The High Before the Fall

The club pulsed like a heartbeat, thick with sweat, neon lights slicing through the haze of smoke and liquor. Music throbbed through the air, drowning out everything but sensation. Conversations blurred into laughter, bodies tangled in a mess of flashing colors and electric heat.

Liam leaned against the bar, cigarette smoldering between his fingers, the ice in his glass clinking as he downed the last sip of whiskey. It burned its way down, numbing the edges of things, but not enough. Never enough.

"You’re way too sober for this party," Kyle shouted over the music, handing him another drink.

Liam smirked, rolling his shoulders. "Not for long."

His body felt loose, but his mind was still too sharp, still lingering on thoughts that had no place here. He needed to dull it down, needed to turn it all into something soft and blurred, something that didn’t feel like drowning in his own head.

Kyle must have seen it, must have known, because he leaned in with a familiar look, flashing a little plastic bag between two fingers.

"Step it up?"

Liam didn’t even hesitate.

The first line was a firecracker—fast, bright, snapping his mind into something sharper than it should be.

The second was a lightning bolt through his veins, making the world crystal clear, making him invincible.

The third—

Ah, fuck.

Someone pushed a drink into his hand, and he downed it without thinking. Everything blurred, but not in a bad way.

A girl slid against him, her body fitting into his like a second skin. Her lips brushed his jaw, her fingers curling around his wrist, nails pressing just enough to make him feel it.

"You look like trouble," she murmured.

"Funny," Liam said, eyes heavy-lidded, the high making his smirk lazy, borderline cruel. "I was about to say the same about you."

She laughed, but it sounded like something dangerous.

She pushed him against the nearest wall, not caring about the crowd, the lights, the music, and the heat, and for a while, Liam forgot about everything as well.

Then—

Everything tilted.

His pulse slammed against his ribs, the edges of his vision warping, spinning, twisting.

Too much.

Too fast.

At first, it was golden.

He wasn’t in the club anymore. He was floating. Weightless. Suspended in a world of color and warmth, like drifting inside a dream he never wanted to wake from.

The girl was still there, but she wasn’t just one girl anymore. She was many, her face shifting in and out of focus, becoming every woman he’d ever wanted, ever craved, ever lost.

She pressed herself against him, her fingers threading through his hair, her lips tracing fire down his neck. Her breath was warm, sinful.

"You’re so hot like this," she whispered, her voice slipping under his skin.

Her nails scratched down his chest. He laughed.

Everything was right.

This was it.

The high, the rush, the feeling that made everything worth it.

Then her fingers tightened.

Too tight.

Her lips moved against his ear, but now her voice sounded wrong.

"You think this is real, don’t you?"

Liam blinked.

The world rippled.

She smiled, but now her teeth were sharp—too sharp, too white, too many.

Her hands were no longer soft. They were claws.

His chest seized.

The golden light curdled, shifting into something thick and suffocating.

The music turned into a dull, rhythmic pounding—his own heartbeat, slowing down, stuttering.

His skin itched, burned, like something was crawling beneath it, inside it.

And then—

The warmth vanished.

Liam gasped, but no air filled his lungs.

The golden world was gone, replaced by darkness.... twisting.

He tried to move, but his body didn’t listen.

The girl was still there, standing over him, but now her eyes were hollow, deep black pits that saw too much.

"You always do this," she whispered, but the voice was not hers.

His mother stepped forward from the shadows.

But not really her.

Her body was wrong—too tall, too thin, fingers elongated into something not quite human. Her eyes glowed with something sharp, accusing.

"You’re killing yourself," she hissed.

Behind her, his father flickered like a static image, his face shifting between rage and nothingness, a shadow with a voice.

"Just like you did her. You're a disappointment," it rasped, crackling like breaking glass.

Then—

His sister.

She stepped forward, her expression blank, her hands trembling. But when he looked at her eyes—

She didn’t have any.

Empty sockets stared at him, black and endless.

"Why did you leave me?" she whispered.

Liam choked.

His pulse screamed in his veins, but his body felt like lead, like stone, like a corpse that hadn't realized it was dead yet.

The pain hit all at once.

His skin burned. His ribs ached. His head pounded so violently he thought it might split open.

His limbs twitched, but he couldn't move, couldn't escape, couldn't breathe.

The shadows closed in.

The whispers turned to screams.

"You think you can outrun this?"

"You think you can outrun us?"

His chest tightened, caved in, cracked open.

His vision shattered.

And then—

Liam's eyes snapped open.

Cold air hit his damp skin, the neon lights glaring down at him like spotlights in a crime scene.

He was on the floor, limbs weak, his throat raw. His heart slammed against his ribs, fighting to keep up.

The music was gone. The people were gone.

Kyle was gone.

The bartender stood over him, arms crossed, looking at him like he was just another mess to clean up.

"You alive?"

Liam’s hands trembled. His body ached. His skin felt wrong.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He fumbled for it, fingers clumsy.

One unread message.

Mom: I called you four times. Please. Just let me know you’re okay.

Liam stared at it. His mother’s name felt foreign, like it belonged to another life.

For a second, he thought about deleting it, blocking her number, cutting that thread forever.

But then he saw his sister’s face in his mind. Her empty eyes.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard. Paused. Shook. Then, slowly, he typed two words.

"I’m okay."

Another lie.

But for now, it would have to do. Until the white powder beats him or he beats it...

The High Before the Fall