The girl beside me startles. Without a word, she scrambles back to her own bed, curling into herself like she was never here. Like she never helped me. Like we’re strangers again.
I try to sit up. I want to. I need to. But my head is too heavy, my limbs too slow. I manage a twitch, a shallow breath, but that’s all. My body lolls uselessly, my eyes rolling back before I force them open again.
The ceiling swims above me. My eyelids droop, weighted like lead. I’m trapped in this half-conscious state—aware enough to feel the fear, too far gone to fight it.
“What’s your name?” I attempt.
The words form in my mind, clear and desperate, but what comes out is a garbled mess—slurred syllables that melt into each other, too broken to understand. Even I can’t make sense of them.
“Shhh!” the girl hisses from across the room. She’s lying flat on her back, trembling, her eyes squeezed shut. Her lips move in a frantic whisper, over and over—too fast to catch. A prayer, maybe. Or a mantra to keep herself from falling apart.
The door swings open with a heavy groan that slices through the silence.
I can’t see from this angle. My head won’t turn. The room is spinning now in wide, lazy circles that make my stomach lurch. The ceiling tilts, the walls breathe. Everything is wrong.
“You want either of these?” a voice asks, casual, like someone offering a drink at a bar.
“Fuck me, that one’s out of it,” another voice jeers, closer now. I feel it more than hear it—his presence, the weight of his gaze crawling over my skin.
“Payment first,” a third voice cuts in—colder, more controlled. Businesslike.
I try to move. Try to lift my legs, roll away, dosomething. But my body won’t respond. My thighs twitch, useless. My arms are lead. I can’t even lift my head.
The door clicks shut, and for a heartbeat, I let myself believe they’ve gone. My body slackens, just slightly—an instinctive flicker of hope filling me, thinking this nightmare might be over before it’s even begun.
Then I hear it.
Laughter.
Low, amused and cruel, and my heart plummets.
Two shadows bleed into my periphery—blurred outlines of men. One veers toward the other girl’s bed. The other stays. Lingers. Hovers over me like a storm cloud, faceless and looming. I blink hard, trying to focus, but my eyelids are sandbags and the world keeps tilting.
“Mate, I want some of what she’s had,” he chuckles, like I’m not even here. Like I’m a joke, nothing more than a prop.
In my mind, I’m fighting him.
I’m clawing, kicking, screaming.
I’m breaking his nose, his ribs, his goddamn spine.
But in reality, I’m sinking.
Sinking into the mattress, lost to the drug, falling through hell.
Across the room, the girl lets out a sharp, stifled sound—half gasp, half sob. The bedsprings beneath her groan in a rhythm that makes my stomach turn. I don’t need to see it. I already know.
The man beside me shifts. One of my thighs are angled into place like I’m a doll he’s positioning.
I want to scream.
I want to move.
But my body won’t listen.
And then something worse happens.
The fear begins to fade.
