He was still alive. That much he knew.

The thing crawled somewhere.

It could have been behind the new counter in the kitchen. To think; that very same day, he made his first coffee right on that spot. It was good coffee, too... He remembered the taste, the hot, caffeine-filled flavor of crushed coffee beans... He felt just like those beans now – grounded into a sweaty, nerve-wrenching, gut-twisting madness, just waiting to get plunged into the bowels of Death itself.

Then again, it might be in the bedroom. Slobbering all over his bed, touching and feeling everything with its... its... whatever those were. The thought itself was gruesome, even despicable. His bed, his sanctuary after every hard day of work, his little love nest when May came to him, his friend was being devoured by that thing.

He grunted again. Ooze. A dash of blood. Vomit.

...Blood?

He didn't cough out blood, he was just scarred on the right leg... He didn't even notice it until now. The wound was pretty deep, and it started to hurt; blood kept puring out. He was relieved and desperate at the same time.

He always keeps a medikit safe somewhere close, ever since the accident in his childhood – he almost lost his finger when he jammed the door trying to stop Dad from leaving with that woman. That fiendish snake of a woman. He cleared his head, now wasn't the time for tragic childhood memories.

He tried to lift him self up, slowly. The leg hurt. The pain was unbearable. He couldn't scream, he couldn't. He must not scream. He mustn't make a sound. He made a step. One, tiny, loud step. Turned his head, teeth ripping each other apart, eyes focusing, lungs gasping. Nothing. Nothing yet. Leg hurts. Another step. And another. Reached the counter. Nothing near it. Just air. The same air felt so heavy on his shoulders now...

He tripped and fell on the floor, painting it with a dark-red, smelly, mixture of fluids, fluids that are not his anymore, that will soon be its. He knows that.

He opened the nearby cupboard in the counter, and he would thank a god if he believed in one now, he found the kit. He opened it with trembling hands, and it spewed its contents on the floor, blending with the whole chaos of the scene. He scavenged through the treasure, like a rabid animal, and found his ambrosia, his sweet escape – morphine – bandage – aspirin – pill this – pill that. He took the morphine first, the hell with it all, he'll shoot it in the head if he needs to. He took the injection, and sat up. Just as he was going to take it in, and win, win again like before, he...

He heard it.

A sob.

He saw it.

The horrid form. The disgusting shape. The vile view. A black carcass shaded in thick rows of gluttony and lust, peeling like an onion of hate, despair and sadness. Everything he knew was there, right in front of him, his whole soul was infused in it: he could see the first time he did drugs, he could see the first broken love, he could see the broken facade of glamor and prizes... He could see Mom.

He felt it.

And this was the first, and only time, he ever faced himself.

~*~

May knocked on the door. She never quite understood why he needed the heavy kind of doors, the ones with tons of bolts and cranks and gears – yes, he was famous, but he was never an art collector or something.

«Are you in there, honey?»

No answer. Typical.

She took out her spare keys from her tight jeans and unlocked the first lock, the upper one. She thought of the new perfume she saw in a magazine this morning. It must smell lovely. The lock clicked. She went on to the second lock, the main lock. She wanted to buy him that new camcorder, it was on sale... She said to herself that she'll save up. He deserves it after all. The lock made a click. May opened the door.

And stood there. Her face was pale. No breathing. No thinking.

The black pus... The stench of loss... The carpet of disgrace... The wanting...

She knew - it was him.