Loss of Control

[Kelton tr'Radaik 0]

This is Arreinye, then.

 

The thought flashed with fire through his fog-numbed brain and he threw himself with all the force in his body against the restraints holding him to the bed, making a noise of pain and fear like a wounded animal.

 

Everything hurt. His skin prickled and tingled with a strange, agonizing fuzziness; his tongue was numb and heavy in his mouth. His eyes struggled to focus and failed, giving the world a vibrating, tilting aspect, and his head felt like it was caught at the center of a maelstrom, thoughts turned every which way until they were incomprehensible.

 

He needed more. His body cried out for the defloxso, screamed for it, howled for it in silence at the back of his mind, and the few hours of unconsciousness which Aife's hypospray had allowed him had led to the realization of an absolute, stomach-churning hunger when he finally reopened his eyes. He could not think except about how he might obtain those samples which had been sent along with him to ensure his addiction. Where had Aife and the Dheno taken them? How could he get them back?

 

Fvadt...help...

 

The lack of cohesive thought was terrifying. The pure effects of the drug were receding...somewhat...but the withdrawal was equally debilitating and the hunger trumped everything, and everything else not taken up with it was saturated in an aggressive flare of anger against...whatever came to hand, really, but specifically the susse-thraiir who had taken him in the first place.

 

They had struck him in his reputation; he had just enough coherence left in him to realize that, but not enough to determine what to do about it in a rational manner. He wanted...revenge might have been a decent word for it. Punishment was a better one. They had wanted...he didn't even know what they had wanted anymore but they had wanted something they couldn't have and he had resisted...a bit...and talked...a bit...and either way they had now dropped him into a sort of halfway hell which was fitting for some kllhe living on the Ra'tlehfi streets but na for a son of Galan tr'Radaik.

 

And he had heard what the dheno had said too...she thought he had done this to himself. How dare she assume he was nothing more than a drugged up drabhik, that he had no greater respect for himself and his family than that? How dare she accuse him of such dishonor? How dare they tie him down on this bed and refuse to listen to him?

 

"Let me go..." he rasped, not sure who he was talking to. "Let me go, I say! Fvadt...this is not my doing! This is not me! LET ME GO!"