After Sadie was taken from me, I ran deep into the woods across the field. I ran until my legs shook and I couldn’t take another step. I was filled with panic. I had just lost the only thing I lived for.
A great hole that already lived painfully in my heart, was torn open and split in two. I was broken; Numb. I fell asleep on the forest floor in exhaustion. When I woke I saw a dirt road. I began to follow it. Eventually the road led me to a cabin. I could see there were lights on, and I wondered if anyone was there. The cabin was black, and though it was in perfect condition, it looked like it had been charred by fire.
I knocked on the front door. No one answered. So I tried to turn the handle. It was locked. I thought it was painfully ironic to have come all this way, happening upon shelter – just for the door to be locked. It seemed to fit into every other part of my life, so why should I have expected anything less?
I was afraid to break-in. There might have been people inside; they might have been armed. But at that point I really didn’t care what happened to me. I picked up a rock and smashed the window.
It didn’t take long wandering through the home with the lights on, to tell it was completely abandoned. There was no one there but me.
I raided the kitchen for food and then sat on the couch. I began to sob. Something in me finally broke, and I couldn't take it any longer. After hours of dreadful and unbearable despair, I instinctively reached into my pocket and grabbed out the vial of oxycodone. I had been hearing the pills' faint sharp rattle every time I walked, ever since we left the store. I looked at the vial. I wanted the pain to stop and I knew this would do it. I didn’t have any reason to care anymore. I didn’t have anyone I could hurt, or anyone who could hurt me. I bit the pill and swallowed it.
NOT LONG AFTER TAKING the pill I felt drained of everything. I sat in the pleasant emptiness. I felt as if something really good had just happened. The room was beautiful to me, and I was just happy. I began to cry because of how much the pain was taken from me.
After it wore off, I didn’t wait long to take another one. I wasn’t worried about running out yet, because there were a decent amount of pills in the vial. The second high was not as powerful as the first. I began mixing alcohol with the drug to get it to last longer. I completely lost track of time.
One night I was staring into the kitchen. The room I was in was dark. Suddenly the entryway to the kitchen in front of me became extremely bright. It was so bright I couldn’t see anything. To my surprise – my daughter, Sadie, walked through the light and came up to me. She was silhouetted by the light, but I could still see that she was smiling and happy. Behind her was Megan. Megan was happy too, and it brought me peace to see them together again. Suddenly Megan grew tentacles out of her torso and arms. She began wrapping them around Sadie and me. She squoze so tightly – I felt I would be broken in half.
I woke up in a pool of my vomit on the floor – the smell no longer bothered me. I drunkenly went to the kitchen and grabbed the last of the pills in the vial. I held them tightly in my hand. There were enough pills there that I knew if I swallowed them all – I could successfully end my life. I walked back to the room of darkness intent on ending it all.
As I stood in the doorway I contemplated for a moment what I was doing. My mind was immediately filled with sorrow as I thought of Sadie – Megan – Xavier! In great anger I went to put the pills in my mouth.
My limbs were immediately seized by some unseen power. The pills were crushed in my hand and thrown across the room. I looked down and could see large black tentacles had grown out of my chest and arms. They were looking at me.
I ran backwards and slammed into the wall. The tentacles were growing larger and were violently flailing in front of me. They were breaking dishes and chairs. They were destroying everything around me. Suddenly, I heard Sadie’s voice calling out my name. Hope sprang in me – this felt real. It was coming from outside the front door to the cabin. I immediately got up. Sadie kept calling out and I began making my way through the destruction to the front door.
I FLUNG THE DOOR open! There was nothing there. The forest was filled with fog. I called out her name, and looked around. I eventually went back into the cabin.
The next few weeks were even more miserable than before. Yet I had some strange sense of hope now that I didn’t have before. Every time I yearned to end my life the tentacles came back. Eventually they only appeared in my mind. I don’t know how to explain it in a way that makes sense. But instead of destroying a knife or a rope and throwing them from me – they would cast away certain thoughts.
I surrendered to this power that was clearly beyond my control. I wondered why the tentacles wouldn’t just kill me, or let me die. I was also annoyed that of all the things it protected me from, it didn’t protect me from the withdrawal or my endless thoughts of Sadie and Megan. It seemed to bring those to the forefront of my mind. I thought of nothing else. Shivering on the couch, vomiting and coughing; I was plagued by endless memories of Megan and Sadie.
In the turmoil I was surprised to find that the moments I remembered the least over the years were the happy ones. I had forgotten how in love I was with Megan. It made sense though. The happiest memories brought my pain and sadness into the light and it caused me more pain. Eventually memories of my father joined the torturous nightmare.
The longer I sat with these memories the more I was confronted with how much I had done wrong as a husband, father and son. The level of cruelty I showed Megan. How much I had caused the pain she felt the need to numb. I would naturally start to take responsibility for her death – but as soon as this thought entered my mind, the tentacles would gently push them away. And they would instead just bring the simple sadness back to the front.
Eventually, I stopped trying to run from the pain. And I began to notice a subtle and deep hope settle in my bones – that Sadie was still alive. The way she called out my name felt so real. Not like my hallucinations. It sounded like she was just outside the door. She had a maturity and a peace that I had never heard in her voice before. I couldn’t have come up with that.
I left early one morning, as the sun began to rise, to go and find her. I could barely walk; but I was going straight to Xavier – and I was going to wrestle Sadie from him until he broke every bone in my body.
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