It was the first time Thomas had seen anything like it. This guy’s head blew up to the size of a watermelon and popped, god this drug will do things to a man. They call it the Heat but Thomas called it death. Thomas sit glued to a couch across from the guy whose head just exploded, and can hear an increasingly loud buzzing sound originating from the empty head cavity. Soon flying insects emerged from the man’s head by the thousands. Thomas’s eyes go wide as these insects just over and simultaneously start flashing different colors, some red, some blue, but some, Thomas can’t even begin to describe. Then as if Thomas’s brain went into overdrive he got up and ran out of the room without even thinking to do so. That guy, James he thinks his name was, was he okay? Was it just the drugs imagining it all? Thomas turned to face the door to James’s apartment, in the dim light of the filthy hallway he reach for the dull brass handle but his body won’t let him grab it. Dazed and confused Thomas walked down the long ere hallway toward the exit.

“James Matthews, age 22, found dead in his apartment, 5:02 a.m., landlord contacted police after downstairs neighbor complained about hearing a cloud crashing sound earlier in the morning, cause of death: self-inflicted gunshot wound.” Says detective Brown into his tape recorder as he stars over the body of James, a 12 gauge shotgun lay rested against his limp arms. He starts to study the body; he studies the man’s blank stare, deep into his pupil only to find emptiness staring back at him. He turns to the coffee table directly behind him and studies its contents; empty pizza boxes, cups, and a closed bible that obviously was out of place. Carefully detective Brown opens the cover to the bible and stares at the first page, in crayon it wrote “May god help you.” Flipping another page Brown found that the bible was hollowed out and inside the hollowed section laid a syringe and a black vile. With a deep sigh he sets the bible back onto the table and walks out of the apartment.

Thomas wakes up the next morning and let all the memories from last night flood into his brain like a mud slide; suffocating his brain. Thomas remembered going to the bar and getting drunk enough to follow that James guy back to his apartment across the street and stick a needle in his arm. Then it hit him; he needed to go check on James, not because he’s his friend or anything but if someone saw his head explode he would want them to make sure he was okay. Thomas got in his truck and a strange feeling comes over him, Thomas didn’t drive to the bar last night, he took a cab, and he didn’t remember calling a cab let alone getting home. Thomas shrugged it off and was just happy to have gotten home. Thomas turned the key and heard as the engine jumped to life and began to purr, Thomas drove to the familiar bar and looked across the street to see the apartment complex where James lived. The complex was dark except for a few lights on in a couple rooms here and there, Thomas walked up the stairs to the apartment he was in last night, and oddly he knew exactly where that was despite being in a drunken haze the night before. The door jams are covered in police tape as if they thought that would keep someone out if they decided to enter. The door gave off a sense of emptiness as if trying to say there is nothing in there for him, Thomas twisted the handle and pushed softly on the door, it creaked open, every inch it moved gave off an even louder creak. The room was dark except for a few rays of light shining through holes in the blankets James used to cover up the windows. Thomas’s eye caught a stray light that seemed to go off in a different direction than the others; Thomas followed it as it came to rest on top of a bible sitting on the table. In Thomas’s mind he had already concluded what he would find in there, Thomas picked up the bible as if it could explode in his face at any moment. Slowly flipping over the cover Thomas noticed the words scribbled on the page, “May god help you.” The words hit him like a brick wall and the words were now forever burned into his brain. A shiver went down his spine as he flipped the next page and as if knowing they were there the whole time picked up the syringe and the vile and put them in his pocket. Thomas knew in his mind that the drug was bad, he knew what it could do but it seemed as if there was someone in his mind justifying the use of the drug that oddly enough made him feel okay.

The rest of the room was dark and Thomas could only see the outline of most things, out of fear of turning on the light he pulled out his phone and aimed the light where Thomas had last seen James, the couch was white with the exception of the red blood stains here and there. Seeing the blood conformed his suspicions that James’s head did explode, but how? Thomas knew this drug didn’t cause your head to explode, it couldn’t; right? Raising the phone higher to face the back wall Thomas saw a white wall that was now painted red; it seemed like a painter took an open can of paint and just threw it on the wall. Thomas began to feel sick, and he could feel the vomit rising up inside of him looking for an escape, he ran out of the room and got as far down the hall as he could before throwing up all over the floor. Thomas walked out to his car, got in and drove home without even thinking about what he had just saw at all, Thomas’s mind was blank and almost disconnected from the world, he got out of his truck and walked toward the front door in an almost zombie state. Thomas walked inside and sat on the couch letting his vision blur and his mind escape within itself, deep in thought. A shift in position sends a pain throughout his body as he remembered the syringe in his pocket. Thomas pulled the two objects out of his pocket and stared at them in his hand; almost as if on instinct Thomas’s hand plunged the syringes needle into the vile and sucked up liquid death and shot right into his arm forcing the drug into his bloodstream.

Thomas could feel it, the heat coursing through his veins making it feel like his blood was on fire all over his body. Thomas opened his mouth to scream out in anguish but nothing he could hear came out. Thomas broke out into a sweat as his body went limp and fell against the couch. Suddenly the burning sensation was replaced by a numbing feeling as his vision started to blur; a smile curled on to his face. A feeling of euphoria washed over Thomas as his vision went dark. Suddenly in the darkness Thomas could see what looked like planets in the universe, then stars of all different colors appeared one after another until his world wasn’t dark instead full of beauty and color. Thomas seemed to be floating, drifting toward the planets in the distance, as he got closer Thomas could make out two planets one green one red, they weren’t too far from each other and seemed to be traveling toward each other at great speed, suddenly the planets collided, Thomas felt nothing but he saw everything, the explosion was an array of different colors and the sound was something that Thomas couldn’t even begin to describe. The explosion sent him flying backward and the dots of colors in the sky turned into lines as Thomas traveled backward at what seemed like the speed of light. Suddenly his eyes opened and Thomas took a quick breath as if he had not been breathing the entire time. Thomas scanned the room and a since of calmness came over him, he let out a deep breath as he felt cold metal press up against the bottom of his chin. Thomas’s heart started to race as he looked down and saw his own hand pointing a gun at himself. Thomas tried to resist but the more he tried the harder it pressed up against his chin. The gun was a pistol, shiny and silver, Thomas immediately knew that the gun was his and he kept it in a drawer by his bed. Thomas scanned the room one last time, for he knew what would happen next. Thomas’s eyes reached the corner of the room and he noticed James, he was sitting on the couch, his head already in pieces the only thing identifiable was the grin on his half face. Thomas’s vision started to blacken as a single tear ran down his cheek, down the side of his chin and down the side of the gun as a loud bang sent everything completely dark and he could feel nothing.