It was a hungover the likes he had never experienced before.

  Just saying that he was suffering from dehydration and a throbbing headache would be a ridiculously gross understatement. This was akin to every cell in his body initiating a revolution against him, screaming out in anguished unison.

  He was experiencing a primordial, chemical sense of instability —as if he was being forcibly caged back into a vessel of flesh and bones after being allowed to taste an encompassing spiritual release. His skin felt tight, constraining, his soul too vast to be contained by boundaries any longer. An incessant buzzing in his ears and behind his eyes made the world seem to undulate around him, tastes and smells assaulting his senses completely out of context —the metallic tang of pennies clashing with the saccharine aroma of decaying flowers.

  How long had it taken to gather enough strength to rise from the floor? He didn’t count. It could’ve easily been hours, if not almost the entirety of the day. His phone had awakened him from incessant ringing multiple times, but its battery had long since run dry, leaving him in the silent penumbra as the sun disappeared in the horizon once again.

  Dragging himself up from an unspecified layer of grime on the floor, composed of brownish and reddish tinctures he didn’t feel like deciphering at the moment, Brennan stumbled a couple of times before finding support on a nearby wall.

  Just what HAD he done last night?

  Flashes of cerebral delirium and physical transcendence made him clench his teeth as he fought a roiling nausea, squeezing his eyes shut and focusing on putting one foot in front of the other towards the bathroom.

  His stomach felt heavy, still full from who knew what; and his clothes were all tattered and torn, exposing most of his skin —which was covered with a gooey substance clinging to him like a secondary skin.

  Stumbling against the bathroom door frame, his trembling legs threatening to give way beneath at any time, Brennan finally made his way to a water source, and by consequence, also a mirror. The sight that greeted him back was one of utter dereliction —a haunting reflection of depths plunged yet not remembered.

  His typically unruly bird’s nest of brown curls was matted and tangled, streaked with viscous strands of drying bile and coagulated blood, giving him the appearance of a feral creature more than a man. Sunken cheeks only accentuated the sickly pallor of his skin, even paler than usual, as if any remnants of life had been leeched from him.

  Beneath the perpetually half-lidded brown eyes, dark circles and hollows made him look like a walking corpse. Sure, he was already lanky to begin with, his frame boring the vestiges of someone not yet entirely grown into adulthood, but the juts of bone peeking under the ripped holes of his vintage band t-shirt were even more frail looking than usual.

  Yet the catalogue of unsettling anomalies didn’t end there either.

  Furrowing his brow, Brennan leaned in closer to the mirror, unsure of what to make of a jarring detail that stood out in his face like a sore thumb.

  One of his lip piercings had been somehow… displaced, the metal ring now embedded in a superficial hole below its spot, as it if had been ripped through the flesh in a violent frenzy. The surrounding tissue, however, had already scabbed over in a thick, twisted line, seemingly… Healed?

  Despite how recently it must have occurred, the wound had been cauterized by some unknown force, leaving behind only an echo of mutilation.

  With a weary sigh, he handled the blackened iron piercing with his uneven pulse, extracting it from the skin over his chin. He then proceeded to assess the damage done on his clothes, which appeared even more desecrated than his body.

  Unable to bear the repulsion evoked by the unspeakable yellow and viscous chunks of fluid lingering upon him, Brennan slid out of his torn jeans, only to discover a deep crimson stain in the groin area of his boxers. Panic seized his throat in an instinctive reaction as he fumbled at the waistband, peeling back all the remaining layers of fabric to reveal… only smooth, unblemished flesh beneath.

  He was completely unharmed, despite the visceral evidence of the contrary.

  Standing there, naked in the bathroom and Adam’s apple bobbing, Brennan was left just to ponder. What kind of insanity had he committed the previous night to leave him like this? All of the memories he retained made even less sense under the cold light of his bathroom. He needed to retrace his steps, piece everything together.

  It had all begun after he had given permission to pierce his arms to that thing…

  … What was its name again?

  “Oh, Brennan, please. I don’t want to see you naked.” Needle’s resonant tones pierced his jumbled up thoughts, a ray of clarity amidst confusion. “Put on some clothes for decency’s sake.”

  He made a sharp turn from his position to quickly face the direction of the deep and melodic voice, and there it was —that same demonic cricket, its elongated limbs unfolding from the bathtub as it materialized from thin air. He was sure it hadn’t been there moments ago.

  “You!” Brennan pointed an accusing finger at the creature, ignoring its admonition about clothing. “You said it would all be fine if I let you do as you pleased!”

  “Yes, I did.” Needle regarded him with its horridly humane black eyes, an amused tilt to its gentlemanly manners. “And where is the fault in that? Somehow it isn’t?”

  “Excuse me!?” The refined lilt in its voice only served to infuriate him further. He flung his arms out, gesturing to his tattered clothes and the streaks of filth coating his body. “What part of any of this is ‘fine’ to you?!”

  One of Needle’s spindly appendages waved dismissively as he chuckled to itself in a low, grating sound. Every motion coursing through it from the gesture made its engorged abdomen palpitate in an unpleasant fashion.

  “But you seemed like you were having the time of your life last night.”

  >> “You didn’t, Brennan-boy?”

  The tormented young man opened his mouth to retort, but he found himself frozen in an anguished pause. The recollections trickled back in —the sensations of utter euphoria and physical transcendence unlike any high he’d ever experienced before. For fleeting as it was, he had been more than mere flesh, more than a mortal man.

  Needle wasn’t mistaken; it had been a bliss beyond words, a complete uncaging of the self. Brennan’s skin prickled with the ghost of that freedom, already starting to feel pangs, craving for it again yet trying his best to resist.

  “I… No… I don’t mean that.” Brennan meekly responded, at least until he tried to fill his chest with air once more to appear larger than he truly was. “But you still tricked me! Ending like this isn’t what I wanted!”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Oh… Isn’t that easy?” Needle’s tone shifted tensely, becoming insidious and accusatory. Its words sliced through the air like a razor, leaving Brennan's lower lip quivering in fear. “You do things and then you shift blame onto others.”

  >> “Much like you did with Moxie.”

  How or why that monster knew of his dog were questions he couldn’t even afford to ask, as the sins he had tried to bury deep came back to haunt him. No matter how many years passed, the memories remained seared in his mind —Moxie panting in the backyard on that rueful summer when Brennan had decided to play with the neighboring kids rather than caring for his pet.

  And the eventual acrid stench of Moxie’s decaying after he finally found out… The relentless heat having finally taken its toll.

  All because of his own negligence.

  “Shut up!” Brennan lashed out, frantically sweeping the contents of the bathroom sink onto the floor, refusing to acknowledge Needle’s cutting truths. “That’s not the same thing! And I was just a kid back then!”

  His parents and the vets were in the wrong when they pinned the blame squarely on his young shoulders. He wasn’t playing the victim, he wasn’t trying to make excuses.

  Yet, despite his protests, the disappointed scowl etched onto his father's face and the worried, pinched expression worn by his mother still flashed vividly in his mind, refusing to leave him alone.

  “It was too much for a child?” Needle pressed, its word dripping with venom as it tore through Brennan’s turmoil. “That’s the narrative you weave for yourself, is it not? Do you not grow weary of the charade?”

  The creature's elongated limbs unfurled from the bathtub, its movements deliberate and menacing as it continued its relentless assault.

  “It’s the same tiresome act you performed after the tragic loss of dear Beverly. The same sorry defense you’ve clung to ever since, never taking accountability for anything or anyone, not even for the voices inside your head that are aware of all your faults.”

  >> “That’s the path of least resistance, right? To disengage, to allow entropy take its course while you drift through life, unattached and unaffected, leaving only misery in your wake.”

  His legs, already wobbly from the start, gave out until he crumpled to the cold tile floor, his shoulders hunched in defeat. He raised his gaze towards Needle, hoping the monstrous creature could offer some twisted path of redemption like last time… But only more condemnation rained down upon him.

  “Do you realize now, Brennan-boy?” It sneered at him. “You kept on resenting poor Moxie even after his demise… In the same way that you hated dear Beverly for not playing along with your act.”

  >> “You ruin everything you touch, so why not simply…”

  Needle’s coup de grace was interrupted by a loud banging on the apartment’s main door, followed by a familiar voice calling out. It made the demonic cricket recoil, its eyes narrowing with visible frustration at having its monologue cut short.

  “Brennan!? Bev!? You guys in there!?” It was Oscar. His closest friend since high school —the one person he could always confide in, the one who could offer different perspectives and alternatives to his doomsday scenarios.

  The same guy who had first introduced Brennan to the warmth of alcohol and drugs, igniting a spark within him that yearned for the same unfettered existence. Oscar was the older big brother he never had, the one he admired for his free spirit and hoped to emulate, even if just a little.

  Oscar had now become an unwitting escape route, his get-out-of-jail-free card away from Needle's incessant assault. With a glimmer of hope in his eyes, he scrambled to pull on a pair of discarded jeans from the laundry tray, his movements frantic yet purposeful. He had to get away from the monster, had to find solace in the company of his friend, only then would things start looking up.

  Breathing heavily, Brennan prepared to move away from the bathroom, steeling himself to open the door and let Oscar in.

  “That is a very bad idea, Brennan-boy.” The sound of Needle’s voice so close to his ear made him flinch. The monstrous cricket had landed on his shoulder as if it were the most natural perch —its weightless form far too close for comfort. “You don’t want to let anyone in here.”

  Certainly, those were nothing but lies, the same type that Needle has been spewing ever since disgracing his life with its presence. A sickening mind game, or a ploy to isolate him further from the outside world. Moreover, he couldn’t ignore the loud bangs growing more insistent by the moment —Oscar was a muscular and strong guy, it wouldn’t be outlandish for him to try and break the door down if he didn’t answer soon.

  Only to pull up short in all of those thoughts, a strangled sound catching in his throat once he finally turned into the living room once again.

  It was a like a grotesque parody of a flower in full bloom, laying there in a tangle of bloodied hair, butchered flesh and shards of bone amidst the detritus. The corpse was so desecrated that he couldn’t tell if it was human or animal remains anymore —if only he didn’t knew her beforehand.

  Beverly’s lifeless body was splayed out like a gruesome eruption, flayed chunks of meat torn from her structure and strewn about like macabre petals. Her skull had been pried open at some point, the delicate matter of her brain scooped out and mostly missing, barring some scattered chunks sticking to the floor like smeared fat.

  Dried crimson streaked every surface his eyes landed upon, creating sticky darkened pools on the hardwood and soaking into the cushions.

  Realizing that she was incomplete, the fullness in his stomach that he had tried to ignore before suddenly felt not only purposeful, but also heartrendingly disturbing. He clamped a hand over his mouth to keep the rising bile contained from spilling over, all of the pieces landing together despite his desperate attempts to push them apart in denial.

  Brennan fought back the urge to scream, not wanting to alert Oscar to the horrors that awaited within the apartment’s walls. Sadly, as he took a stumbling step away from Beverly’s mutilated corpse, his foot ended up stepping on a severed hand, and he went crashing to the floor with a dull thud —all attempts at silence rendered useless.

  Before the impact, Needle launched itself from Brennan's shoulder, its elongated limbs gracefully landing on the blood-soaked coffee table. The creature's movements were almost mocking, taunting Brennan with its effortless poise amidst the carnage.

  “Brennan? Hello?” Oscar’s muffled voice carried through the door, angered and concerned. “I know someone’s in there, man. Open up!”

  There was a tense pause as Brennan remained unmoving, punctuated solely by panicked gasps for air. It was a barrier too thin that he relied on to separate his life from total collapse.

  “All right, that’s it. I’m calling the cops!”

  Needle's bulbous eyes bored into Brennan with smug satisfaction, like it knew this reckoning was inevitable —another step of a plan masterfully orchestrated. It was only a matter of time before he caved completely to the weight of his actions, to the brutal reality he could no longer avoid.

  Brennan wanted to cry out, to beg Oscar for help in escaping this waking nightmare… But where to even begin explaining? What kind of spoken language would serve to convey that it was his sister’s mutilated corpse what decorated his living room in a morbid exhibition of viscera and bone?

  As the sounds made on the other side of the door faded, probably as a temporary retrieve before much more chaos ensued, Brennan was left alone once more, surrounded only by the hellish aftermath. There was nowhere to run, no one to plead to for salvation… Except…

  “Needle… Please…” Curling inwards, Brennan began to weep, calling out to the monster’s shadow looming over his head. “Fix me up… One more time.”

  >> “Make everything pleasant again.”

  Another quietude fell over the room as Needle seemed to savor his utter surrender. The monstrous cricket had him eating from the palm of its segmented hand, and the two of them knew it.

  “Of course I’ll help you, Brennan-boy. I’m your only true friend, after all.” It finally quipped, its tone mockingly paternal. “But remember…” It nodded towards Beverly’s desecrated remains. “Last night was a one-time deal.”

  >> “Your dead girlfriend here has nothing of value to me henceforth. If you want another dose…”

  >> “Then you’ll have to do exactly as I say from now on. No questions, no hesitations.”

  Brennan didn’t even pause to consider. His hands were shaking, his whole trembling from withdrawal from the sublime escape he’d tasted. He needed that blissful release more than oxygen now, his escalating despair demanded it.

  “Yes.” He hated how pathetic and broken he sounded, but there was no helping it now. “Anything. I’ll do anything…”

  >> “Just… Don’t leave me alone with all of this.”

  Needle's eyes gleamed with sadistic approval as it drew nearer to him. Brennan knew his task before it was even demanded, tightening his right hand into a fist as he extended his bare arm, ready for the toxin to flow through his veins once more.

  “Then, let’s get to it, shall we?”