At this point, I fear that the fever is never gonna go away, that I will spend the, likely relatively short, rest of my existence in this bed, unable to move a muscle, burning and freezing at the same time and that I am in fact currently in the process of dying. This thought, that my life is, like that of all creatures, finite, not in some weird, vague, metaphysical sense, but actually finite in the sense that it is tonally, definitely gonna end and that there is nothing I could reasonably do to make that not be the case, had, up to this very moment, never occurred to me, and I hope that it will never occur to me again, as it scares the living shit out of me, now that I am thinking about it. A problem presents itself: Not thinking about the thing you are currently experiencing, when there is literally nothing you are physically capable of doing aside from thinking, is really fucking difficult, if not impossible. At least for the industrial-scale-toxic-chemical-waste-dump I spent the last couple of hours turning my brain into for some retarded reason. It might have been yesterday, actually. It may very well have been a damn week ago. The ceiling of my room, the thing I am involuntarily staring at, unable to turn my head, is illuminated by the bright, natural light of noon, the same as when I lay down here, though I doubt I would remember, had there been a night or more in between. My brain is shit and so am I. A little bit of divine punishment, I would understand, but this torturous bullcrap is cruel and unusual by any metric, downright fucking unethical. I guess don′t take five Adderall when you′re blackout drunk, kids. Who would have known that was on gods list of things you shouldn′t do if you don′t want to be banished to hell on fucking earth. Come to think of it, those tablets must have been four years old, at the very least. Does medicine expire? Fuck, I′m pretty sure medicine expires, and not in the ″we want to sell you more shit″-way, but the really fucking dangerous, in fact actually lethal way. There it is again, the fear of death. I was doing so well. Fuck. Maybe I can get up, just out of the bed, just collapse on the floor so they won′t think I′m sleeping, so they′ll call an ambulance. Get up. Get up. Get up! GET UP! JUST PLEASE GET THE FUCK UP!! My torso jolts upright, and I suck in two lungs full of oxygen, realizing that breathing was apparently something I hadn′t been doing for a short while. The guy on the other side of the room looks up from his laptop, obviously startled by my sudden return to the realm of the living. ″Don′t you have a job interview?″ ″Don′t you care that I almost kicked the fucking bucket just now?″ ″I didn′t even notice that you were in the room, dude. Don′t tell me you′re doing heroin or something″ ″God no, I just tried to sober up for the interview. What time is it?″ ″Like an hour too late, sorry. Actually, I′m not, this is totally your fault. You knew it was today and getting sloshed in the a.m. is a pretty stupid thing to do just in general, like even by your standards.″ ″Oh, spare me the lecture, or I′ll tell dad that this isn′t working″ ″Okay, okay, understood. I′ll take a walk, see you later.″ Lloyd thankfully did a passable job at reading the mood and fucked off on one of his weird three to four hour walks (like who does that?). Maybe he′s stalking someone, seems like a thing he′d be into. Off-kilter fucking guy, I honestly wouldn′t be surprised. At least he′s quiet, I don′t mind having him live in my room. He′s out of the house long enough for me to do things I don′t want him in the room for and when he′s here I can bounce thoughts off him. Maybe he cleans sometimes. I′m not sure. Doesn′t matter. Getting something to eat has priority. The Horrortrip only lasted three hours, rather than a few days but I′m starving anyway. Kind of a shame actually, would have been a cool anecdote. Mind altering drugs, am I right? Bought that shit four years ago from a friend (Max or Marc or something) to cram for finals. Should probably throw it in the trash, so I won′t get any dumb ideas in an intoxicated state, which is a lot of the time, let′s face it. Ah Fuck. Dad′s sitting in kitchen, indulging in some delicious looking shit. Can′t let him see me, not being at the interview he set up and all. Stealthy retreat. There′s probably some foodstuff stashed in Lo′s room. I knock. The only thing that can′t be found in my brother′s room is Lo himself. 90% of the time he′s not here and the other 10% he brings so many people that he′s impossible to spot him. For someone I have spent my entire life with he sure is absolutely fucking incomprehensible. How did he manage to grow up alright? Like an actual functional human being? Didn′t we have the same parents and shit? Fuck this! The Wardrobe opens with far less creaking than one would assume from the looks of it and below the neatly organized shirts there is a similarly neat row of wine bottles and a tower of various salty snacks, far too perfectly compact to have been built by someone who hasn′t managed to beat me in Tetris once. I rip open a bag and start stuffing ham flavored chips into my mouth. I don′t think I′m a wine guy, never really gotten into it, but it′s been a while since the last time I had some, and this seems like the kind of day to get into something, especially when it′s the only easily accessible fluid to wash down the disgusting taste of oil and fake bullshit artificial meat flavor. I take a swig. It′s sour and clings to the tongue, better than I remember wine to taste like, but objectively worse than beer or hard liquor. My hands tear another bag open as though on autopilot, peanut puffs this time. The cycle repeats with the wine getting better the more I pour down the garbage chute that is my throat. The party food gets worse, but not bad enough to stop eating it. I won′t stop until it′s gone. That became the plan like a bag ago, not that I′m still hungry, I feel sick actually, but at this point it′s easier to just keep going. I could just eat everything, all that even slightly exists, rip it apart, dismantle it on an atomic level and wolf it down, devour it like a fucking hound. Like the biggest of dogs. The biggest possible dog. A thought pops into my head: how big would the biggest possible dog even be? Like, bigger than the biggest currently existing dog definitely. That would be incredibly unlikely: to have hit the maximum by accident. Things can only get a certain size, something about cubes and mass and shit. That′s where the research money should go, breed them until we have the largest physically possible doggo, so we could ride them, replace cars with a bunch of insanely good boys. Do they die once their size exceeds a certain point? That would make the whole pursuit kind of unethical and animal rights activist attack prone. Might not even apply to dogs, they aren′t particularly squarey after all. Maybe it′s a definitional thing: That dogs could be infinitely large, but at some point it would stop being sensible to call them dogs. If there was a galaxy sized dog shaped thing, I don′t think I′d call it a dog. It has transcended doghood and so have I. Tremble before my might for I have consumed everything. Close to everything. Four bottles and seven bags deep. It′s over. There are still ten-something wines left, but not knowing how much they cost, it seems risky to drink more. Instead lying down and trying not to throw up appears to be the responsible course of action. ″The fuck did you do?″ The ghostly pale, cloaked figure of a boy, wrapped in a blanket and not wearing anything else by the looks of it, stands over me. The tone of his voice indicating sincere curiosity. ″Almost killed myself, missed a thing and plundered the good one′s apocalypse stash, all the while hiding from the authorities. They call me the chips-bandit. You?″ ″Pretty much the same tbh... Anything left?″ ″Wine, the rest was mercilessly devoured by the ruthless criminal I have become.″ ″Argh, shit.″ ″Why?″ ″I′m kind of starving and the ancient one is guarding the kitchen″ ″Yeah, I know. Skipping school?″ ″Do you even have to ask?″ The less estranged of my two brothers scratches his neck, a nervous habit of his, that got so out of hand sometimes, that it, in combination with his general appearance, made him seem like a crack addict going through withdrawal. ″I got a commission yesterday. Some rich Swedish kid offering me 300 for a pic of his OC engaging in not-all-that-safe-for-work kinds of activities. Please don′t ask what exactly. So there really wasn′t time for compulsory education.″ ″Sick dude! You might actually make it if you keep going like this″ ″Don′t really have a choice. If this can′t keep me alive by graduation I′ll just fucking off myself. I′ll accept failure like a man, become a modern samurai by first becoming like fucking human yakitori.″ It baffles me that Jerald even managed to go to school on most days, being cripplingly scared of practically everything outside his room and more neurotic than should even be possible. Dude′s a fucking train wreck. If his art wasn′t able to support his continued existence, he would either have to find a normal job, or explain to dad why he can′t, both of which, he had decided two years ago are fates far worse than death could possibly be. Mom had remarked on a few occasions that he drew like his life depended on it, blissfully unaware of the fact that it genuinely kind of did. ″Could you like leave out the references when you say dark shit like that? Stylistic clash gives me the howling fantods.″ ″And when was the last time you did that?″ ″Act as I say, not as I do.″ The sound of the front door opening interrupts our conversation. ″Dad leaving or Lo returning?″ No one ever heard Lloyd coming or going, so that wasn′t even worth considering. Also supported my stalker theory. ″Latter′s unlikely, seeing how the sun′s still up″ ″Sure, but do you really wanna risk it?″ ″We could ″risk it″... Or we could not be complete idiots and look out the window.″ Jerald decides to go with my cunning plan, stealing a look at, what was, judging by his response, the ancient one. ″Today my friends, we feast.″ ″I don′t think I′m ready to get up and embark on any kind of arduous journey to the bountiful land of real, non-terrible food.″ ″Your loss, dude.″ With that he leaves, and I once again lie alone on my brother′s carpet, covered in chips dust. Taking a good hard look at the circumstances that led me here and the backside of my eyelids. I fall asleep.