m about to do. Like she wants it.

"You know what I think?" she asks suddenly, her voice still quiet but tinged with something colder. “You don’t really care about me, do you?”

I stop. Her words hit harder than I expected. It feels like she just shoved her hand into my chest, gripped my heart, and squeezed. I should answer, tell her she’s wrong, tell her I care more than anything. But I can’t.

Instead, I laugh. A bitter, dry laugh. It’s more of a reflex than anything else. Because the truth is, I don’t know if I care. Not in the way she wants me to, at least. It’s always been complicated with her. We’ve always been tangled up in each other, drawn together by the same darkness, the same hunger. But maybe that’s all it is — hunger.

“You want me to say something romantic, don’t you?” I say, a smirk pulling at the corner of my lips, but it feels hollow, forced. “You want me to tell you I love you and everything’s gonna be fine, and we’ll live happily ever after. Is that it?”

Her eyes narrow, and I see the faintest hint of something dangerous flash across her face. “I don’t need your fucking love. I need you to stop pretending like you’re in control of everything. Like you’re some kind of monster and I’m just some gal who’s along for the ride. You can’t keep running from it forever. From us.”

For a second, there’s a flicker in my chest. A tiny pang, barely noticeable. I ignore it. I fucking ignore it.

I stand up abruptly, pacing toward the window. It’s a mess of rain outside, pouring down, hammering the glass like it’s trying to wash away the last remnants of whatever this place is, whatever I am. I stare out into the blur, the city lights smudged by the downpour. Everything looks like a reflection in a broken mirror. Fuzzy. Unclear.

"You're right," I say, my voice low. "I'm not in control of anything. Not anymore."

She doesn’t say anything for a moment. I can feel her eyes on me, steady, unblinking, like she’s waiting for me to fall apart. I wish I could. I wish I could just let go. Let myself feel something. But that’s not who I am anymore. I’ve forgotten how.

I turn back to her, and for the first time tonight, I see something different in her eyes. It’s not challenge. It’s not anger. It’s something close to pity. For a second, it almost makes me sick. I don’t need her pity. I need her to be as fucked up as I am.

“Then why are you still here?” I ask, my voice harsher than I intend. “If it’s such a fucking problem, why are you still fucking here?”

She stands up from the couch, her movements deliberate, slow. “Because you won’t let me leave, even when you say you want me gone.”

The words are simple, but they hang in the air like a threat. Like an invitation. The silence stretches out between us, thick and suffocating. I feel the pulse of something in the back of my mind, something dark, something that tells me to walk away. To just leave. But I don’t. I won’t. I never do.

She steps closer again, her eyes locked on mine, the space between us smaller than before. Her lips barely brush against mine when she speaks again. “You think you’re the only one lost here? The only one broken?”

I don’t respond. I don’t need to.

She’s close enough now that I can smell her. The faint trace of cigarettes. The sweetness of something else, something more dangerous. She moves past me, her shoulder brushing mine, and I feel the heat of her body, the energy radiating from her. She’s not leaving. She’s not ever going to leave.

"I told you," she says, almost too quietly. "We’re both too far gone for this to end. And you know it."

I can feel my pulse quicken. It’s the same rush I always get, the same need for something that doesn’t quite exist but will always be just out of reach. The addiction isn’t just the coke anymore. It’s her. It’s the chaos we’ve built around us. It’s the way we keep playing this game — this deadly game — even though we both know the rules are rigged.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” I say, and it’s not a question. It’s the truth. Because I don’t. Not anymore. I don’t know what I want, either.

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she presses herself into me, her body hot against mine, and I feel the weight of everything we’ve never said, everything we’ve never had the chance to face. The door’s still open. The world’s still spinning. I wonder, briefly, if this is the last time we’re going to dance around this fire. But even if it is, I know we’ll keep coming back. We always do.

And in that moment, I can’t decide if I’m terrified or exhilarated.

I only know one thing for sure — we’ll both burn in the end.

The rain is coming down harder now, a steady rhythm against the window, almost like it’s keeping time with the pulse in my temples. I can feel the weight of every breath in my chest, slow, deliberate. It’s like I’m trying to steady myself before the fall, but I know I can’t. I never can. Not anymore.

Her fingers graze my arm as she pulls away, a soft touch that’s somehow sharp. It doesn’t make sense, but nothing in this place makes sense. Nothing with her ever does. I catch the edge of her gaze as she looks at me, and for a moment, it feels like she’s not seeing me. She’s seeing something else.

“Where are we going with this?” she asks, her voice small, almost vulnerable. I can hear the uncertainty in her words, but the look on her face tells me she doesn’t expect me to answer. She doesn’t want an answer. Not really. She wants me to say something else. Something that will stop the spiral we’re both caught in. But I can’t do that. I can’t pull us out of this one.

Instead, I turn toward the shelf behind me, pretending to look at the bottles lined up like soldiers ready for war. I need something. Anything. To keep the questions from swarming in my head. To keep the noise down.

The air in the room feels thick, choked with unspoken words. I grab a bottle of cheap whiskey, the label worn and faded, the kind you can’t remember buying. It’s a cheap comfort, a dullness that’ll numb everything. She doesn’t stop me as I pour myself a drink, watching me with that same expression. Part curiosity, part caution.

"You're still not going to talk about it, huh?" she says, almost amused now. She knows the answer before I give it.

“No need,” I mutter, lifting the glass to my lips, the burn of the alcohol barely registering. It’s something I’ve gotten used to, something that never really fixes anything, but always feels like it could. It’s always enough to make the edges of the world blur just a little. That’s all I need. Just enough to get by.

I turn back toward her, my gaze lingering for a moment on her face — the small lines by her eyes, the faint tremble in her hand as she reaches for the coke we were supposed to be done with. She’s always been the one to hold it together. Or at least, to make it look like she does. But I can see it now. The cracks in her. The way she tries so hard to keep control, even as it all slips through her fingers.

I don’t know how much longer this game can go on. It’s not sustainable, no matter how many times we try to convince ourselves that it is. We’re both just running, running from the inevitable, and we’ve forgotten why we started in the first place.

She drops down onto the couch again, her legs stretched out in front of her, the faint curve of her hips visible under the thin fabric of her shirt. She’s not trying to seduce me. It’s not like that. We stopped pretending to be that for each other a long time ago. But there’s something about her posture, the way she curls into herself like she’s waiting for something to happen, that gets under my skin. It’s always like this with her. This sick, twisted waiting game.

I take another sip of the whiskey, more forcefully this time, trying to drown whatever it is that’s creeping into my head. The thoughts that I can’t shake. The ones that have been sitting at the back of my mind since that gun went off.

“What happens next?” she asks, as if she doesn’t know the answer. But I know she does. She’s seen it before. We’ve both seen it too many times.

The words fall out of my mouth before I can stop them.

“We keep going. We always do.”

I can hear the words echo between us. It’s not a statement of opposition. It’s a resignation. Because it’s the only thing left. The only thing that makes sense anymore.

She leans forward, picking up the mirror and the tram card, the movements slow, deliberate. I don’t stop her. We’ve crossed that line already. We’ve crossed every line, and there’s no going back now.

“You want some?” she asks, her eyes meeting mine, a slight smile tugging at the corners of her lips. She knows what’s coming, what’s always coming. And part of me wants to say no. Part of me wants to just walk out of this godforsaken place and never look back. But I can’t.

I can’t.

“Yeah,” I say, my voice rough, barely more than a whisper. “I want some.”

The coke burns down my throat like fire, and for a moment, everything sharpens. The edges of the room, the lines on her face, the sound of her breathing, the weight of the silence. I can feel the rush hit me like a punch to the chest, and for a second, it’s like I’m weightless, floating above everything. Everything except her.

I close my eyes, letting the world slow down, feeling her beside me, her presence somehow both comforting and suffocating. And in that moment, I feel a strange kind of peace. It’s not happiness. It’s not love. It’s just a brief absence of chaos. A rare, fleeting moment where the noise in my head quiets.

But that’s all it is. A moment. And it passes, like everything else. Like everything we’ve ever done.

I open my eyes, and she’s still there, watching me, her face unreadable. For a second, I wonder what she’s thinking. But I don’t ask. I never do.

Instead, I pick up the gun again, this time not as a weapon, but as an anchor. It’s the only thing that feels real. The only thing that hasn’t let me down.

I run my fingers along the cold steel, tracing the lines of it, the weight of it familiar, comforting. There’s a strange peace in knowing that it’s always there. That it’s always been there. Waiting.

“Do you ever think about how this is going to end?” I ask, my voice distant.

She doesn’t answer immediately. She just looks at me, eyes steady, like she’s already heard the question a hundred times before. Maybe she has.

“Every day,” she says, her voice softer now, almost like a confession.

I nod, but I’m not really listening anymore. My mind is already elsewhere, already drifting, already searching for the next thing. The next fix. The next escape.

She watches me for a while longer, but eventually, she doesn’t say anything else. She knows. We both know.

This is who we are. This is what we are.

And it’ll never change.

The glass is still in my hand, whiskey swirling at the bottom. I can almost taste the burn before I sip it. It’s always the same. Like nothing ever changes, but it does. It’s subtle. It’s those moments when the world around you doesn’t make any sense, and you just want to close your eyes and forget for a minute. But I can’t. I can’t. Not when she’s in front of me, not when the silence is filled with the rhythm of her breath.

But it comes anyway.

My eyes drift, staring at the floor for too long, and then it hits—faster than I expect. The familiar pull. A noise, far away but close enough to make my skin crawl, pulls me out of the present. It's not like the sound of the wind against the window or the hum of the refrigerator. It’s the sound of a rifle's safety clicking off.

The world distorts. I’m no longer in her apartment. I’m not sitting on this couch, my legs crossed and fingers gripping a glass that’s half full of whiskey. I’m on the edge of something much worse. My body stiffens. I can feel the weight of the gun again, the cold metal pressing against my gloved hands, fingers twitching, pulling back the trigger like it’s second nature.

I’m back there now. Somewhere far away. Somewhere the world smells of burning rubber, sweat, and dust.

There’s no music playing, just the muffled sound of helicopters cutting through the heavy air. And the screams. Those screams never leave. The air is thick with smoke, choking every breath I take. It's fucking impossible to breathe without it catching in your throat. You can’t see anything but ash and charred flesh.

The mission had been simple enough. Clear out a target zone. Establish control. A few insurgents, sure, but they were mostly civilians. Mostly. But that never mattered, not to them. Not to us.

I was ordered to clear a building, and I did it. I followed orders. I shot when I was told. But it wasn’t the shots that haunt me. It was what happened afterward. What I did when I didn’t need to. When the adrenaline finally stopped rushing and the silence felt too loud.

There were women. I saw them huddled behind the walls, hands on their children, trying to hide, trying to pray. I could hear their whimpers. They were begging for mercy. But mercy was something I never learned how to give. And it’s not like I had a choice. I wasn’t there to show mercy.

I remember one woman, in particular. She was young, probably about my age, her face covered in tears and terror. Her children were clutching at her, crying out in that guttural way only kids can. It was so... wrong, so out of place. I should’ve just let it go, turned around, and walked out. But I didn’t.

My finger was already pulling the trigger before I even knew I was doing it.

The scream of the rifle was drowned by the explosion of blood. Her body crumpled. Her children. I didn’t even flinch. The instinct kicked in, and I followed through. I followed orders.

I kept shooting.

One shot turned into ten, and ten shots turned into a hundred. By the time I was finished, the floor was littered with bodies. Their blood had pooled into the corners of the room, dark red against the pale tiles. I didn’t even bother to count. I didn’t care. There was no point.

I had become something else. Someone else. I was a killer, and I did it because I had to. But somewhere, deep down, I knew I could’ve stopped. I should’ve stopped. But I didn’t.

The sound of the rifle’s echo fades, and the heat of the desert air wraps around me like a shroud, suffocating me in its weight. I’m covered in blood, mine and theirs. I can’t tell which is which anymore.

My hands shake. I want to throw the gun away. I want to drop to my knees and pray, but I don’t. I can’t. The orders keep me standing. The duty keeps me going. I can’t let myself break. Not now. Not here.

I hear the low buzz of my radio, the voice of my commander telling me to move out. It’s time to leave. We’re done here.

But I don’t move. I don’t want to. I want to stay in that place, just for a moment longer. I want to remember what it felt like to still be human. But there’s no time for that. There never was.

I’m snapped back to reality by the soft click of the lighter as she sparks a cigarette, her silhouette sharp in the dim light of the room. She’s looking at me, waiting for something. But I don’t know what. I don’t know what she wants from me anymore.

I’m back here. I’m back on this couch. I’m back in this life.

My chest is tight, my throat constricted with the pressure of it. The memory sits heavy, like it’s still fresh, like I’ve just come back from that hellhole. My fingers twitch, reaching for the glass again, but I stop myself.

“Where are you?” she asks, her voice soft, almost like she’s afraid to ask.

I don't answer her. I don't have the words. The weight of it all is too much, and the whiskey doesn’t help, not anymore.

“Are you okay?” she asks, her hand resting on mine.

I don’t move. I just stare at the glass in my hand, the amber liquid sloshing with every tremor. I think of the gun again, of the blood, of the bodies scattered like broken toys. The world spins, and I feel sick to my stomach, but there’s no time for that.

I exhale slowly, the smoke from her cigarette rising in the air like a wisp of the past. She’s still watching me, waiting for something, waiting for me to say something, anything.

“I’m fine,” I mutter. The words taste wrong on my tongue, hollow and empty. But it’s the only thing I can say. It’s the only thing I can keep telling myself.

I take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and swallow the rest of the whiskey.

“Yeah,” I say, almost to myself. “I’m fine.”

I’m not, though. Not by a long shot.

The air around us thickens, the smell of her cigarette mixing with the faint trace of whiskey and the metallic tang of cocaine lingering in the stale apartment air. She doesn’t say anything, just looks at me with those half-closed eyes, waiting for something to crack. Maybe she wants me to say something. Maybe she wants me to open up. But I can’t. The words never come out right.

She taps the ash from her cigarette into the glass, and I watch it float to the bottom, the glowing ember flickering in the dim light like some dying star. I’m barely aware of her movements, my focus slipping back into the fog of my mind.

The coke hits me hard this time, sharper, almost too sharp. It burns like a fire in my nose, a spike of clarity cutting through the haze that always clouds my judgment. My body reacts before my mind does — loud, fast, almost violent. I feel everything at once, a thousand thoughts exploding in my head, all of them jagged and broken.

Then it happens.

The gunshot goes off. That familiar crack—louder than everything else around me. It doesn’t even feel like a memory at first. It feels like it’s happening again, right here, right now. My hands gripping the rifle, the way my fingers tighten as the crosshairs focus on the target. A man. He’s running, no, not running — he’s stumbling, dragging himself across the dirt road with a look of terror in his eyes. The adrenaline courses through my veins again, a flood of heat rising in my chest. But this time, it’s different.

This time, I don’t hesitate.

I’ve pulled the trigger before, many times. It’s routine. It’s an order. But this… this is something else. I’m not doing it because I have to. I’m doing it because I want to. I need to. I can see his face — wild, desperate, terrified — and I know that if I let him go, if I don’t end this now, it’ll haunt me. There’s nothing honorable in it anymore. There’s no justification. Just pure, unfiltered rage.

My finger pulls the trigger again and again, each shot echoing in the empty desert. The man falls. His body jerks with each impact. It’s not just the kill anymore. It’s the chaos, the thrill of… extermination. The sound of it. The feel of the power in my hands.

I want to see him suffer. I want to hear his last breath, see the panic in his eyes as life slips away from him. His blood stains the sand, mixing with the dirt. His screams are drowned by the pounding in my chest, but I don’t care. I don’t even care if anyone is watching anymore. It’s not about the mission. It’s about the rush. The pleasure of it. The ability to take life and feel nothing. To be untouchable. To be a god.

And I know it now. I’m not a soldier anymore. I’m not following orders. I’ve become something else entirely. The line between soldier and monster has disappeared, washed away by the sweat and blood of the battlefield. This is what I’ve become.

The flashes of gunfire fade. The image of the dead man, his body broken and twitching, slips from my mind like sand through my fingers. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because I can’t escape it. I don’t want to. I want the violence, I crave it. The sound of that man’s last scream is like music to me, something that fills the empty space I’ve been carrying for so long.

I blink, and suddenly, I’m back in the apartment. The couch is too soft, the lights too dim. I glance at her. She’s still looking at me, but now there’s something different in her eyes. Something that wasn’t there before. She’s not waiting for me to talk. She’s waiting for me to break.

I take another hit, feeling the coke burn in my sinuses, the clarity washing over me again. I think about the rush of the kill, the way it felt to destroy something, someone… To rip it apart and feel the power surge through me.

“Don’t pretend you don’t like it,” I murmur, my voice rough, gravelly. The words slip out before I even think. I don't look at her; I just stare at the half-empty bottle of whiskey, my fingers clenching around it, knuckles white. I feel her eyes on me, but I can’t bring myself to meet her gaze.

She doesn’t answer at first. The silence between us is thick, suffocating. But then she exhales slowly, dragging on the cigarette, and I hear the faintest of chuckles escape her lips.

“Like what?” she asks, her voice light, teasing even. I can tell she’s toying with me, but I don’t care.

I feel the heat creeping into my face, the shame bubbling under the surface, but I can’t stop now. Not after everything I’ve seen. Not after everything I’ve done.

“You know,” I say, my voice darkening. “The violence. The blood. The thrill of it.”

She doesn’t flinch. She just looks at me, her eyes narrowing slightly, studying me like I’m some kind of puzzle she’s trying to solve.

“You’re a fucking monster,” she says finally, her voice calm, almost disappointed.

I laugh, but it sounds hollow, empty, and I swallow hard, forcing myself to focus. I reach for the glass, taking another swig of whiskey, the burn going straight to my stomach. It feels like I’m drinking fire.

“You have no idea,” I mutter. My voice is shaky, unsteady, but I don’t care. The coke is hitting again, that sharp buzz, that clarity. I feel everything, all at once.

I know I’m not talking about the woman on the bed anymore. I’m talking about me. About what I’ve become. What I’ve chosen to become.

But I don’t want to think about that. Not right now. Not when the night is stretching out in front of me like a dark highway, one I know I’ll keep driving down until it’s too late to turn back.

I stand up abruptly, my chair scraping across the floor. The apartment feels smaller now, suffocating, like it’s closing in on me.

“You want to go again?” she asks. I don’t know if she means the coke, or something else entirely, but I don’t care. I grab the mirror from the nightstand, and I know what’s coming.

This time, it’s not a decision. It’s a compulsion.

I lean forward, just the smallest line, but it’s enough. Enough to make everything sharp again. Enough to make the violence feel real again.

As I slide back onto the couch, I close my eyes, and once again, the past comes rushing back. The desert, the gunfire, the blood. The man’s screams.

And deep down, somewhere beneath it all, I know I’m a slave to it. The violence, the thrill. It’s in my blood now. I can’t get rid of it.

And I never will.

The coke is still burning, a white-hot line that sends a tremor through my body, sparking something deep inside, something that’s been dormant for too long. The sharpness of the high drowns out everything — the weight of her stare, the quiet hum of the city outside, the flickering lights. It’s like I’ve stepped into another dimension, where everything is crisp, sharp, and yet terrifyingly hollow. Like I’m suspended in a space between two worlds — one where I still remember who I am, and one where I’m someone else entirely.

Her presence next to me is a distant thing. I’m not really looking at her. I’m looking through her. I’m caught in the reflection of my own mind, spiraling back into that place, that dark corner where violence is a drug and redemption is a foreign language. The memory comes again — louder this time. I’m back on the battlefield, but it’s not like the first time. This time, I’m not just killing because I have to. This time, I want it. I feel the rush as I pull the trigger, the satisfaction of a life extinguished, the grotesque beauty of it. The heat of blood spattering across my face like a baptism, the sickening realization that I’m addicted to it, the endless cycle of destruction and euphoria.

I’m breathing fast now. Too fast. The high is coming down, but it’s not enough. It’s never enough.

She watches me still, though I barely register it. There’s a hollowness in her expression too, something that’s just as empty as what I’m feeling. I can tell she’s trying to reach out, to find something in me, some shred of humanity that hasn’t been buried by the years, by the blood, by the miles.

She’s still talking, I think. I can’t hear her, though. I can’t hear anything but the pounding of my own heart, the rush in my veins, the pressure building in my skull as the high creeps closer to the edge. It’s too much now. Everything’s too much. I’m spiraling. I can feel myself falling away, the ground slipping from beneath me.

And then it hits. The crushing weight of the crash.

I can’t breathe. The walls are closing in. I’m gasping, fighting to stay grounded, but everything’s swimming, spinning. The world feels like it’s moving without me. And the worst part is — I wanted this. I knew this would happen. I knew the moment I snorted that line, it was all coming to an end. But I couldn’t stop. I never could.

My hands are shaking now, my fingers digging into the armrest, my knuckles white with the effort of trying to hold on to something — anything. I need to feel something real again, but it’s all slipping away.

She’s still there, but she’s a distant figure. Her voice is muffled, like she’s underwater, like I can’t connect to her anymore. I know she’s worried. I can see it in the way she leans toward me, the way her hand hovers near my face, uncertain whether to touch me or pull away. She’s been here before, but she doesn’t know how this ends. Neither of us does.

I stand up abruptly, my legs unsteady beneath me, my vision blurring in and out. The apartment is too small now, the walls closing in, suffocating me. I need air. I need to escape.

But I’m too late. My chest tightens. My heart races in my throat. Panic floods in like a tidal wave. The cold sweat that’s already coating my skin turns to ice, and I know that something’s wrong. I feel my body betray me, the sickness twisting in my gut, the nausea rising in my throat. The room tilts violently to the side, and I stagger forward, reaching for the door, desperate to escape — to do what, I don’t know — but I’m too far gone.

Before I can even make it, my body betrays me. I collapse onto the floor, the coldness of the wood pressing against my face, my breath coming in ragged gasps. The world tilts and shifts, the edges of everything blurring as I choke on my own breath, my chest constricting tighter with every passing second.

It’s over. I’m going out the way I always knew I would. The way I’ve always deserved.

I hear her voice then, frantic and distant, like she’s shouting through a tunnel. She’s calling my name, but I can’t hear her anymore. The darkness is closing in. The weight of it is pulling me under, pulling me down into nothing.

For a moment, I think I see the battlefield again — bleeding men and the sounds of war — but they’re far away now. They don’t matter. None of it does. The kill, the thrill, the drugs — it was all just a lie. A hollow void I filled to avoid the truth. And now, it’s finally catching up with me.

The last thing I feel is her touch. She’s kneeling beside me, her hand on my shoulder, but I can’t lift my head. I can’t even open my eyes.

It doesn’t matter. I’ve already slipped away.

And when I finally exhale, when my breath leaves me for good, I realize — I didn’t need redemption. I didn’t need a way out. Destruction was always the point.

The silence is all-encompassing now, a thick, suffocating fog that hangs in the air long after my breath has stopped. I’m gone, but the apartment remains. The music still hums, faintly playing in the background, a ghost of what was. That playlist, the one that’s always been there when we met, still drifts through the speakers—each song now an empty echo.

She’s there, though. Her silhouette looms in the dim light, frozen in a space between shock and something else — something darker, something resigned. She doesn’t move at first, unsure if she can or if she even wants to. Her hand still lingers on my shoulder, but it’s a gesture that now feels almost absurd. Her eyes, wide and unblinking, are locked on my still body, trying to process what just happened. Her breath is shaky, a silent rhythm in the room, a silent scream.

Her voice finally breaks through the tension, but it’s a whisper — barely audible, almost too quiet for the room.

“Did you want this?”

I don’t respond. Of course I don’t. I can’t. But she keeps speaking anyway, like she’s trying to answer herself.

“You always acted like you were looking for something, but... did you ever find it?”

The silence presses on, heavier now, because there’s no answer. There never will be.

She pulls her hand away slowly, but the space between us stays. It was always there, a quiet, invisible gulf that neither of us could ever cross. Maybe it was because we never really wanted to. Or maybe it was because I never let her in.

She stands up, but her movements are stiff, like she’s unsure of how to deal with the body in front of her. Her face is pale, her lips trembling, but she doesn’t break down. There’s no hysterical crying, no desperate shouts. Instead, there’s just a steady, uncanny calm.

She steps toward the window, gazing out at the city as the lights flicker below, casting long shadows across the floor. There’s something final about it, like she’s watching the world for the last time. For a long moment, she doesn’t say anything. She just watches, her reflection merging with the city outside.

Then she reaches for the phone on the counter, still lit up from when it buzzed earlier. There’s a finality in the way she grabs it—no panic, no hesitation, just a quiet surrender. Her thumb hovers over the screen for a moment, before she types something, pauses, and types again.

"Was this what you wanted?” she types into the text box, but it’s not addressed to anyone.

She stares at the screen for a long time, then puts the phone down. She doesn’t bother to send it. She just watches the cursor blink on the screen, a symbol of something undone, something lost.

She doesn’t clean up. She doesn’t wipe away the remnants of the night — of us — sitting in the ashtray or scattered on the counter. There’s nothing left to fix. Nothing left to salvage.

Her gaze flickers back to me one last time, and she exhales slowly. Then, in a motion that feels almost too practiced, she picks up her coat from the back of the chair, the heavy fabric brushing against the floor. The door clicks shut behind her, a soft thud that feels impossibly loud in the emptiness.

And that’s it. She’s gone. And the apartment, just like the rest of it — just like me — is left to rot in its own silence.

The playlist plays on, each track slipping one into the next, an endless stream of noise that no one will ever listen to. The songs are still good. They always were. But nobody’s here to hear them anymore.

Nobody’s here at all.

I hope you enjoy this last short story of the year, I don’t know when I will write again. I have a few projects to do. Farewell, for now.
Godspeed, lads, Godspeed!